English invasion of Scotland (1385)

In July 1385

Richard promulgated ordinances to maintain discipline in his invasion force, but the campaign was beset by problems from the start.

The English government was hardly in a financial position to fight. Major English garrisons in Aquitaine, Brest, Calais and Cherbourg needed funding. Three out of the four most recent parliaments had refused to grant the King any subsidy at all.^[1] As a result, the Crown was unable to oppose the French resurgence and lost much of England's continental possessions. This policy has been blamed on Richard II's chancellor, Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who was accused of following a policy of appeasement. In a major biography of the King, Historian Nigel Saul has commented on this that "military retrenchment was not so much a matter of choice for Chancellor Pole; it was forced upon him by circumstances".^{[1][note 1]}

King Richard's supporters, predominant among whom were the earls of

As part of their treaty with France, the Scots had reassurances that, were war to break out between Scotland and England, France would provide military assistance for Scotland.[22] Gaunt's attempts at furthering peace between England and Scotland did not suit France at all. They were, says May McKisack, "eager to profit by England's domestic embarrassments".^[9] A small and somewhat unofficial French force–perhaps in the nature of an advance party–had arrived in Scotland in May 1384.^[22] Their arrival followed the fall of Lochmaben Castle, the "last English outpost along in the western borders", after its capture by the Scots. The loss of this castle, says Anthony Tuck, left Cumberland "more vulnerable than it had been for the past fifty years".^[23] It did, however, provide Richard's council with the perfect justification for invading Scotland rather than France.^[24]

The French invasion force under de Vienne consisted of 1,315 men-at-arms, 300

The latest truce with Scotland was due to expire on 15 July 1385, and the fact that the English muster was due to take place on the 14th indicates that the plan was to invade immediately it had done so.^[29] Richard II was nearly eighteen, and the campaign was clearly intended to cast him—as a would-be conqueror of Scotland—in the same light as his father and grandfather.^[30] According to a modern commentator, it was, in contemporaries' eyes, "not just what a king would do but also what a man would do".^[31] He had, after all, been groomed from birth to follow in his father's footsteps,^[11] and this expedition was the point at which he demonstrated his royal independence.^[32] Anthony Goodman has suggested that apart from the obvious strategic necessity of the campaign, it had a secondary purpose in increasing Richard's military prestige and political profile,^[13] and indeed, says Sumption, "the presence of the English King...proved to be a powerful recruiting agent".^[33]

By 10 July the army had reached Nottingham.^[21] The court moved to York,^[12] where the first wages were paid to Gaunt for him and his army on 19 July.^[2] The King's army, with his tenants-in-chief, left there the following day; they were already nearly a week behind schedule, having arranged to be in Newcastle on the 14th.^[16] A final muster took place at Berwick-upon-Tweed.^[12]

In Durham,^[24] military and naval ordinances were drawn up^{[35][note 8]} collectively by King Richard and his uncles, John of Gaunt (who was also Steward of England) and Thomas Mowbray^[37] (the latter having been appointed Earl Marshal on 30 June).^{[5][note 9]} and advised by various "wise knights" of the host.^[37]

The ordinances have been described as "the earliest extant code of discipline for an English army".^[35] Written in French, they consist of twenty-six discrete clauses. It was seen as necessary to remind the troops what they could and could not do during the offensive. The ordinances explicitly prohibited rape and sacrilege, for example. They also gave practical instructions, such as reminding naval ships to stick close to the Admiral in a storm, and guidance on punishments for soldiers' wrongdoing (the penalty for taking women and priests prisoner, for example, was to be death).^{[41][note 10]} They were necessary because the way of raising armies—for short periods and specific periods—meant that it was not possible to drill martial discipline into them, as would be possible with a standing army.^[42] By the later Middle Ages the Crown had established a "preference for the mobility and reliability of the paid professional" over the raising of the feudal tenantry.^[43] Armies were recruited and then disbanded, and there was no way of ensuring that men who had been bound by a previous set of regulations would be recruited again.^[42] The ordinances were promulgated on 17 July.^[37]

There was still a problem with financing. Although the parliament of November 1384 had granted the King a subsidy to fund a campaign, the Commons had done so on the impression that this was to be a continental campaign against the French; not a northern one against the Scots. The latter would be a breach of the Commons' wishes, which, while unwritten, were to be respected by any king who wanted good relations with that institution in future.^[44] They may, in fact, have generally approved of de la Pole's foreign policy as an alternative to the repeated, and heavy, taxes required by Edward III to prosecute his French wars.^[23] The King claimed to have personally refused to touch what he had been granted, saying he had refused it "by his own special act, without the council or any other intervening". The King intended, though, that this be an invasion force of substance. It would have been one of the largest English armies organised in the 14th century,^[11] and the biggest ever raised in the whole of the Hundred Years' War.^[24] In the event, it was still an "unusually large one", going by contemporary estimates. An extant order of battle suggests there were around 14,000 men in the invading army, while Exchequer receipts indicate at least 12,000 men had been paid for war service in 1385,^[24] with at least 142 captains. Ironically, points out Keen, the nobility brought greater armies to the King's host than the traditional feudal summons would have obliged the lords to provide.^[45]

