Andrew Moray

This article is about the Scottish military leader. For the Scottish bishop, see Andreas de Moravia.

Andrew Moray
File:Andrewmurray.jpg An engraving of Andrew Moray in chain-mail. His surcoat displays the Arms of the Morays of Petty.
Died	c. September 1297 possibly in or in the vicinity of Stirling
Cause of death	due to wounds received in Battle of Stirling Bridge
Nationality	Scots
Known for	jointly leading the Scots to victory with William Wallace at the Battle of Stirling Bridge
Children	Andrew, born 1298, later lord of Petty and Bothwell, and Guardian of Scotland. d.1338.
Parent(s)	Father: Sir Andrew Moray, lord of Petty, d.1300; Mother: not known.
Relatives	Uncle: Sir William Murray, lord of Bothwell, d.1300; Uncle: Sir David Murray, bishop of Moray, d.1326.

Andrew Moray (La: Andreas de Moravia), (died c. September 1297), also known as Andrew de Moray or Andrew of Moray, or simply Andrew Murray, was the son of a northern nobleman, who became an important military and political leader during the Anglo-Scottish conflict of the late 1290s, commonly become known as the Scottish Wars of Independence. He was responsible for leading the rising in northern Scotland in the summer of 1297 against the rule of King Edward I of England, successfully regaining control of this area for Scotland's king, King John. Moray later merged his forces with those of William Wallace and jointly led the combined army to victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, where he was mortally wounded.

Origins of the Morays of Petty

Andrew Moray was born into the Morays of Petty late in the second half of the thirteenth century. The exact date and place of his birth is unknown. It is also unknown whether he had any siblings. The Morays of Petty were a wealthy and politically-influential family whose lands and political-powerbase were focussed in the province of Moray in north-eastern Scotland. They could trace their origins in the area to Freskin, a man of Flemish origins granted lands in Duffus in the Laich of Moray during the twelfth-century reign of King David I of Scotland. Freskin subsequently built a Motte-and-bailey castle at Duffus on the northern shore of Loch Spynie (this sea-loch has subsequently been significantly reduced in size and almost erased from the landscape, having been successfully drained during the agricultural improvements of the 1700s and 1800s to release many hundreds of acres of land for farming). The province of Moray, like several outlying areas of Scotland, had long struggled against subsumption within the Scottish king's realm. The men of Moray resisted by force of arms the imposition of royal authority. They defeated several royal armies. One example of this, according to one later Scottish chronicler, was in 967, when a royal army under the command of King Dub was defeated. and the king killed, at Forres. Moray represented an especially sensitive source of resistance for the mac Malcolm kings of Scots (whose dynasty sprung from King Malcolm III who reigned from 1058 to 1093) as it was the heartland of the old Celtic royal line, whose last king had been the stepson of MacBeth, Lulach.

Duffus Castle in Moray. The stone-built bailey is a fourteenth-century addition to the site of Freskin's earlier castle.

King David's ‘planting’ of Flemish and other Anglo-Normans loyalists in Moray was a response to the province’s entrenched and violent refusal to accept royal authority. This on-going resistance had in 1130 seen the men of Moray in open rebellion against him. This rebellion was led by Mormaer Óengus of Moray, a descendant of Lulach. The defeat of Óengus' army at Stracathro resulted in the defeated province being taken into direct royal control; independent control of Moray would not be revived until 1312 when King Robert I granted the lands and title of earl of Moray to his nephew, Thomas Randolph. In the aftermath of the suppression of Óengus' rising, many rebels were forced from their lands. Consequently, the subsequent Flemish and Anglo-Norman settlers occupied the same military, political and administrative rôle as the Old English along the Gaelic frontiers of Ireland; and like the Old English in Ireland, time gradually wore away any cultural and linguistic difference between them and the remaining native people.

Although King David and his successors worked hard to impose their authority on Moray, it continued to remain restless under royal rule. King Malcolm IV, David's grandson and successor, also resorted to uprooting the local populace and expelling them from their homes and farms. In 1163, according to the Chronicle of Holyrood, “king Malcolm transferred men of Moray”. It was not until 1229, when William Comyn of Buchan, at the head of a royal army provided by King Alexander II, finally, and brutally, pacified the province. Comyn was subsequently rewarded by a grateful king with the lordship of Badenoch for his grisly work. The final, and most unmerciful, action of mac Malcolm kings' long campaign against the old Celtic royal dynasty was perpetrated against the meek, infant-child in whom the ancient Celtic-claim to the Scottish Crown resided: the three-year-old girl was publicly murdered by the king's men, who, after the reading of a proclamation, smashed her head against Forfar market-cross. Only now did the province of Moray finally accept Scottish royal rule.

