Hello and welcome to Homeschool History, I'm Greg Jenner, the historian behind TV's horrible histories and the host of the BBC podcast, You're Dead To Me.
I'm here to deliver a snappy history lesson to entertain and educate the whole family, who says that homeschooling can't be fun.
today we are journeying back over 700 years to find out how Scotland was shaped by rebellion, betrayal and a very determined spider.
Today we are learning all about Scotland's medieval wars of independence.
During the reign of Scottish king Alexander III, Scotland and England got on quite well, apart from the occasional argument about where to put the border.
They were like neighbors who got grumpy about the garden fence but never went as far as kicking over each other's bins.
Alexander III was a good king, but sadly none of his children lived longer than him, so when he fell off his horse in 1286 and died, Scotland was left with a pretty big problem, who should rule next?
There was only one obvious heir, Alexander's granddaughter Margaret, but she was only a little girl.
And she lived in Norway.
And she was quite poorly, in fact before she could even make it to Scotland, she sadly died.
Poor Margaret. So now the crown of Scotland was well and truly up for grabs.
Meaning lots of posh people were basically scouring the medieval version of Ancestry .com to see if they had a legal claim to the throne.
Some of the applicants were Scottish as you'd expect, some were English and weirdly, one of them was Dutch. Meanwhile Scotland put together a team of people to run the country called the Guardians of Scotland, a bit like the Guardians of the Galaxy but with fewer talking racoons, and much like the Guardians of the Galaxy in the movies, they couldn't agree on much. so the guardians turned to king edward the first of england for help in choosing the next king.
sneaky edward agreed to help but saw it as an opportunity to control scotland by controlling whoever he chose, naughty!
on his short list were john bailliol and robert bruce who were both related to king alexander the third and in the end edward gave the crown to john bailliol in 1292.
you're hired but things were about to get nasty Edward started pushing his luck by treating Scotland like his own kingdom he demanded Scottish troops join England in a war against France but Scotland was like uh nope instead they teamed up with France against the English Edward had a massive strop and in 1296 he invaded Scotland He captured the castle of Dunbar and he took loads of Scottish lords prisoner.
He even captured the sacred stone of Scone on which all Scottish kings were ceremonially crowned.
It was a disaster for Scotland and King John Balliol quickly surrendered.
Edward booted King John off the throne and allegedly even threw the Scottish crown in the mud to show his disrespect.
Not very neighbourly.
Edward was now in charge, but soon he discovered the Scots didn't want him in charge.
Some Scots decided to rebel, including William Wallace and Andrew Murray.
No, not that Andrew Murray, they weren't tennis players, they were Scottish rebels fighting back against the English invaders.
Using cunning battle tactics, the rebels beat the much bigger English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, leaving the English shocked and humiliated.
Not least, because part of the cunning tactics used by the Scottish had been to hide in the trees like a sneaky squirrel...
And why were they waiting in the trees?
Well, they were waiting for the English to try and cross the bridge.
And the clever thing was, they waited for half of the army to get across before racing out to attack the English, leaving the other half of the English army on the wrong side of the river, unable to do anything useful.
In fact, a lot of the English troops were stuck ON the bridge.
I don't know if you've ever tried to fight a battle on a bridge, but it's actually quite narrow and a little bit wobbly and also you tend to just fall in the water.
One of the English knights who survived the battle had one of my favourite names from history.
His name was Sir Marmaduke Thwane.
What a fantastic name.
Stirling Bridge was a huge victory for Scotland but Andrew Murray was sadly killed in battle leaving just William Wallace in charge of the rebels.
Next came the Battle of Fulcrurk and this time Wallace's tactics were a bit rubbish, he tightly packed his soldiers together with their spears pointing upwards like a giant deadly hedgehog, a good idea for stopping an English cavalry charge but not a good idea against English archers who just showered them from afar with lethal arrows.
ouch! William Wallace was beaten but like any ferocious rebel leader, he ran away and hid.
no one could find him for ages it was like a massive Where's Wally and he wasn't even wearing a stripey red t -shirt.
Anyway do you remember King John Balliol from before?
Hello!! Well he'd been imprisoned in France and eventually William Wallace showed up to try and get him out and get him back on the Scottish throne.
But not everyone fighting for Scottish independence wanted King John back.
One guy in particular reckoned he should be king instead.
His name was Robert Bruce, a bit confusing because his dad was also called Robert Bruce and his grandfather had also been called Robert Bruce, in fact quite a lot of Robert Bruce So, ah, we call him Robert THE Bruce, because he was going to become quite important in the story.
I suppose maybe I should be Greg THE JENNA!
Right? It's my show?
No? All right, suit yourself!
Robert the Bruce was a very clever politician who had kept bouncing between supporting the English king Edward, and supporting the Scottish rebels.
He was up and down like a political yo -yo.
