Others are less fondly remembered, somewhat unfairly. The
deposed King John Balliol and his supporters, the
powerful Comyn family, also held extensive land in south-west
Scotland. Bruce's rivals are often portrayed as schemers and
political opportunists, unable to decide which side they were on
and desperate to wear the Scottish crown at any price, or as being
ready to betray fellow countrymen rather than fight. If this had
been true then the same could be said of Robert the
Bruce and his family. In fact John Balliol did rebel against
the demands of Edward I, and did so before William
Wallace burnt his first barn. King John, however, was defeated
and sent into exile in Europe (in Papal custody) and it was in his
name that William Wallace fought. Robert the Bruce was eventually
able to fill the gap left by Balliol, although he had to diminish
support for the exiled King to do it. He did this by murdering John
Comyn, the Earl of Buchan, who was Balliol's closest kinsman and,
along with Bruce himself, one of the two most powerful nobles in
the country. To make this crime even more heinous, it was carried
out in front of the Altar in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries; not
only had he ruthlessly rid himself of his closest rival; Bruce had
committed sacrilege (in an age of deep religious belief) to do
it!
Comyn in fact had led along with another powerful noble - Sir
John Soules - some of the earliest resistance to the
English. At the turn of the 14th Century, shortly after Wallace's
execution in London, they are reported to have been joint
commanders of a large army which they amassed near Loudoun with
which they carried out several crippling attacks on the English.
Sir John de Soules had family ties to both the Comyns and the
Balliols and had in 1301 been appointed sole guardian of Scotland.
He was not only an active military commander against the English
but was also responsible for sending strong representations to the
Pope to argue for Scotland's right for independence. He visited
France in person to attempt to stop the French making peace with
England, which would leave Scotland isolated and allow England to
turn its full military might towards its northern neighbour. These
attempts failed and the Scots submitted to Edward I in 1304.
Soules, however, chose exile rather than live in a Scotland under
Edward and did not return until 1306 to join a new rebellion led by
Robert the Bruce. Soules was a major figure in this ultimately
successful uprising along with his nephew, William. Still, only
four years after the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath, Bruce
practically wiped the Soules family out. It was alleged that they
were conspiring to replace Bruce on the throne with William Soules,
but many suspect that it may have been a convenient way for Bruce
to remove more of his closest rivals and consolidate his line.
Wallace too, as mentioned earlier, was a supporter of John Balliol,
and as a result his name and his rebellion are not even mentioned
in Robert the Bruce's biography, written by John Barbour in the
second half of the fourteenth century.
Many of the crucial events during these wars took place locally
- Wallace's slaughter of the garrison at Ayr, his sacking of many
castles in the area such as that at Ardrossan, Edward I's seige of
Caerlaverock Castle, the battle of Glen Trool and both
battles of Loudoun Hill, to list but a few. After his
coronation at Scone, Bruce was officially sworn in as King at St.
John's Tower in Ayr. As Bruce strengthened his position many great
nobles who had supported Balliol or Edward I would never again hold
high office, many being 'removed' like the Soules family and their
estates and titles given to supporters of the Bruce. People
like Sir Robert Boyd, who before the wars were minor nobles,
now found themselves with extensive lands and power. Boyd gained
lands such as Kilmarnock (previously belonging to the Balliol
family) and Portincross (previously owned by the powerful de Ross
family, another Balliol supporter). Bruce needed proven commanders
and above all friends to protect his southern borders.
Nobody suffered as much in these wars, however, as the ordinary
people of southern Scotland and northern England. Both Bruce's army
and that of the English used what is now called a 'scorched earth'
policy. Whenever an army retreated it would create a buffer zone by
making the land it left behind a wasteland which could not support
an advancing army. Strongholds were dismantled, crops burned and
livestock slaughtered. If this devastation was supposed to be too
inhospitable to support a few thousand soldiers, it is hard to
imagine the hardships endured by the many thousands of people who
lived there and whose existence depended on the very land which was
now ruined. Add to this the decades of terrifying and brutal cross
border raids that continued long after the main events of these
wars, which were meant to deliver independance to Scotland, had
ended, and it is easy to guess what price was paid by the ordinary
people of the area for their country's freedom.