The Morays' place in Scottish society

Elgin Cathedral, from the west. Construction of it was begun under the supervision of Bishop Andrew Moray.

At the outbreak of the Anglo-Scottish Wars of the late thirteenth century (popularly known as the Scottish Wars of Independence) the Moray family was well-established in northern and southern Scotland. Sir Andrew Moray, the head of the Morays of Petty, held extensive lands in the province of Moray. He held the lordship of Petty, which was controlled from Hallhill castle on the southern bank of the Moray Firth, the lordship of Avoch in the Black Isle, which was controlled from Avoch Castle situated to the east of Inverness and overlooked the waters of the Moray Firth, and the lordship of Boharm, which was controlled from Sir Andrew's castle at Gauldwell. Amongst Sir Andrew's estates at Petty were lands at Alturile, Brachlie and Croy, and at Boharm were lands at Arndilly and Botriphnie. Andrew Moray the younger was heir to these lands and castles.

Extensive landed wealth of this nature was accompanied by a significant degree of political influence. Sir Andrew had acted as the king's chief law-officer in northern Scotland (the Justiciar) and seems to have been co-opted as one of the six Guardians of the Realm in the crisis which overtook Scotland following the premature death of King Alexander III. Sir Andrew's personal connexions went all the way to the top of most powerful family in Scottish society. In the 1280s he married his second wife - Andrew's stepmother - Euphemia Comyn, the sister of John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, nephew of King John Balliol and one of the most politically influential men in Scotland. The Morays of Petty also had connexions to the Douglases of Clydesdale.

The influence of the Moray family was not confined to north-eastern Scotland. In the south of the kingdom, Sir William Moray of Bothwell, Sir Andrew's brother, held extensive lands in his own right in Lanarkshire and at Lilleford in Lincolnshire. In the late thirteenth century, Sir William, who was known as le riche due to his extensive personal wealth, was constructing a castle at Bothwell overlooking the River Clyde. Its design was influenced by the very latest concepts and trends in castle construction to be found in continental Europe and was clearly intended as an unequivocal statement of his personal power and influence. Andrew Moray the younger was also recognised as his uncle's heir.

The Morays of Petty, in addition to widespread and influential connexions in secular society, also possessed influence in the Scottish mediaeval church. A forebear of Andrew Moray, also named Andrew, had been bishop of Moray in the early years of the thirteenth century, and it was Bishop Andrew who was responsible for the transfer of the seat of the bishopric to Elgin in 1224 and the establishment of the town’s fine cathedral. The present generation of Morays also had an active connexion with the church. A brother of Sir Andrew, David, was currently a rector of Bothwell church in central Scotland, and a canon of Moray. David de Moray would subsequently be consecrated as Bishop of Moray in Rome in the summer of 1299 by Pope Boniface VIII, and as such would go on to be one of the most loyal and unwavering supporters of King Robert Bruce's kingship.

A Kingdom in Turmoil

A depiction of a meeting of the English Parliament in 1278 in which King Alexander III is shown sitting at King Edward I's right.

The late thirteenth-century marked a time of dramatic upheaval for Scotland. On 19th March 1286, King Alexander III, died following having been thrown from his horse as he made his way home from Edinburgh Castle to be with his young Flemish queen, Yolande, at Kinghorn, in Fife. Although the Scottish king had been married previously to an English princess, his children from that marriage had all predeceased him and there was no issue from his marriage to Yolande. In the aftermath of King Alexander’s death, the Scottish Crown passed to his three-year-old granddaughter, Margaret, Maid of Norway. The child-queen was never to be enthroned but died during the sea-passage to Scotland.

Scotland now entered a period of dangerous uncertainty as the leading nobles vied for the vacant crown. The Bruces of Annandale made an early attempt to seize the Scottish Crown by means of an armed coup; this was quickly suppressed by united action by Scottish political community. In this time of violent confusion, Scotland's leaders turned for support to their nearest neighbour, and brother-in-law of their former king, King Edward I of England.

King Edward, who would, of course, become notorious as ‘the Hammer of the Scots’, was at this time a mature and widely-respected king, and the relationship between him and recently-deceased King Alexander had been good. The influence that he possessed allowed him to preside over a court which assessed the merits of the claims of the nobles who sought the vacant Scottish Crown. This became known as 'The Great Cause'. King Edward, through the military might of his kingdom, had the power to enforce his decision. The most serious of the claims were put forward by John Balliol, the English lord of Galloway, and Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale and grandfather of the future king. King Edward's assistance came, however, at a price: the claimants had to acknowledge him as Overlord of Scotland. Eventually, after lengthy deliberations, King Edward's court found in favour of John Balliol of Galloway.

