Callum Watson - PhD History
On Palm Sunday 1307 – according to John Barbour – James
Douglas led an attack on the garrison of Douglas Castle while they were hearing
Mass. Having taken the unarmed garrison captive, Douglas and his men took them
back to the castle, slaughtered them in the cellar, plundered the castle’s
stores, poisoned the well, and burned the entire structure to the ground. This
act of brutality – subsequently known as the Douglas Larder – is extreme even
by the often gory standards of medieval warfare. Its inclusion in a work like
The Bruce – in which Douglas is portrayed as a paragon of chivalry, alongside
the likes of Hector – is remarkable. My purpose here is to explore the ways in
which Barbour attempts to justify Douglas’ actions with reference to his
obligations as a loyal knight in the service of King Robert, and what this
tells us about Barbour’s understanding of chivalry more broadly.
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| Image One: Harold swears an oath on holy relics (Bayeux Tapestry, ca. 1070. Tapestry. Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, Bayeux, France). |
The first of these obligations results from an exchange
between Douglas and the king, which takes place immediately before the events of
the Douglas Larder. Douglas seeks permission from the king to visit his lands,
which are currently occupied by the English. King Robert is initially unwilling
to let Douglas go due to the danger involved, but responds:
“He said, ‘Schyr, nedways I will wend
And tak that aventur will giff
Quhether-sa it be to dey or lyff.’”
J. Barbour, The Bruce, Bk. 5, ll. 242-244
This declaration echoes a formula employed repeatedly in
Barbour’s Bruce in which characters express the seriousness of their intentions
by swearing to carry them out even at the cost of their life. Oath-making was a
key part of political life in medieval Scotland, and thus was taken very
seriously. Almost every social contract involved the exchange of oaths, and
often this was done while touching the Gospels or other holy items. Thus, by
having Douglas express himself in these terms, Barbour reinforces Douglas’ resolve.
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| Image Two: The Bute Mazer (c.1314-1318), a communal drinking vessel decorated with a lion – thought to represent King Robert himself – and the heraldic devices of six of his vassals from the Stewartry, reflecting some of the historical relationships explored in The Bruce. From left to right: Sir Walter Stewart (between the lion’s paws, reflecting his status as the king’s son-in-law), Menteith (a Stewart cadet branch), Susannah Crawford, an unknown FitzGilbert cadet, Sir Walter FitzGilbert of Hamilton, and Sir James Douglas himself. |
However, King Robert not only gives Douglas permission to
go, he also offers to assist Douglas in the recovery of his lands if Douglas
should find anything ‘anoyis or scaithfull’ (distressful or hurtful, Bk. 5, ll.
249) there. This offer is a potentially huge concession on the king’s part, and
can be best explained with the reference to the friendship between the two men.
Bruce and Douglas’ friendship is the most important relationship in The Bruce
(far more important than the one between Bruce and his poor wife, who only
appears when she is captured by the English and again when she is released!).
Friendship in the medieval period was a formal arrangement that placed specific
responsibilities on the individuals involved – including the provision of
mutual assistance in the settlement of disputes. Friendship with the king in
particular also offered lucrative opportunities for patronage, as well as
influence at a governmental level – as is seen repeatedly throughout The Bruce
in Douglas’ influence on the king’s decisions, thanks to their closeness. It is
Douglas’ friendship with King Robert that enables him to secure permission to
visit his lands, but Bruce’s promise to fulfil his duties as Douglas' friend potentially jeopardise Bruce’s recovery of his own inheritance – which
is no less than the entire kingdom. Douglas thus finds himself obliged to find
a way to relieve the king of this burden, based on the same principle of mutual
assistance that led to Bruce’s promise of aid.
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| Image Three: The Battle of Otterburn (1388) from a fifteenth-century manuscript of Froissart’s Chroniques (Bibliotheque Nationale MS Fr. 2645, fol. 351). Later Scottish chroniclers such as Andrew of Wyntoun blamed this defeat on a lack of prudence on the part of James, 2nd earl of Douglas – the Scottish commander. |
Consequently, Douglas is forced to employ unorthodox tactics
in order to achieve his ends. To do so, Douglas must apply to the situation
what Barbour refers to as ‘worschip’. For Barbour, ‘worschip’ means using ‘wyt’
(intelligence) to govern one’s ‘hardyment’ (boldness), in order to find the
most prudent course of action and make the best of the current circumstances.
Barbour devotes considerable space in The Bruce to promoting this principle,
elevating martial prudence to the level of a chivalric virtue. In an earlier
part of the poem, Barbour places a speech in King Robert’s mouth in which he
declares that a prudent knight should ‘ay thynk to cum to purpos’ (Bk. 3, ll.
263), meaning that he should always seek success in his military endeavours. It
is this principle that guides Douglas’ behaviour while he is visiting his
hereditary lands. Barbour even explains Douglas’ specific concerns when
slighting the castle (Bk. 5, ll. 268-270, 415-428). On arriving in Douglasdale,
he quickly realises that he cannot compete with the English in terms of
manpower, so he resolves to combat them with guile. After taking the castle,
Douglas recognises that he cannot garrison the castle and hold it himself, and
so he destroys it as completely as he can – thereby denying the English the use
of it in the future. Douglas thus ensures the best possible outcome, while
putting himself and his men in as little danger as possible, and at the same
time absolves the king of any obligation to intervene in the situation.
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| Image Four: Sir James Douglas’ tomb in St Bride’s Kirk, Douglas. This may very well have been the kirk in which Douglas found the English garrison on the day of the Douglas Larder! |
In The Bruce, the Douglas Larder is not presented as a
vicious act of sacrilege, nor is it presented as an unusually bloody incident
in a wider campaign. Rather, Barbour presents it as the tale of a noble knight,
alone in enemy territory, drawing on all of his personal resources to fulfil
his obligations as a chivalric hero and achieve success in the face of
seemingly overwhelming odds.
Works Cited
J. Barbour, The Bruce, (A.A.M. Duncan ed. & trans.),
(Edinburgh: Canongate, 1997).
S. Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings: Robert II and Robert
III 1371-1406, (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1996).
M. Brown, The Black Douglases: War and Lordship in Late
Medieval Scotland, 1300-1455 (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1998).
S. Cameron, ‘Chivalry and Warfare in Barbour’s Bruce’, in M.
Strickland (ed.), Armies, Chivalry and Warfare in Medieval Britain and France:
proceedings of the 1995 Harlaxton Symposium (Stamford: Paul Watkins Pub.,
1998).
A. Classen, ‘Friendship – The Quest for a Human Ideal and
Value from Antiquity to the Early Modern Time’, in A. Classen and M. Sandridge
(eds.), Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: Explorations of a
Fundamental Ethical Discourse, (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010).
R. Hyatte, The Arts of Friendship: The Idealisation of
Friendship in Medieval and Early Renaissance Literature, (Leiden/New York:
Brill, 1994).
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