Instead of using the subsidy, in June 1385 the King resorted to the old

The levy was intended to alleviate the costs of the campaign to the Crown by using its barons and nobles as subcontractors. It would, in theory, save the government from having to pay them bonuses or ransoms, as was by now usual in royal campaigns.^[55] It may have had a secondary purpose of illustrating that the levy was still a viable option for the Crown. Edward I had never summoned one during his fifty-year reign; Richard's doing so in 1385 may have been an attempt to reaffirm the precedent. If this was the case, suggests Michael Prestwich, it would have ensured that the Crown would not "lose its right to demand such service in future".^[56] Jonathan Sumption, on the other hand, has questioned whether it was ever intended to be followed through with, and has suggested that it "may have been made as a prelude to a round of horse-trading".^[57] The policy caused such an uproar, however, that Richard was swiftly forced to withdraw the proposition. Indeed, he publicly denied—in parliament—that he had ever intended to enforce scutage.^[44] Sumption's theory is strengthened by the fact that, in return for the King dropping the claim to scutage, his captains agreed to waive their right to recruitment bonuses, which they could otherwise have claimed from the crown.^[21] Although it was never followed through, this summons was to be the last feudal levy of its kind in English history.^[58] Although its primary purpose was doubtless financial, Gillespie has drawn attention to the positive publicity that Richard may have expected to enjoy from summoning the feudal host to him: he would be truly Edward I's great-grandson. Men would serve, and be summoned to serve "not only cum servitio debito but quanto potentius poteritis",^[50] As it turned out, his financial impotence was exposed to all and sundry, especially to the shire knights in the Commons.^[32]

The campaign began poorly even before the English reached the border. In July,

The army that Richard led to Scotland was a large one.[10] Apart from the King and Gaunt, most of the senior English nobility took part. The Earls of Buckingham and Nottingham commanded the army's vanguard with Gaunt. Arundel and Warwick, under the King, commanded the central battle. Accompanying Gaunt—but with his own retinue—was his son, Henry, Earl of Derby. Assessing the numbers involved, Anthony Goodman suggests that Buckingham had brought 400 men-at-arms and twice that number of archers. Arundel and Nottingham, he says, brought, between them, nearly 200 men-at-arms and 300 archers, while the Earl of Warwick had around 120 of the former and 160 of the latter.^[16] Sir Henry Percy, son of the Earl of Northumberland, brought sixty men-at-arms and the same number of archers.^[66] De Vere too, brought a "substantial" force.^[6] But their combined total of nearly 2,000 men was still massively outnumbered by John of Gaunt's force, which was in the region of 3,000 men.^[16] Richard did not solely call upon his nobility either. Gillespie has pointed out that about 10% of the entire host—around 450 men-at-arms and 500 archers—were under the direct command, not of barons, but of the king's officers. These were of the civil service ("the chancellor, treasurer, keeper of the privy seal") or household ("secretary, steward of the household, under-chamberlain of the household, and controller of the wardrobe").^[35] Also included in the royal army were members of the Queen's Household (for example, Henry Burzebo and Henry Hask of Bohemia), as well as Spaniards and Welshmen.^[34] The army that crossed the Scottish border on 6 August 1385 bore 38 royal standards and over 90 bearing the arms of St. George's, and the flag of St Cuthbert was borne before it.^[24] Ultimately, Richard led an army of about 14,000 men from nearly every peer of England, with over two-thirds of them being archers.^[33]

The army crossed into Scotland over the

On 11 August 1385 the English army entered

This disagreement was very much moulded by the jealousies and distrust that existed between Gaunt and Richard's supporters. First, if Gaunt did recommend pushing deeper into Scotland, Richard rejected it as a course of action (probably, says Goodman, on the "reasonable logistical rounds that victuals were scarce and it was likely to lead to starvation among the common soldiers"). According to the Westminster monk, Richard then harshly criticised the duke, saying "many shameful things" about him,[2] even accusing him of treason.^[19] Froissart, on the other hand, says that Gaunt advocated a march across the Pennines to intercept the Franco-Scots force. Richard, though, was told by the Earl of Oxford that the reason Gaunt promoted this was to procure the King's death on what would certainly be a hazardous journey. Again, Richard robustly rejected Gaunt's suggestion, telling him that "if he wanted to go south-west, [Gaunt] would be on his own",^[2] as the King and his men were returning to London.^[72]

Richard has generally been considered by historians as being irresponsible for rejecting Gaunt's advice, as the most experienced of his captains.