The newly-enthroned king dutifully acknowledged King Edward I of England as his feudal superior, and in so doing, sowed the seeds of his own demise. King Edward was determined to ensure that his status as overlord was not quietly ignored, and he was a constant presence in Scottish legal and political affairs. This came as a shock to the Scottish political community and by late 1295 King John had renounced his fealty to his English overlord and entered into a treaty with France. The English king was enraged by such an act of defiance, and hostilities between the kingdoms were inevitable.

Scotland Invaded

By the spring of 1296 Scotland was at war with England. Andrew Moray, together with his father and uncle, joined the feudal host assembled for the impending conflict. The first act of war was performed by the Scots. A small force, led by the earls of Atholl, Ross and Mar, and John Comyn the younger of Badenoch, entered the English county of Cumberland. They marched to Carlisle, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. The St. Edmundsbury Chronicle records that they destroyed 120 villages and townships during this raid. When the raiders reached Carlisle they found that it was held against them by their compatriot, Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, the son of the recently-deceased Bruce-claimant the Scottish Crown. Bruce, mindful of his loyalty to King Edward, dutifully kept the gates of Carlisle firmly shut. Another Scottish raiding party crossed from Jedburgh and rampaged through Northumberland. The raiders burned homes and farms as they went, reaching as far south as Corbridge and Hexham. According to Pierre de Langtoft, an English chronicler:

Mar, Ross, Menteith ... have destroyed Tindale to cinders and coals, The town of Corbridge, and two monasteries, Of Hexham and Lanercost, they have annihilated by burning; They have made slaughter of the people of the country, Carried off the goods driven away the canons.

File:King Edward I.jpg

King Edward I's statue at York Minster

King Edward had assembled a large army in the early spring of 1296 for the invasion of Scotland. He was also able to depend on the support of a faction of Scottish lords, who joined him on the Anglo-Scottish border and pledged their loyalty. On 25th March, 1296, a number of them, including Robert Bruce of Annandale, and his son, Robert, the twenty-one-year-old earl of Carrick and the future Scottish king, swore fealty. They solemnly pledged on “the Holy Gospels” that they would “be faithful and loyal ... to King Edward, King of England”.

Scottish defiance of King Edward would quickly be drawn to a close by his invasion. The English army initially marched on the prosperous Scottish port of Berwick, which lay on the Anglo-Scottish border. By 30th March, King Edward's army was camped outside the port’s feeble defences. It fell quickly, with the king personally leading the assault against it. A bloody slaughter of the port's inhabitants ensued. The king permitted the slaughter and rapine to continue for three barbarous days before he finally called an end to it. The English Lanercost Chronicle condemned the slaughter as a “crime” and recorded that fifteen-thousand “of both sexes perished, some by the sword, others by fire, in the space of a day and a half”.

Although the Scottish army was capable of raiding England, and destroying undefended villages, it did not prove quite so capable when faced by an English army. It had been many years since Scottish society had been mobilized for war, and at the Battle of Dunbar the Scottish feudal-host was overwhelmed in matter of minutes by elements of King Edward's army led by John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey. The author of the Chronicle of Bury St. Edmunds records the death of eight-thousand Scottish soldiers at Dunbar.

In the aftermath of the Scottish host's defeat at Dunbar, the realm quickly capitulated. No further meaningful resistance was offered. Edward I deposed King John at Montrose Castle: the symbols of kingship were stripped from the defeated Scottish king, including the ripping of the royal coat of arms from his surcoat (thereby earning him the enduring title 'Toom Tabard' (Empty Coat)). King Edward, having dealt firmly with his treasonous vassal, rode north from Montrose on an extended military march that took him all the way to Elgin, which he reached on 26 July, 1296. He remained in the town’s castle for a few days, taking the fealty of a number of Scots nobles, including Bishop Robert Wishart of Glasgow, before he turned south to return to England.

While King Edward marched through the subdued realm, the Scots nobles captured at Dunbar were taken south in chains. The most important prisoners, such as Sir Andrew Moray of Petty, were taken to the Tower of London. Andrew the younger, considered to be of much less significance, was imprisoned in Chester Castle, the northernmost stronghold to which the Dunbar captives were taken; he would not, however, long remain a captive of the king of England.

