Historic environment: the Battle of Stirling Bridge (2027 exams)

Model answer

Surrey defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar in April 1296, and Edward I then left him in charge of Scotland as his lieutenant. In September 1297 he commanded the English army at Stirling Bridge, and after the defeat he ordered the bridge to be destroyed and retreated to Berwick.

Model answer

Interpretation A is convincing about why Stirling was so important, but it exaggerates when it says that holding Stirling meant holding Scotland. Stirling stood at the lowest bridging point of the River Forth, on the main route between the Lowlands and the Highlands and north-east, and the castle on its steep crag overlooked the crossing. Edward I took the castle during his conquest of 1296, and in September 1297 the English army had to cross the Forth at Stirling to reach Wallace and Moray, who chose to block the crossing there. After the Scottish victory the English garrison of the castle surrendered. The English did spend great effort winning it back: in 1304 Stirling was the last major castle holding out against Edward, who besieged it from April to July with many siege engines, including the huge trebuchet called the War Wolf. Even after Edward I's death, Bannockburn (1314) was fought because Edward II marched to relieve Stirling.

However, the claim that control of Stirling meant control of the kingdom is not convincing. Edward held Stirling Castle in 1296-97, yet the Scots rose against him across the country, and Andrew Moray drove the English from most of the north. After Edward took the castle in 1304, Robert Bruce still rebelled in 1306. Edward's great victories at Dunbar (1296) and Falkirk (1298) were won elsewhere, and other places mattered too, such as Berwick, the main border town and port, and Scone, where Scottish kings were made. In the end, control of Scotland depended on armies, money and the loyalty of the nobles rather than on one castle.

Overall, Interpretation A is convincing that Stirling was the strategic key to central Scotland and the scene of decisive events, but its central claim is an overstatement, perhaps natural in a guidebook written to stress the importance of the place visitors have come to see.

Model answer

Stirling Bridge was important for warfare because it showed that foot soldiers could defeat heavy cavalry if they used the ground well. In the thirteenth century armoured knights on horseback were seen as the decisive force in battle; Edward I himself had won at Evesham in 1265, and the Scots had been routed at Dunbar in 1296. At Stirling Bridge, however, an army made up mostly of Scottish spearmen on foot destroyed an English force that included heavy cavalry. The knights could not form up or charge on the narrow causeway and soft carse, and once the Scots held the end of the bridge, the trapped vanguard was cut down or drowned. The battle showed that well-led infantry who chose the ground and the moment could beat knights, and it warned commanders of the danger of crossing a river in front of the enemy.

Secondly, the defeat pushed Edward I to find an answer to massed spearmen. At Falkirk in 1298 he used his longbowmen and crossbowmen to shoot into Wallace's schiltrons, then sent in the cavalry to break them. This combination had already been used against the Welsh at Maes Moydog in 1295, and it later became the basis of English success in the Hundred Years War. In this way Stirling Bridge contributed to a change in English tactics.

Finally, Stirling Bridge was part of a wider pattern across Europe in which infantry challenged the power of knights. At Courtrai in 1302 Flemish townsmen on foot defeated French knights on marshy ground, and at Bannockburn in 1314 Robert Bruce's spearmen defeated Edward II's army near Stirling. Together these battles show that the old idea that the knight always ruled the battlefield was being overturned in the period, and that leaders such as Wallace, who were not great nobles, could lead effective armies of ordinary men.

Model answer

A study of Stirling Bridge supports the statement to a large extent, because the battle turned Edward I's quick conquest of Scotland into a long and costly war. However, it was not a turning point in the sense of deciding the war, because Edward reversed its effects within a few years.

The case for a turning point is strong when we compare the situation before and after the battle. In 1296 Edward had conquered Scotland in a few months: he sacked Berwick, crushed the Scots at Dunbar, forced John Balliol to give up the throne and made about 2,000 landholders swear loyalty in the Ragman Roll. English officials ruled the country. Stirling Bridge destroyed this settlement. Hugh de Cressingham, the treasurer, was killed, the Earl of Surrey retreated to Berwick, and the garrison of Stirling Castle and other English strongholds surrendered. The Scots raided Northumberland and Cumberland, and Wallace was knighted and made Guardian, ruling in King John's name. In October 1297 Moray and Wallace could tell the merchants of Lübeck that Scotland had been recovered from the English. The battle also showed that Scottish spearmen could defeat an English army that included heavy cavalry, which gave the Scots confidence to keep resisting.

The battle also changed Edward's position. It came during the crisis of 1297, when Edward was in Flanders and in conflict with his earls over taxes and service, and the government had to concede the Confirmation of the Charters. Edward now had to return, move the Exchequer and courts to York, where they stayed from 1298 to 1304, and fight in Scotland year after year. The conquest that seemed complete in 1296 became a war that lasted the rest of his reign.

However, there is strong evidence that Stirling Bridge did not turn the war decisively in Scotland's favour. Less than a year later, at Falkirk on 22 July 1298, Edward's longbowmen and cavalry broke Wallace's schiltrons, and Wallace resigned as Guardian. Edward then wore the Scots down with campaigns in 1300, 1301 and 1303-04, and the Treaty of Paris in 1303 cut them off from French help. In 1304 John Comyn and most nobles submitted, Stirling Castle fell after a siege, and in 1305 Wallace was executed in London and the Ordinance for the Government of Scotland set up English rule. By 1305 Edward was in a similar position to 1296.

Other events can also claim to be turning points. Falkirk reversed the momentum, the submission of 1304 seemed to end the war, and Robert Bruce's seizure of the throne in 1306 began the resistance that would finally win independence. Edward's death at Burgh by Sands in 1307, on his way to fight Bruce, ended the wars of his reign with Scotland unconquered.

Overall, Stirling Bridge was a turning point in an important sense: it ended Edward's hope of an easy conquest and began a long, costly war that he never completed. But it was not decisive, because Falkirk and the campaigns of 1300-04 restored English control. Its greatest long-term importance may have been in showing the Scots that the English could be beaten, a lesson Bruce would use at Bannockburn in 1314.