Battle of Dupplin Moor

Battle of Dupplin Moor

Part of: Second Scottish War of Independence

date	August 10, 1332 to August 11, 1332
place	Dupplin Moor, near Scone
output	Balliol victory

Parties to the conflict
Kingdom of Scotland	Balliol House
Commander
Domhnall, 8th Earl of Mar †, Robert Bruce, Lord of Liddesdale †	Edward Balliol , Henry de Beaumont
Troop strength
a few thousand	a few hundred to a maximum of 3000
losses
very high	33 (?), At least low

The Battle of Dupplin Moor was fought in Scotland in 1332 between the so-called "Disinherited", a group of exiled English and Scots led by Edward Balliol , and supporters of the Scottish King David II , son of Robert the Bruce . It was the first and one of the most important battles of the Second Scottish War of Independence .

background

After the death of King Alexander III. In 1286 the Scottish succession to the throne had not been clarified. The Scottish magnates had finally asked the English King Edward I to choose the rightful new king from among the aspirants to the throne . The English king had awarded the throne to Edward Balliol in 1292 , but subsequently claimed supremacy over Scotland himself. The question of supremacy led to a war in which the English defeated the Scots in 1296 and deposed Balliol as king. When the English king wanted to submit Scotland directly to his rule, a long war of independence broke out . In 1306 Robert the Bruce, a grandson of one of the other heir to the throne of 1292, declared himself king of Scotland. The struggle for independence lasted with interruptions until 1328, before the English King Edward III. in the peace of Edinburgh and Northampton had to recognize Scottish independence and Robert the Bruce as Scottish king.

Due to the peace, many English barons, to whom the English kings had granted lands in Scotland during the war, had to give up these possessions. There were also Scottish nobles who had fought on the English side and had been driven out of Scotland by their compatriots. These barons and nobles were the disinherited ( English Disinherited ), respectively. After the young Edward III. had taken over the government himself in October 1330, he supported the claims of the disinherited for restitution of their Scottish possessions or for compensation. When the Scottish government did not respond to these demands, the disinherited began preparations for an invasion of Scotland under the leadership of Henry de Beaumont . The conditions for this were favorable because King David II, the son of Robert the Bruce, who died in 1329, was still a child. The reign was exercised by Scottish nobles who held the title Guardian of Scotland . Beaumont managed to win Edward Balliol , the son of King Edward Balliol, who was overthrown in 1296, in French exile, for the plans of the disinherited. The disinherited would help Balliol to the Scottish throne, while Balliol would give them back their lands as king. The English king did not want to risk an open war with Scotland, but he tolerated the creation of an army by the disinherited.

The Landing of the Disinherited in Scotland

In the summer of 1332 all preparations for the expedition were completed. The size of the force that Balliol and Beaumont put together cannot be precisely stated, but it does not seem to have been entirely insignificant. The Bridlington Chronicles speak of 500 armed men and 1,000 soldiers; Henry Knighton gives 300 armed men and 3000 soldiers, while the Lanercost Chronicles reports a total of about 1500 to 2800 men. The modern historian Sumption speaks of a few hundred men, according to Ranald Nicholson the army was between 1,500 and 2,000 men strong. Of these soldiers, about 500 were knights and men-at-arms , the rest were foot soldiers and archers. All chronicles agree that the greatest number of soldiers were long archers . However, since the English king did not want the invasion openly from England, the grapevines had to set up a fleet to sail from northern England to Scotland. In mid-July 1332 this fleet was assembled. When the disinherited received the news that the previous Guardian, the Earl of Moray , had died, they set out with their fleet on July 31 for Scotland to take advantage of the power vacuum after the Guardian's death. On August 6, they landed on the north bank of the Firth of Forth , where they defeated a Scottish contingent in the battle at Kinghorn . From Kinghorn they marched to Dunfermline Abbey , where they found ample food supplies and an extensive arsenal with numerous pikes . Then they moved on towards Perth . On August 10, they camped at Forteviot on the south bank of the Earn River .