Rebel and Warchief

The consequences of the Scots' defeat were not long in being felt as the English King began to impose his will on Scotland. The victor of Dunbar, the earl of Surrey, was put in charge of Scotland by King Edward. English soldiers were soon to be found in Scottish castles and King Edward’s tax collectors followed in their wake. The latter, notorious for their personal corruption, also took the chance to exploit the Scots to enrich themselves. The Scots, who had been lightly taxed by their kings, now faced heavy taxes to help fill the English king's coffers.

King Edward appointed an efficient, if notoriously obnoxious, administrator, Sir Hugh de Cressingham, as Treasurer of Scotland. Cressingham, aided by his corrupt clerks, went about his task with energy, and by the end of May 1297, had dispatched £5,188 6s. 8d. to King Edward. Cressingham's greed, however, quickly created a sense of discontent which was ripe for exploitation. King Edward, in addition to placing a heavy tax burden on his new subjects, was also keen to exploit them for manpower to fill the armies that he was raising to fight in Flanders. He began planning to conscript Scots to serve overseas, including the nobility of the defeated realm. News of this decision caused widespread alarm. A combination of all of these factors meant Scotland grew increasingly restless and resentful under English rule, and the flames of rebellion were soon spreading across the land.

Bothwell Castle, construction of which was begun by Sir William Moray.

While the Scots suffered the pain of Engish occupation, Andrew Moray was dealing with the humiliation of imprisonment. He was, however, far too determined to be held in Chester Castle, and sometime in the winter of 1296-97, he escaped from it. Eventually he returned to his father's lands in north-eastern Scotland, though it is not known how or by what means he made his escape. Although there is no way of knowing how the trauma of defeat in battle at Dunbar and imprisonment in Chester Castle affected him, it would quickly become clear that the man who returned to Scotland in the spring of 1297 was a ruthless and determined leader of men who was about to send shockwaves through English-controlled Scotland.

Andrew Moray was back at Avoch castle in May 1297, one of the most significant months in Scottish history. "In the month of May of the same year", the Hemingsburgh Chronicle notes, "the perfidious race of Scots began to rebel." This first act of this rebellion was marked by two events: Andrew Moray proclaimed his defiance of English rule by openly unfurling the banner of the Morays of Petty at his father's castle at Avoch; and William Wallace marked the start of his rebellion against English rule with the murder of the English Sheriff of Lanark.

News of Moray's return quickly drew supporters to him. It seems to have inspired many people who chafed under English rule, such was the speed with which they joined him. Although Sir Andrew Moray of Petty remained imprisoned in the Tower of London - where it appears he would die as King Edward's prisoner - many of his tenants willingly joined his son in arms. Andrew the younger was also joined Alexander Pilchie, a burgess from Inverness, and a number of other burgesses from the town. English soldiers and administrators stationed in Inverness and the surrounding area must have been deeply shocked by news of this putative rebellion against their authority, fearing what the consequences of it would be for them. Sir William fitz Warin, the English constable of Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness, later wrote to King Edward in July 1297 that

"Some evil disposed people have joined Andrew de Moravia at the castle of [Avoch] in Ross."

Andrew Moray and the "evil disposed people" that joined him in open rebellion against English-rule would soon possess sufficient strength to begin a serious campaign against King Edward's men and would quickly show just how much destruction they could wreak.

Castle Urquhart attacked

Urquhart Castle, which Andrew Moray sought to capture by night-assault in late-May 1297

The kingdom of Scotland, regardless of the ease of King Edward's conquest of the previous year, lay restless under the burden of English rule. In the spring and early summer of 1297, it was scarred by scattered outbreaks of violence against the English occupiers and their loyal Scots allies. A number of these outbreaks of discontent were so serious that the English officials on the ground sought assistance from the king. The provinces of Argyll and Ross were both riven by violence in the early months of 1297. While on the west coast, Lachlan and Ruarie MacRuarie of Garmoran were in open rebellion, killing the king's officials and destroying royal property. The violence was not limited to northern Scotland. Rebellion gripped Galloway in south-western Scotland in April 1297, with the rebels successfully seizing castles held by the English king's men. There was also strife in Fife, where MacDuff of Fife and his sons were in open rebellion against English rule.. It is likely that many other similar acts of rebellion have been lost to us by the passage of time.

