Penman cover

De Re Militari | Book Reviews

Michael Penman

The Scottish Civil War:
The Bruces & the Balliols & the War for Control of Scotland

(Stroud: Tempus, 2002). 159 pp. ISBN 0-7524-2319-3. USD $21.99.

Tempus Publishing has produced a number of titles relating to Scottish medieval history over the last few years. One of the most recent of these is Michael Penman's The Scottish Civil War, a political and diplomatic study of the period 1286 to 1357 in Scottish history, an era dominated by the conflict between Scotland and England that is commonly referred to as the Wars of Independence, and signified in the popular imagination by heroes like William Wallace and Robert Bruce. Although much has been written on the topic, Penman's approach in this book is a valuable corrective to the abundance of material dealing primarily or exclusively with the wars between England and Scotland, or with icons like Wallace or Bruce. While not neglecting Anglo-Scottish relations and warfare, the book is principally concerned with what its rather unwieldy title aptly describes as a "Scottish Civil War" -- the contest between two generations of rival claimants (Bruce and Balliol) for the Scottish kingship (the significance of which, it should be pointed out, has been grasped by historians for three or four decades, though never before developed in a monograph). Several key arguments emerge. First, although the Wars of Independence are usually perceived as a "national" struggle of Scots versus English, Penman argues, correctly, that not only was there a fierce and destructive civil war taking place concurrently with Anglo-Scottish clashes, but also that this conflict did not end with the Scottish victory at Bannockburn in June, 1314; indeed, it is a strength of this study that the threads of the conflict are taken down to their proper conclusion in 1346-57, when, paradoxically, the capture of Bruce's son and heir, David II, at Neville's Cross in 1346, forced Edward III of England to recognize as legitimate Bruce's claim to the kingship and to set aside Balliol claims once and for all. Moreover, the book also shows how the rivalry between Bruce and Balliol and their followers created a rift within the ranks of the Scottish nobility, who took advantage of the chaotic situation of foreign and civil war to aggrandize their own claims and to pursue their own feuds. This book effectively demonstrates just what a profound impact the conflict between Bruce and Balliol factions had on late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Scotland.

Penman has succeeded in writing a concise monograph that deepens our understanding of a complex period in Scottish history and synthesizes several decades' worth of historiography on the subject. Apart from the points mentioned above, the book successfully develops the complex story of the quadripartite relations among Scotland, England, France and the Papacy in the period of the Wars of Independence, and shows how external affairs often played a role in determining key episodes in Scottish history. Beyond this, Penman moves toward -- although never quite adequately develops -- some fascinating re-interpretations: John Balliol is rehabilitated to a certain extent (40-1); Bruce's redistribution of lands and patronage in the wake of Bannockburn is regarded as constituting a "revolution of local and regional leadership" (81); there is a good, if disappointingly brief, discussion of the conspiracy against King Robert I in 1320 (85-6; although, to be fair, Penman has published a more substantial journal article on the topic), the message of which is that the Scots in 1320 were not quite the united, patriotic lot depicted in the much more famous Declaration of Arbroath of the same year. The thread of the "Disinherited" which runs through the book is a strong and much needed corrective to the emphasis on the Bruce cause that has tended to permeate scholarship on the topic. Although the Balliols still lack a book-length modern study, Penman has moved us toward a more sophisticated understanding of this important, if much-vilified, aristocratic family of medieval Scotland.

As a fairly novel departure from the norm of studies for the period, the book could have been longer. Further discussion and analysis of many key episodes would strengthen the arguments and allow some of the innovative ideas to come further to the fore. More on the nature of John Balliol's kingship, not to mention the conspiracy of 1320, for example, would be welcome, while the Declaration of Arbroath is dispensed with in a lengthy quotation and a mere 14 lines of text (87-88)! But perhaps the greatest weakness of this book relates to its illustrations, which contrast sharply with the generally high quality of the text. Many have been selected from nineteenth- or early twentieth-century texts and are so anachronistic and romanticized that they have no place in a study such as this: the illustration of William Wallace (49, no. 11), for example, depicts the hero and his followers wearing kilts with sporrans! This may seem a trivial (if not petty) criticism, but there is a serious point to be made here: why, in a book that seeks to demolish myths surrounding the Scottish Wars of Independence, utilize illustrations that propagate myths of another sort? Other illustrations seem to have been chosen for their cost-effectiveness: the Stone of Scone in the English Coronation Chair (45, no. 9) would be better depicted in a modern photograph like that in Tempus's sister publication on Scotland's Stone of Destiny by Nick Aitchison (Stroud, 2000) rather than by a nineteenth-century black-and-white line drawing; similarly, the old illustrations of sites like Inverlochy (no 14), Sweetheart (no 22), Caerlaverock (no 27) and Kildrummy (no 30) fail to do justice to these important sites, which could be depicted much more effectively in modern photographs, readily available from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland or Historic Scotland.

Illustrations aside, this book is certainly a welcome addition to the historiography of the period. Its concentration upon the lesser-known civil war between Bruce and Balliol factions effectively illuminates a darker recess of the Wars of Independence, and its treatment of the Balliol family and the "Disinherited" serves as an effective counterbalance to the pro-Brucean historiography that has permeated later medieval and modern scholarship on the subject.

R. Andrew McDonald

Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada <[email protected]>

Page Added: September 2003