For Liberty alone...

A fellow was lecturing yesterday at the National Army Museum ("NAM") in Chelsea. Why does anyone live in London? Judging from a very brief peek into shops in Kensington, the cost of a medium sized handbag would buy you a decent flat up here. At the risk of trotting out another well, if not over-used, expression, the best view to be had of London is looking back as the train slides out of King's Cross - mind you they've made a pretty good job of St. Pancras, nifty landing at Heathrow yesterday too.

My subject was the Battle of Bannockburn 1314, that's the one battle in the 'The Three Hundred Years War' between us Northumbrians and the Scots that the Jocks can clain, pretty fairly, to have won. Obviously if Alex Salmond and the other Bravehearts achieve their desire then prseumably it will all kick off again, time to get the trusty broadsword out from the thatch.

Bannockburn, it has to be conceded, proved a very black day for Northumberland; it unleashed a tide of what would now be regarded as sustained terrorism onto the north-east of England as the victory handed full military hegemony to the Scots which they maintained for nearly two decades, a record for them.

Bruce had shown himself as a commander of the first rank, he had previously demonstated a genius for guerrilla warfare which, after the English repulse, he elevated to an art form - adding words like 'blackmail' and 'bereaved' to the language (ours not theirs). This was economic warfare in its purest form, allied to sound and constant policy, Clausewitz would have heartily approved.

His objectives were two-fold (1) to make the war pay for itself, shifting the cost burden onto the English and (2) to bring the King of England, the effete and degenerate Edward II to the negotiating table. It was the north's burden that the King, well south of Watford Gap, was utterly indifferent to the sufferings inflicted on his northern subjects (nothing new there then I hear you say), notwithstanding that these arose as a direct consequence of his own strategic incompetence.

Between 1314 and 1328 the north was systematically harried; the Scots had perfected what was to become known as hobiler warfare, the predecessors of the border reivers, the Steel Bonnets of Elizabeth's day. Hobilers were mounted infantry, highly trained and disciplined who rode small, tough ponies or garrons, they carried all of their arms and supplies with them, moving freely unincumbered by and dragging supply train.

In the Weardale campaign of 1327, Douglas and Randolph ran rings around the young Edward III and his conventional force of heavy cavalry; a lesson the King took to heart.

Northern communities, from the wealthy seat of the Prince Bishop to the most miserable of remote hamlets, were made to pay what we would now term 'protection money', those who refused or resisted were cut down and their property wasted without remorse. The Scots campaign was funded by pillage, extortion and ransom and very successful it was to.

It did not bring England to its knees but it did fund the northern kingdom's war effort which eventually won the day. The more remote upland dales such as North Tynedale and Redesdale suffered worst, the land being wasted and becoming indefensible.

In the next generation, with Bruce and his redoubrable captains dead, the cycle of violence came around again and it was our turn to deal out the horrors - more of that anon.

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