News of these acts of defiance began to filter into the English Court in the early spring of 1297. King Edward issued an uncompromising response, ordering that the rebels were dealt with firmly. Early in April 1297, he ordered his loyal supporters in Argyll and Ross to assist “his chosen and faithful subject Alexander of the Isles” to suppress the rebellion there. The rebellion in Galloway was suppressed by Donald mac Can and other loyal chieftains. King Edward wrote to them on 13th June to thank them for their grisly work. The English Sheriff of Aberdeen, Sir Henry de Latham, received orders, dated 11th June, to deal with rebels in the north-east. King Edward appears to have considered the situation to be so serious that he also dispatched men from England to help in the suppression of the rebels. On 4th June, he sent Henry Percy and Walter Clifford to assist in mopping up the rebels in Scotland. It was into this charged environment of violence and unrest that Andrew Moray boldly stepped in May 1297.

Andrew Moray did not take long to plunge the province of Moray into a state of rebellion. At this time, King Edward's principal follower in Moray was Sir Reginald Cheyne, the Scots sheriff of Elgin. A number of Scots lords continued to actively support King Edward. Although their loyalty appeared to ensure that England could rule Scotland without utilising massive numbers of soldiers and administrators to install a completely alien regime, their ultimate loyalty was frequently questioned by English officials and chroniclers. Cheyne was quickly alarmed by the chaos caused by Moray's rebellion and wrote to the king requesting assistance. The king responded by instructing him to vigorously suppress the rebellion. Sir Reginald ordered all of his principal lieutenants to attend a meeting at Inverness Castle on 25th May 1297 to discuss the best way to deal with Andrew Moray and his band of rebels. One of the participants was Sir William fitz Warin, constable of Urquhart Castle standing on the western shore of Loch Ness.

Once the meeting ended, Sir William fitz Warin made his way back to Urquhart Castle accompanied an escort of mail-clad men-at-arms. A few miles to the south of Inverness, Sir William and his men were ambushed by Andrew Moray, and were fortunate to escape with their lives to the safety of the loch-side stronghold. Next day, Sir William fitz Warin awoke to find that Moray and his men were besieging his castle and later that morning, he sent a messenger to demand the castle's surrender; it was refused. At this point, the Countess of Ross unexpectedly arrived on the scene with her retinue. The countess, whose husband was currently held in the Tower of London, sent a messenger to Sir William saying that she had nothing to do with the ambush and expressing her sympathies for his predicament advised him to surrender. Although this advice was ignored, the supplies that she managed to get into the castle were welcomed warmly, and her actions were later warmly commended to King Edward by Sir William. In the end Moray, with no heavy siege equipment available to him, was forced to abandon the attempt on Urquhart after a failed night attack, leaving Sir William fitz Warin in possession of the castle to lick his wounds and send an account of this brief mêlee to his king.

King Edward reacts

The remnant of the stone keep at Duffus Castle, built in the early 1300s to replace the earlier structure on that site burned by Andrew Moray.

Although Andrew Moray had been thwarted by the walls of Urquhart Castle, his campaign against English rule continued unabated. Throughout the summer of 1297 he continued to mount a vigorous campaign against his enemies in Moray. One of his main foes was Sir Reginald Cheyne, whose lands were wasted, goods despoiled and his castle at Duffus burned. It was subsequently reported to King Edward that Andrew Moray and

a very large body of rogues swept through the province of Moray towards the Spey, destroying the lands of Duffus, laid waste and captured the castle.

Eventually, Cheyne was taken prisoner by Moray. This campaign bore fruit as Moray drew new supporters to his banner and English-held castles across Moray and northern Scotland fell to him. Eventually, even mighty Castle Urquhart would fall to him, too.

Although Andrew Moray was conducting a spectacularly successful campaign, little of it is recorded by history. Indeed, some of his deeds were apparently co-opted by Blind Hary and attributed to William Wallace. One such event was Wallace's attack on the port of Aberdeen, in which, according to Blind Hary, he burned English ships moored in the harbour. There is no evidence that Wallace ever attacked Aberdeen, and it has been recognised that this deed should more properly attributed to Moray.

King Edward I of England, whose attention was primarily fixed on final preparations for his impending campaign in Flanders, sought to deal with the threat posed by Andrew Moray by making use of loyal Scots nobles who had recently been released from his prisons to serve in Flanders.

The wily English king, in response to Sir William fitz Warin's description of the assault on his castle, issued orders, dated 11th June, 1297, to a number of Scots lords to raise their retinues and march into the province of Moray to relieve fitz Warin and to restore royal authority in it. Among those instructed to assist fitz Warin were Henry Cheyne, Bishop of Aberdeen, Sir Gartnait of Mar, heir to the earldom of Mar and whose father was currently held by King Edward in the Tower of London, and John Comyn, Earl of Buchan and Constable of Scotland, kinsman and namesake of the Lord of Badenoch, together with his brother, Alexander. The rôle of the Comyn brothers, who were kinsmen of Andrew Moray, in dealing with the rebellion was highlighted by the king: he instructed them to remain in the north-east until every aspect of it had been stamped out.