Meanwhile the ongoing wars were also up and down for both sides.
i'm winning, no i'm winning, even after William Wallace returned from France no one was really winning the wars.
in 1303, England and France made peace, bad news for Scotland which relied on French support, some of the Scottish Lords now began to panic and Edward responded by offering them rewards if they surrendered, Robert the Bruce was one of those to accept the deal, but William Wallace definitely wasn't invited to Edward's forgiveness party.
In 1305, Wallace was captured by some of his fellow Scottish lords and handed over to King Edward. He was taken to London, executed horribly and his body was chopped up and his arms and legs were sent to different parts of Scotland as a warning.
Well, that's not a very nice parcel to get in the post, is it?
With William Wallace dead, Edward thought he had crushed the rebellion but he was very wrong indeed.
You see human yo -yo Robert the Bruce decided he didn't like King Edward anymore he'd changed his mind and he teamed up with a guy called John Commin to overthrow him.
Unfortunately their friendship was super tense, they both wanted to be king and when Edward found out about the plot Robert accused John Commin of betraying him, they got in a big old row and Robert killed John.
This was a huge scandal, not only had Robert the Bruce killed a fellow Scott but he'd done it in a sacred Church, double sin!
Robert now ran off to Glasgow and found a bishop to officially forgive him for doing a church murder and he then got himself crowned King Robert I of Scotland.
Fancy! But Edward wasn't taking this lying down, he came after him hard. Robert was defeated in battle, his family were killed and he had to run away and hide.
According to romantic legend, Robert now had to hide in a cave where he was soon transformed into Spider -man.
No not like that, he didn't get bitten by a radioactive spider and nor did he get any super powers.
He just saw a spider trying over and over again to spin a web and never giving up.
And that inspired him to keep fighting.
In 1307 Robert returned to Scotland with troops from Ireland, and Robert then had a massive stroke of luck because king edward the first of england was so old he died, this left edward's son edward the second in charge, but edward the second was considered a weak and disappointing sequel.
Robert now used his army and his clever tactics to boot the english out of Scotland, they even disguised some soldiers as cows in order to sneak up on roxborough castle at night.
Moo! Hmm is it me or did that cow have a Scottish accent?
Edward the second tried to defeat Robert at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, but he lost. Loser!
It seemed like nothing could stop Robert the Bruce, so he just kept heading south, burning crops and stealing stuff as he went including stealing cows, presumably for more fancy dress options when capturing castles.
Moo! The Scottish army made it all the way to North Yorkshire, but stubborn Edward the Second still refused to recognise Robert as the rightful king of Scotland.
Now things were going well for Robert the Bruce, but all this war got him in trouble with the Pope who was the head of the Church, Robert was excommunicated which is the worst punishment you could get without being executed.
But in 1320, Robert's supporters sent the Pope a famous letter called the declaration of Arbroath which said that Scotland was its own country, with its own king, England was He was a massive bully and Robert the Bruce should be allowed back into the church's protection.
The Pope agreed... eventually.
A long truce was agreed between Scotland and England which was meant to last until 1336 but spoiler alert it didn't.
Yes, arguments about who should rule Scotland persisted even after both Edward II and Robert the Bruce had died.
But that's a story for another day, we just don't have time.
No, now it's time for the quiz.
We have five questions, are you ready?
Okay, here we go! Question 1.
In 1286 which Scottish king fell off his horse and died, leaving Scotland with no one in charge?
Question 2. Which English king did the Scottish guardians ask to help them choose their new ruler?
Question 3. Which Scottish rebel won the battle at Stirling Bridge but lost at Fullkirk and went into hiding.
Question four according to legend which little cave dwelling creature inspired Robert the Bruce to never give up?
And question five Robert the Bruce sent a letter called the declaration of our broth to which really important person?
Okay let's do the answers!
The answer to question one the Scottish king who fell off his horse was Alexander III.
The answer to to question 2 – the Scottish guardians asked Edward I of England for help.
The answer to question 3 – the Scottish rebel was, of course, William Wallace.
The answer to question 4 – Robert the Bruce was supposedly inspired by a spider.
And the answer to question 5 – Robert the Bruce sent the Declaration of Arbroath to the Pope.
How did you do? If you didn't get all 5, that's OK, why not listen to another episode from series 1 or 2?
And try the quiz at the end of that one.
Hopefully, you're now a Scottish Wars of Independence SWAT!
Tune in next time for some more Home School History and make sure to subscribe to the podcast on BBC Sounds, so you never miss an episode.
Thank you for listening, take care and goodbye!
Home School History was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
The script was by Gabby, Hutchison Crouch, Emma Nagous, and me.
The research assistant was Hannah McKenzie, the producer was Abby Patterson, and the historical adviser was Doctor Ian McInnis of the University of the Highlands and islands.
if you enjoyed that and want to learn more about Scottish history we've got a couple of shows I think you might really like.
for the grown -ups there's a brand -new episode of you're dead to me about King James the sixth of Scotland slash James the first of England and if you're a bit younger you can listen back to our earlier episode of homeschool history about James's mother Mary Queen of Scots.
Listen to both of those and you'll be a Scotland SWAT in no time.