Scottish Defense Measures

The Scots had been aware of the disinherited preparations for their invasion. To ward off the disinherited, they had one army each on the north bank and one on the south bank of the Firth of Forth. The northern army, under the command of the new Guardian Domhnall, 8th Earl of Mar , had rallied at Perth and now blocked the bridge at Forteviot over the Earn. The Scottish army defending the south bank of the Firth of Forth had moved north under the command of the Earl of March when they heard of the disinherited landings at Kinghorn. On August 10, this army was only a little over twelve kilometers away from the disinherited. So there was a danger for them to be encircled by the two Scottish armies. According to contemporary chroniclers, the northern army alone is said to have been between 30,000 and 40,000 men strong. These numbers are certainly far exaggerated, but the Scots certainly outnumbered the disinherited. Given the overwhelming power of Scotland, morale quickly fell in the camp of the disinherited. According to the chronicler Thomas Gray , many of the disinherited were so dismayed by this development that they accused Henry Beaumont of treason. Beaumont, who was the most experienced soldier among them, was cool and calculating. It was clear that one couldn't wait for the two Scottish armies to unite. He decided that on the night of August 11th the earn should be exceeded and a surprise attack on the northern Scottish army should be dared.

Course of the battle

Attack of the disinherited on the Scottish train

The Earl of Mar's army had evidently already recognized the numerical weakness of the disinherited from the higher north bank of the Earn, and spent the night partying in the certainty that they would defeat the disinherited the next day. However, they secretly crossed the Earn during the night under the leadership of Sir Alexander Mowbray . A renegade Scot, possibly Andrew Murray of Tullibardine , had shown them another ford. The disinherited bypassed the Scottish horsemen and men-at-arms who guarded the bridge, climbed the northern bank and raided the Scottish camp, where they could only surprise the sleeping entourage and put them to flight. At dawn, the disinherited rallied their troops, which had dispersed in pursuit of the fleeing Scots. At first the disinherited believed that they had defeated the Scottish foot soldiers and that the Scottish horsemen had also fled, but then Thomas Vescy and Ralph Stafford , who had set out to explore, told of the arrival of a large Scottish army.

Battle formation

This army was the Northern Scottish Army, whose soldiers were divided into two battalions . One battalion was led by Mar, the commander of the second battalion was Robert Bruce, Lord of Liddesdale , an illegitimate son of the late king and thus a half-brother of David II. The army had camped on the moorland north of the River Earn. After learning of the surprise attack on her entourage, she had prepared for battle. The Scots marched under twelve banners, and their leaders included Mar and Bruce, the Earls of Fife , Moray , Menteith and Atholl, and Alexander Fraser , the Chamberlain of Scotland . The Scottish army consisted largely of an untrained, poorly trained feudal contingent or undisciplined warriors of the northern Scottish clans , while the army of the disinherited consisted of experienced soldiers. Beaumont set up his army in a quarter circle in a line about two hundred yards long, with the archers on the flanks. The men-at-arms fought dismounted in the center, only about forty German mercenaries were mounted and covered the flanks.

A violent attack by the Scots

While the disinherited were determined to await the Scottish attack, there was disagreement and distrust among the Scots. Although the Earl of Mar had predicted certain defeat the day before in a verbal exchange of blows with the disinherited, Robert Bruce immediately before the battle accused him of being secretly allied with the disinherited, having lived in England for many years during the War of Independence. Mar denied Bruce's allegations, stating that he would lead the first attack himself. Bruce now insisted that this honor be his. Thereupon the two rushed to attack the English lines on horseback, followed by their troops, who presumably attacked on foot. Bruce's battalion, which also included the troops of the Earls of Moray and Menteith and Alexander Fraser, reached the line of the disinherited first. The dispute between the two leaders had prevented an orderly Scottish attack, so that the Scots were now running violently against the English line. Since only a few Scots wore armor, they suffered high losses from the shelling of the English archers. Nevertheless, a large number of Scottish warriors initially reached the English line and initially pushed them back, supported by the sloping terrain. But the English line withstood the onslaught. The Scottish attack lost momentum due to the resolute repulsion of the disinherited who fought with their pikes and the constant fire from the archers. From the archers bombardment, the bulkheads on the flanks pushed into the center, which soon became disordered. Escape became impossible as the Mar battalion arrived on the battlefield. They pushed through a narrow terrain on the first Scottish battalion, whereby the soldiers of the battalion of Mar apparently showed no consideration for the rival troops of the battalion of Bruce. Panic broke out under the tightly packed bulkheads. Under constant pressure from the pikes of the disinherited and under fire from the archers, they tried to flee, but were now wedged in by the bodies of dead, fallen, or asphyxiated bulkheads. Wedged in helplessly, they were massacred by the disinherited until their dead bodies lay a spear's length high on top of each other.