The relief column appears to have departed from the north-eastern port of Aberdeen sometime in early July 1297. When Andrew Moray learned of its advance against him, he marched east to confront it. The two forces met on the banks of the Spey at Enzie, where the road from Aberdeen to Inverness forded the waters of the River Spey, the eastern edge of the province of Moray.

No detailed account of what happened when the two forces met survives, but it appears that what did occur essentially replayed Andrew Moray's earlier 'dance' with the Countess of Ross. An extremely ambiguous account of events subsequently sent to King Edward by Bishop Cheyne from Inverness on 25th August, relates that after some discussion, Moray and his rebel-army withdrew into

very great stronghold of bog and wood [where] no horseman could be of service.

This was a highly uninventive explanation when one considers the Comyn-family pacified the province of Moray in the early thirteenth-century. It appears more likely that neither side wished to fight mean that they did not consider their enemies, and they simply went their separate ways. But if Bishop Cheyne thought he would be able to save face with this letter, he failed to reckon with Hugh de Cressingham, who was clearly the most able and most energetic of King Edward's administrators. Cressingham, having seen this letter, wrote to the king on 5th August:

Sire, the peace on the other side of the Scottish Sea [the Firth of Forth] is still in obscurity, as it is said, as to the doings of the earls who are there.

A statue of William Wallace in Aberdeen, a Scottish city with which he has no proven connexion

Clearly, he did not believe that the Scots tasked with dealing with Moray had done their duty. He was especially dismissive of the account of confrontation at the Spey:

Sir Andrew de Rait is going to you with a credence, which he has shown to me, and which is false in many points ... you will give little weight to it.

It seems clear that Cressingham had recognised the obvious double-game that many of the Scots nobles were playing.

While Andrew Moray seized control of northern Scotland and William Wallace rampaged through west-central Scotland, a rising led by Scotland's traditional leaders was also taking place in the south of the realm. Amongst its leaders were James, the High Steward of Scotland, and Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow. Robert Bruce of Carrick, the future king, was also a participant in this rising. But in contrast with the vigour and aggression which characterised the risings of Moray and Wallace, this rising was feeble and it quickly collapsed, surrendering at Irvine in July when an English army arrived in its vicinity

King Edward, having apparently failed to deal with Moray by force of arms, was apparently prepared to resort to some more subtle methods to neutralise him. The English king proposed to release Sir Andrew Moray from imprisonment in the Tower to serve in Flanders, if his son was prepared to come to London to take his father's place as a hostage. A safe-conduct allowing Andrew the younger to come to England was issued under the king's seal on 28 August 1297. There is no way of knowing whether the letter and the accompanying safe-conduct ever reached Andrew Moray but, if it did, it was ignored and Sir Andrew was forced to remain in the Tower.

The Battle of Stirling Bridge

The Old Bridge at Stirling in 2006. This bridge, which was built some time after the battle, is sited upstream from the location of the bridge that was fought over in the autumn of 1297.

By the late summer of 1297, King Edward possessed little, if any, authority over Scotland. The reality of the breakdown in royal control was described in a letter to the king from Cressingham:

by far the greater part of your counties of the realm of Scotland are still unprovided with keepers, as [they have been killed or imprisoned]; and some have given up their bailiwicks, and others neither will nor dare return; and in some counties the Scots have established and placed bailiffs and ministers, so that no county is in proper order, excepting Berwick and Roxburgh, and this only lately.

Of the castles situated north of the River Forth, only the castle of the port of Dundee was still in English hands. This state of affairs could only be reversed by a full-scale armed invasion of Scotland which would permit the reimposition of King Edward’s authority over Scotland. For Moray and Wallace to have any hope of meeting such a threat, they had to combine their individual forces into a single army. It is not known exactly when and where the two rebel commanders met, but it is possible that it was in the vicinity of Dundee castle, which was besieged by the Scots in early September 1297.

King Edward's lieutenant in Scotland, the earl of Surrey, finally appears to have recognised the need to take decisive action late in the summer of 1297. He had done little to act against the rebels and was subsequently vilified by chroniclers for his indolence. One English chronicler, Walter of Guisborough, said of Surrey:

The earl [of Surrey] ... to whom our king committed the care and custody of the Kingdom of Scotland, because of the awful weather, said that he could not stay there and keep his health. He stayed in England, but in the northern part and sluggishly pursued the exiling [of the] enemy, which was the root of our later difficulty.

