These are the actual words of Robert the Bruce's letter to the Irish. Many have had strong doubt that the Bruce's truthfully ever tried to foster a Celtic revival and unification between Ireland and Scotland. It seems this notion is too controversial for many present experts, but rest assured, the intent was indeed to unite the Celtic people under a common banner using the common language and heritage as a basis for the unification. Whether or not this idea of Robert and Edward Bruce's was a good one is still in question, but clearly that was the intent, and the above quote from Robert's letter is the proof. Also clearly, the medieval Scots were aware of their Irish ancestry and now wished to call upon that valued Gaelic aspect of their nationhood to overthrow the Norman-Saxon English and the Anglo-Irish warlords. In the wake of Bannockburn, the Irish were indeed tempted by the successful independence of the Scots. The O'Neills of Ulster were particularly keen to hit back at the English and offered Edward Bruce their kingship.

Donal O'Neill called upon fellow Irishmen to support Edward Bruce against the,

"sacrilegious and accursed English who, worse than the inhuman Danes, are busy heaping injuries of every kind upon the inhabitants of this country." He noted that their past disunity had made the Irish vulnerable: "we, being weakened by wounding one another, have easily yielded ourselves a prey to them. Hence it is that we owe to ourselves the miseries with which we are afflicted, manifestly unworthy of our ancestors, by whose valour and splendid deeds the Irish race in all past ages has retained its liberty."

But not all went smoothly. Since even the native Irish could not agree on his proper right to the title, Robert arrived with a large army to persuade them, and soon taught them that there was perhaps little difference between an English and Scots overlord.

Edward Bruce lands in Ireland

Landing at Lough Larne in Ulster, Edward Bruce led an army of 6,000. A small force, it nevertheless comprised veteran warriors of the War of Independence and soon defeated the local Anglo-Irish barons. A few Irish chieftains immediately allied themselves with Bruce, but others had to be beaten into submission. Despite a call for Celtic unity, this would become a campaign as much against the native Irish as against the English. The Scots progress through the country sent out ripples of mayhem. An army from Connacht arose to confront him, but was split by Edward Bruce playing one Irish clan against another so that Connacht itself plunged into civil war. In 1316, Dundalk, Edward Bruce was officially crowned High King of all Ireland. He now invited his brother to survey his newly conquered territory. Robert Bruce arrived with a powerful and intimidating force of gallowglass from the Western Isles, notoriously ferocious Norse-Gaelic mercenaries from the Hebrides. So far, Robert's masterplan had worked well. With Edward in Ireland, the Western Isles under Robert's control, rumours soon spread that the Bruce's were soon to land in Wales and restore their ancient liberty. An all-Celtic movement seemed imminent, unifying the Celts against Edwardian England. Encouraged by such thoughts, the Welsh rose in revolt under Llywelyn Bren, Edward II could not even trust his Welsh archers and all ideas of a counter-attack against Scotland had to be forgotten as he defended his lands in Wales and Ireland.

Back in England

Meanwhile back in Scotland and England the raids by Scottish forces under Douglas, Randolph and others continually ravaged the already raw and vulnerable Northern counties keeping the English constantly on the defensive, never successfully able to mount a counter-attack.

This could not go on. Under pressure from the peers of the northern counties, Edward II began to prepare for yet another campaign; but Bruce, with his usual brilliance, was one jump ahead of the English. After an eleven-week seige he captured Berwick, the last bastion of English influence in his homeland. And in the early summer, as Edward's army ponderously assembled, he crossed the border with a number of lightening raids burned Northallerton, Boroughbridge and Knaresborough, his incursions only ceasing when they reached York. By the time the English army were in the borderlands Bruce was safely back in Scotland, his efforts richly rewarded with English cattle and booty. Having understandably little confidence in their royal general, the various commanders in Edward II's army would not even enter Scotland, and eventually took their contingents home.

