He conquered Scotland, I tell you with certainty...

​On 15 May 1307, at Forfar in Scotland, an unknown supporter of Edward I wrote to 'some high official', reporting on events in his neighbourhood. It was a bleak message: the revolt of Robert de Bruce was gaining momentum, and he had destroyed King Edward's power among Scots and English both. Scottish preachers were wandering the land, predicting the death of the old king:

"For these preachers have told the people that they have found a prophecy of Merlin, that after the death of 'le Roy Coveytous' the people of Scotland and the Welsh shall band together and have full lordship and live in peace together until the end of the world."

This report of Edward's pending demise was not greatly exaggerated - he expired only a few weeks later - but how was his position in Scotland perceived at this time? For obvious reasons Bruce's tame propagandists, armed with their prophecy of Merlin (an exceptionally busy prophet, not to mention a convenient one) were keen to broadcast the total destruction of English power in Scotland.  

Pro-English chroniclers were keen to present a different view. Peter Langtoft wrote a eulogy for Edward in which the late king is presented as the flower of chivalry. He also admitted that Edward's work in Scotland was unfinished: now the great king was dead, who would provide justice for John Comyn of Badenoch, murdered by Bruce the previous year? Langtoft had his answer ready:  it fell to Edward fitz Edward - Edward II - who had vowed to end the reign of Robert de Bruce. 

Langtoft's hatred of Bruce is expressed in a variant MS of his chronicle. In this he describes Bruce as a deceiver, who came to Westminster pretending to be the king's friend: 

"Never since Judas, I believe, has there been greater deception..."
​
Robert Mannyng, another English chronicler, wrote a continuation of Langtoft's work. He seems to have found Langtoft's rabid hatred of the Scots distasteful, and struck out the more abusive passages. Mannyng never questions Edward I's right to conquer Scotland, though he also regards Bruce's reign as a relatively stable and prosperous time. He once met Bruce in person at Cambridge, and expressed sorrow when two of the Scottish king's brothers were captured and executed:

"That grieves me sorely, that both were disgraced for the deeds they committed there..." 
 
Thomas Castleford was a lesser-known English chronicler writing in the 1320s. Like Langtoft and Mannyng, he had no doubts of Edward I's rights in Scotland. He also conveyed the impression that Edward had thoroughly defeated the Scots:

"All Scotland, from the moment he began, he won and held entirely in his hand; all Scotland was won in this way by the sword, subjected learned and unlearned alike. All the magnates of Scottish descent did homage to Edward - homage and fealty forever they swore to England's king."

Castleford was right to state that the Scottish magnates did homage to Edward, yet by the 1320s it should have been obvious that Scotland was anything but conquered. The English, of course, were unwilling to admit defeat north of the border, so Castleford may have been simply projecting the common opinion of the time.

Very similar sentiments are expressed in the Brute d'Engletere Abregé, an anonymous Anglo-Norman tract from the early fourteenth century. The writer also praises Edward I for his successful conquest of Scotland:

"He conquered Scotland, I tell you with certainty, with blows of his sword in battle. There was no knight among them so strong, that he did not make them bow to his hand..."

One might be tempted to accuse English chroniclers of living in a state of denial, but this impression was not confined to England. The Flemish chronicler Lodewijk van Velthem, who had met Edward I and witnessed his Flanders campaign in 1297 at first hand, was not an admirer of the Bruces. Writing in 1315-17 in the duchy of Brabant, he lamented ruefully that as soon as Edward died ('Edeward...des conincs vader), all the old upstarts started making trouble again. He names these upstarts as Robert and Edward de Bruce, and states that Edward was the greatest king since Arthur. 

Edward received many other admiring eulogies from writers in western Europe, though Scotland received scant attention. He was often credited with bringing the whole of Britain under his sway, and it may be that in 1307 the revolt of Bruce was regarded as a minor affair: Italian writers such as Dante and Giovanni Vialli, who lamented Edward's passing, don't even mention it. Whatever the reality 'on the ground' in Scotland in 1307, few outside Bruce's immediate circle were laying confident bets on victory.