Surrey mustered an army and marched into central Scotland. Moray and Wallace, hearing of its advance marched to Stirling where they waited for it north of the River Forth close to the old bridge at Stirling and under the shadow of Stirling Castle.

The view over the battlefield from the castle. In the foreground in the mediaeval stone bridge and in the background is the National Wallace Monument, standing on the Abbey Craig on which Wallace is reputed to have stood before the battle.

Surrey's conduct of the ensuing battle, which was characterised by an arrogant and unimaginative adherence on his behalf to the chivalric conventions of the day, was inept and he was easily outmanoeuvred and outfought by Moray and Wallace. He sent the vanguard of his army across the narrow bridge under the Scots’ gaze, who, rather than wait myopically for the entire English army to cross the bridge and deploy for battle, struck when it was only partially deployed. In the ensuing carnage of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Surrey's isolated vanguard was hacked to pieces. The remainder of the English army was isolated on the southern bank of the River Forth and could only look on as their comrades were slaughtered. Soon they began to flee the scene, led in their flight by Surrey, whose “charger never once tasted food during the whole journey” according to Walter of Guisborough.

The defeat of Surrey’s army at Battle of Stirling Bridge on 11th September 1297 represented the crowning moment of Andrew Moray’s rebellion. The most notable English casualty was Cressingham, whose corpse was mutilated by the victorious Scots. The Lanercost Chronicle records that Wallace had:

a broad strip [of Cressingham’s skin] ... taken from the head to the heel, to make therewith a baldrick for his sword

Another account of the fate that befell Cressingham's corpse was recorded can be found in the chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft:

Hugh de Cressingham, not accustomed to the saddle, From his steed in its course fell under foot, His body was cut to pieces by the ribalds of Scotland, And his skin taken off in small thongs, As an insult to the king.

Cressingham is, of course, just one of the Englishmen that died that day. It is estimated that Surrey lost one hundred knights and five-thousand infantry men in the slaughter at Stirling. The Scottish casualties went largely unrecorded as the Scottish army was largely made up of humble infantry soldiers. There was, however, one irreplaceable loss on the Scottish side: Andrew Moray.

Death

It is widely believed that Andrew Moray was only wounded in fighting at Stirling, dying sometime in the winter of 1297-98 of the wounds that he sustained in the fighting. This belief can be traced to the survival of two letters bearing his name. There is, however, evidence that he was actually killed in the fighting or, at the very least, died in its immediate aftermath. An inquisition into the affairs of Sir William Moray of Bothwell, Moray’s uncle, who had died in England was held in Berwick in late November 1300. It was determined in these proceedings that Andrew Moray was: "slain at Stirling against the king." In contrast to this firm pointer to the circumstances of Moray's death, the belief that he survived into the winter of 1297-98 rests circumstantial evidence drawn from two letters bearing his name. The first letter was sent from Haddington on 11 October to the mayors of Lübeck and Hamburg, two of the towns of the Hanseatic League, by: "Andrew de Moray and William Wallace, leaders of the kingdom of Scotland and the community of the realm." The second was issued to the prior of Hexham on 7 November by: "Andrew de Moray and William Wallace, the leaders of the army and of the realm of Scotland." Since the name of Andrew Moray does not appear on any other later document, it is deduced that he must have succumbed to his wounds around this time. But the importance of these letters is undermined by the lack of any mention in English or Scottish chronicle-sources of Moray's presence at Hexham during the invasion of northern England when this latter letter was issued. Walter Guisborough's chronicle, which contains a detailed account of this invasion, makes it clear that it was led by William Wallace; he makes no mention of Moray.

It seems clear that, although Moray had died in the fighting at Stirling Bridge, Wallace continued to need to issue documents jointly in the name of his deceased co-commander. Wallace may have had possession of Moray's seal, thereby allowing him to issue documents bearing his dead comrade's name. The death of Moray had not only robbed Wallace of a comrade, but also of a shield against the jealousies of the traditional Scottish feudal-elites. Moray was himself a noble with connexions to the highest echelons of Scottish feudal society; without him, Wallace, the former outlaw, was dangerously exposed, as much at risk from the political intrigues of Scots nobles who felt he had usurped their natural right to exercise power as from military reprisals by the English. Wallace's action in continuing to associate himself with the name of Andrew Moray added a much-needed measure of political gravitas to his actions prior to his appointment to the guardianship of the realm. Only once Wallace was knighted and emerged as Guardian of Scotland, as he did some time prior to March 1298, was it no longer necessary to issue letters jointly with Moray.

