Skirmish at Dalry

Skirmish at Dalry

Part of: Scottish Wars of Independence

Possible site of the battle at Dalry

date	July or August 1306
place
output	Victory of the Scottish opponents of King Robert I.

Parties to the conflict
Kingdom of England	Kingdom of Scotland
Commander
John of Lorne	King Robert I.
Troop strength
unknown	unknown
losses
unknown	unknown

The Battle of Dalry (also the Battle of Dail Righ ) was a military conflict during the First Scottish War of Independence . At the end of July 1306 or in the first half of August 1306, according to other information possibly on July 13, 1306, the force of Robert Bruce was defeated by a force under the enemy of John of Lorne . There is no reliable information about the date, the course or the exact location of the battle. The information is based almost all on the description of the medieval poet John Barbour .

prehistory

In March 1306, the Scottish nobleman Robert Bruce rose to the rank of King of Scots and thus openly rebelled against English supremacy in Scotland. However, he and his supporters were decisively defeated on June 19, 1306 in the Battle of Methven by the English governor Aymer de Valence . With a few hundred supporters, including the Earl of Atholl and James Douglas and his family, Bruce fled west to the Highlands .

Course of the battle

The battle is said to have taken place at Dalry near Killin at the southern end of Loch Tay . There, on the border between Perthshire and Argyll , Bruce was captured by a force led by John of Lorne, son of the Scottish Lord of Argyll Alexander Macdougall . John of Lorne was related to John Comyn of Badenoch , who Bruce murdered in February 1306, and was thus a bitter opponent of Bruce. The force of John of Lorne blocked the upper end of the valley traversed by the Strathfillan . In the battle, Bruce's troops were defeated and dispersed.

consequences

Bruce was able to escape with a few loyal followers, but he now had no armed forces and was in fact a refugee. He then sent his wife Elizabeth , his daughter Marjorie and the other women in his company under the protection of the Earl of Atholl and his brother Neil to Northern Scotland, where they first sought refuge in Kildrummy Castle . He himself fled to south west Scotland with the Earl of Lennox . From Dunaverty Castle he fled to the West Scottish Islands, where he probably found refuge from his persecutors until the beginning of 1307.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Penman: Robert the Bruce. King of the Scots . Yale University Press, New Haven 2014, ISBN 978-0-300-14872-5 , p. 102.
2. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 227.
3. ↑ Michael Penman: Robert the Bruce. King of the Scots . Yale University Press, New Haven 2014, ISBN 978-0-300-14872-5 , p. 101.
4. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 227.
5. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Scotland. The Later Middle Ages (The Edinburgh History of Scotland, Vol. II. ) Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh 1974, ISBN 0-05-002038-2 , p. 74.