The chronicler John Capgrave described the bloodbath of Dupplin Moor in the following words:

"In this battle [...] more were slain by the Scots themselves than by the English. For rushing forward on each other, each crushed his neighbor, and for every one fallen there fell a second, and then a third fell, and those who were behind pressing forward and hastening to the fight, the whole army became a heap of the slain . "

“In this battle [...] more Scots killed each other than by the English. As they rushed forward, everyone bumped into his neighbor, and for everyone who fell, a second fell and then a third fell, and those approaching from behind to fight met those in front, whereupon the whole army became a heap of slain. "

- John Capgrave

Scottish retreat and escape

The Earl of Fife led the retreat of the remaining Scots, which quickly ended in a desperate escape. Under the leadership of Beaumont and Balliol, the men-at-arms of the disinherited got on their horses, pursued the fugitives and inflicted further losses on them. The Earl of Fife was captured. The English foot soldiers who stayed behind stabbed the pile of Scottish bodies with swords and pikes, killing anyone who moved.

losses

On the side of the disinherited, only the knights John Burden and Reginald Beche and 31 other men-at-arms are said to have died, while the archers and ordinary foot soldiers suffered no losses at all. On the Scottish side, in addition to hundreds of ordinary soldiers, the Earls of Mar, Moray and Menteith, Robert Bruce, Alexander Fraser, Nigel Bruce and numerous other barons and knights had died. According to the information provided by the chroniclers, between 2000 and 13,000 Scots died in the battle.

consequences

The Battle of Dupplin Moore was the worst Scottish defeat since the Battle of Falkirk 34 years earlier. Although the Second Scottish Army under the Earl of March pursued the disinherited and besieged them in Perth, the siege was eventually broken off. As a result, Edward Balliol was crowned King of Scotland a little later. However, he was unable to consolidate his rule. In December he was beaten in Annan , whereupon he had to flee to England.

literature

• T. Campbell: England, Scotland and the Hundred Years War. In: J. Hale et al. (Ed.): Europe in the Late Middle Ages. Faber and Faber, London 1970, ISBN 0-571-09413-9 .
• Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The Formative Years of a Military Career 1327-1335. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965.
• Chris Brown: The Second Scottish war of Independence 1332-1363. Tempus, Charleston 2006, ISBN 0-7524-3812-3 .
• Michael Brown: The Black Douglases. Tuckwell Press, East Linton 1999, ISBN 1-86232-036-5 .
• Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman: The Art of War in the Middle Ages, AD 378-1515. Blackwell, Oxford 1885. (online) (PDF; 8.6 MB)
• Sir James Henry Ramsay: The genesis of Lancaster or, The three reigns of Edward II, Edward III, and Richard II, 1307-1399. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1913.
• RC Reid: Edward de Balliol. In: transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Antiquarian and Natural History Society. 3rd series, vol. 35, 1956-57.
• Jonathan Sumption: The Hundred Years War. Volume 1: Trial by Battle. Faber and Faber, London 1990, ISBN 0-571-20095-8 , pp. 125-126.

Web links

• Article on battle of Dupplin Moor (muir)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. Sumption: The Hundred Years War. Volume 1. Trial by Battle. 1990, p. 125.
2. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 81.
3. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , 79.
4. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 84.
5. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 86.
6. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 94.
7. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 86.
8. ^ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 87.
9. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 85.
10. ^ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 87.
11. ^ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 87.
12. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 88.
13. ^ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , 89.
14. ^ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , 89.
15. ^ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , 89.