The name of Andrew Moray did not, however, disappear from the pages of history. A few months after his death, his widow, whose identity is lost to us, bore him a son, also named Andrew. The child, who would accede to the lordships of Petty and Bothwell, would also play a decisive rôle in resisting the attempts of Edward III of England, grandson of the so-called 'Hammer of the Scots', in the 1330s to conqueor Scotland. Sir Andrew would twice occupy the position of regent for King David II, the son of King Robert I, and lead the realm in the king's absence. He would display a remarkably similar aptitude to that shown by his father for leading the armies of the kingdom of Scotland in the face of English aggression. And, like his father, he would also die prematurely in defence of the realm.

Legacy

The massive statue of William Wallace looks south at Dryburgh.

The death of Andrew Moray robbed Scotland of a gifted military leader at the time of the kingdom's greatest need. Moray's achievement in the summer of 1297 was immense, the importance of which is being increasingly recognised for its significance. One historian recently described Moray's rising in the summer of 1297 as "the greatest threat to the English government". It is likely that, had Andrew Moray lived, his position in Scottish feudal-society and his contribution to the campaign of 1297 would have meant that he, like Wallace, would have been knighted and appointed to the guardianship of the realm. The documents issued in his name after his death all but confirm this belief.

But Moray was not, of course, a talented soldier by accident. It is likely that the training that he received in his youth as he embarked on the path to knighthood would have laid special emphasis on equipping him with the skills to fulfil a leading role in the command of the feudal-host of the Scottish kingdom, such was his place in thirteenth-century Scottish society. It is no accident that he possessed the ability to direct the Scottish army at Stirling to a famous victory: it is to him, therefore, that much of the credit for the victory at Stirling Bridge should be assigned.

A combination of Andrew Moray's early death in battle and his close association with William Wallace, a man who has become an almost mythical figure in Scottish history due to the embellishment of his deeds by Henry the Minstrel who sought to use him to advance the political aims of his patrons, has meant that Moray's spectacular achievements are little known in Scotland today. This may be because he was not featured in the largely historically inaccurate Academy Award-winning film Braveheart. Indeed, while there are many statues to Wallace scattered across Scotland from Aberdeen in the north-east to Dryburgh in the Scotish borders, there is nothing similar to commemorate the brief life and heroic exploits of Andrew Moray; it is hardly a fitting fate for a heroic and important Scottish patriot.

References

• Barron, E. M., "The Scottish War of Independence", Second Edition. 1934;
• Barrow, G.W.S. "Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm", Second Edition, 1988;
• Barrow, G.W.S. "The Kingdom of the Scots", Second Edition, 2003;
• Brown, M., The Wars of Scotland 1214-1371, 2004;
• "Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland", Four Volumes, ed. J. Bain, 1881-1888;
• “A Source Book of Scottish History.” Three Volumes. Second Edition, eds. W. C. Dickson, G. Donaldson and I. A. Milne, 1958;
• "Documents Illustrative of Scotland 1286-1306," ed. Rev.J.Stevenson, 2 vols.1870;
• Ferguson, J, "William Wallace", ed T. Rymer, 1938;
• Fisher, A, "William Wallace", 1992;
• "Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae", ed T. Rymer, 1816;
• Oram, Richard, Ed., The Kings and Queens of Scotland, Stroud, 2001;
• Oram, Richard, David I: The King who made Scotland, Stroud, 2004;
• Prestwich, M., "Edward I", 1990;
• "The Chronicle of Lanercost 1272 - 1346", ed. H. Maxwell, 1913;
• "The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft", ed. T Wright, Two volumes. (1866-8).
• "The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough", ed. H. Rothwell, 1957;
• "Chronicle of Holyrood", ed. M. A. Anderson, 1938;
• Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174-1328: Some Selected Documents, ed. E. L. G Stones, 1970;
• Taylor, J. G., "Fighting for the Lion: The Life of Andrew Moray", in History Scotland, Sept/October, 2005;
• Watson F. J., "Under the Hammer: Edward I and Scotland 1286-1306", 1998.

See also

• The First War of Scottish Independence (1296-1306)
• Clan Murray
• History of Scotland
• Timeline of Scottish history
• Kildrummy Castle
• Bothwell
• Braveheart
• John of Scotland