The French, meanwhile, had as Sumption puts it, encountered "unexpected difficulties" with their hosts. They had intended to immediately commence border raids, but "found the Scots uncooperative".^[78] In the event, no raiding took place until 8 July

Relations between them deteriorated rapidly. This was partly due to strategic differences. For example, following the incursion into the West March, the decision was taken to swing eastward. The Scottish wished to lay siege to Roxburgh Castle, but de Vienne, anxious not to endanger his knights if he could avoid it, insisted that if it was captured, it would be a French prize. These terms were unacceptable to the Scots, and the assault did not occur.^[77] Their different approaches were also provoked by their very different experiences of how a war with the English was best fought:^[26]

The French wanted a sustained campaign which would tie down significant English forces. They wanted to attack the major walled towns and castles of the English borderlands. They believed in careful advanced planning and disciplined movement. The Scots wanted to fight the kind of campaign which they had always fought, involving fast movement by formless hordes of men, maximum physical destruction and the capture of valuable cattle.^[26]

Relations were further soured because of the contempt the French held their hosts in. The French knights were dismayed at the "primitiveness"^[26] of both the land and the people: "What Prussian march is this to which our Admiral has taken us?" they moaned.^[26]

They were amazed to find that Edinburgh, which had been described to them as the Paris of the north, had only 400 houses. They were unimpressed by the 'red-faced and bleary-eyed' King Robert. they found his subjects a 'savage race' without courtesy or chivalry and his country bare of everything that made life sweet.^[26]

The French complained about everything from the size of their dwelling quarters to the hardness of the beds they slept in to the quality of the beer and food.^[26] Relations worsened when the knights, as was customary, sent their servants out to forage from the land and villages. This custom went down poorly with the locals, who often retaliated violently, and, in some cases, killed the French foragers. Where the French did find Scots willing to trade with them, they regularly complained at being exorbitantly over-charged.^[77]

For the Scots, says Sumption, "the resentment was mutual".^[27] Although the Scottish leaders—the King, of course, and his lords, such as the Earls of Douglas and Moray—respected the French as peers, the Scots generally were hostile to this group of foreigners who could not speak their language and who damaged their crops by riding warhorses many abreast.^[27] The acrimony over the assault on Wark Castle had made things worse.^[27] Even after the English withdrawal, the Scots refused to allow the French to leave until they had satisfactorily compensated their hosts for the damage they had caused. To this end, de Vienne was effectively kept hostage until money was sent from Paris to meet their demands.^[79] In the event, he was unable to depart until mid-November 1385, even though his army had left early the previous month.^[77] When de Vienne did leave Scotland, posits McKisack, it "was less due to English activity than to French distaste for living conditions in Scotland":^[80] de Vienne had described the country as containing nothing but "wild beasts, forests and mountains".^[26]

John of Gaunt remained in the north after the King returned to England to oversee the new truce with Scotland;

Richard's 1385 campaign was considered generally a failure (G. L. Harriss called it "ignominious" and May McKisack, "inglorious").^[82][69] Tuck wrote that seen as a "punitive raid", it was arguably a success.^[32] The Scots were sufficiently persuaded to accept truces for the next three years.^[83][84] This, says Steel, was a far more positive result for the campaign than it has generally been noted: as "southern Scotland had been wasted so effectively that there was no more danger from the north for another three years".^[12] James Gillespie has highlighted the King's character traits that were to be revealed in 1385. The chevauchée, he suggests, indicates "a headstrong ruler determined to exact vengeance on the Scots" although the King later made Melrose Abbey a grant towards its rebuilding.^[35] Similarly, Richard II's concern for the well-being of the ordinary soldiers is, he says, an early indicator of the "remarkable concern...that would later endear the King to his Cheshire guard".^[72] It depends on the King's priorities, explains MacDonald. If Richard had a secondary, punitive purpose to the invasion—i.e. punishing the Scots when he could not defeat them—"and the chronicle accounts provide some corroboration of this",^[68] Tuck, too, has remarked upon Richard's "unusual sensitivity" and compares it to a similar sensitivity demonstrated towards the rebelling peasants of 1381.^[73] Richard's main problem in the aftermath of the campaign, says Gillespie, was one of the perceptions with which he was held after the campaign. Although it may have been more successful than it appeared at first glance, Richard singularly failed to match up to the image of the successful warrior king as epitomised by his father and grandfather.^[54]

Some good news came from the Iberian Peninsula, then racked by a civil war over the War of the Castilian Succession. Gaunt had been persuaded by the news of a Castilian defeat that he should enter the dynastic contest, and the following year he led an army to make his claim.^[10] His absence from English politics was enough with hindsight, says Anthony Steel, as "a turning point in Richard's reign".^[85] In March 1386, Richard recognised Gaunt as King of Castille and was probably as keen for Gaunt to go as Gaunt was to be gone.^[86] In 2004, Simon Walker wrote, "Richard was even prepared to speed Gaunt on his way by advancing a loan of 20,000 marks to defray the costs of the expedition".^[19] In 1962, Steel wrote that Gaunt's absence upset the balance of power within the political community and "liberated forces which had hitherto been more or less under control".^[85]

The ordinances that King Richard issued before the campaign were later the basis of those issued by King

Richard planned ("though in vain") another invasion of Scotland in 1389,[88] and mirroring this, there were complaints to the end of Richard's reign that the Scots regularly violated the truce.^[89] The next occasions on which Richard invaded a foreign country was in 1394 and 1399, when he invaded Ireland; during the latter invasion Richard II was deposed by, Gaunt's son, Bolingbroke, who took the throne as Henry IV.^[90]