Edward Bruce now King of Ireland

Back in Ireland, it was customary that a High King parde all around the country to secure his homage and respect. Early in 1317, Edward Bruce set out with his brother again on just such an expedition. They received a rough welcome. The earl of Ulster set an ambush. Allowing Edward Bruce's vanguard to proceed through forestland, he then set his archers on Robert's rear. Robert was not provoked and maintained his warriors in good order -- except for his nephew Sir Colin Campbell: he spurred his horse on towards the Irish despite the likelihood of a trap. Robert dashed after him and stunned him with a blunt weapon before he could be surrounded. At that moment, more warriors emerged from the forest and a fierce struggle ensued. Only the discipline and military expertise of the Scots saved them from the superior numbers of the Irish warriors.

The people of Dublin, fearing that Edward Bruce would march on them next, demolished and set fire to the suburban buildings outside their walls so as to deprive the Scot's army of any cover. It was a decision they were later to regret, for they destroyed many important buildings in their panic, including the king of England's Irish manor. But, Edward had little time for a seige and had decided to bypass the stout defences of the city. The Bruce's advanced into Munster, for here Irish clansmen promised that the entire countryside would rise to their side. But mutual suspicions overrode these ambitious plans and famine prevented any successful campaigning.

Edward Bruce was forced to turn back and consolidate his base in Ulster. After such an anti-climax, Robert returned to Scotland. The shockwaves of Bannockburn had begun to recede and Edward II was able to act with more confidence in the support of his barons. A small force of Genoese crossbowmen was sent to Ireland to encourage the cause of the English.

Through a generous attitude to enemies and a consolidation of feudal privileges, King Edward II managed to increase his influence among the Anglo-Irish. A royal mission to the Pope had also brought benefits. Archiepiscopal vacancies in Ireland were filled by men favourable to king Edward of England and all supporters of both Bruces were excommunicated. It appeared that Edward II was far more astute at politics than warfare.

Donal O'Neill, self-styled king of Ulster and "true heir by hereditary right of all Ireland", wrote to Pope John XXII with the Irish point of view. He detailed how the English dominated his land and treated the Irish as inferior beings. He recorded the fact that the English said it was no worse to kill an Irishman than a dog. But there were few other Irish who saw the Bruce invasion as a welcome blow against the English. Many Irish viewed Edward as yet another alien adventurer and preferred to do buisness with the English simply because they had been longer established. A chronicler of Connacht summed up Bruce's army as: "Scottish foreigners less noble than our own foreigners." As for the ideal that both Irish and Scots should unite under a common Gaelic banner, this seems to have been soon forgotten by both sides in the powerplay that followed invasion. Among the remote tribesman of the Irish mountains who did join Edward Bruce, the prospect may have appealed of fighting alongside warriors speaking a similar Celtic language.

But, by 1318, Edward Bruce still only had the support of a few Ulster opportunists. The action of English privateers in the Irish sea had broken the dominance of the Scots and reinforcements from Scotland could no longer be depended on. Nevertheless, Edward Bruce was a potent political force and, supported by the de Lacy family, he rode southwards at the head of an Irish-Scots army over two-thousand strong. An Anglo-Irish force under Richard Clare, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, met him at Faughart, just north of Dundalk.

Edward Bruce was heavily outnumbered and his senior knights advised him to wait for reinforcements. But Bruce was impatient for a victory that would give him greater political control. His Irish allies refused to join him in the foolhardiness and suggessted they harry the English with raids while Bruce awaited extra men that were expected. Again Edward ignored this sound advice, sent his warriors into battle. The vanguard and mainguard became spread out, their thin numbers annilhilated piecemeal by the Anglo-Irish.

Loyal to death, Edward Bruce's knightly retainers charged alongside their leader as the reargaurd rumbled forward. Having belated thoughts of mortality, Edward exchanged his conspicuous royal armour for the plain garb of a lowly knight. The Scots fought bravely, but inevitably were overwhelmed. According to legend, the English found the body of the lowly knight clad in Royal armour and presumed it to be Edward Bruce. His head was cut off, salted in a bucket, and sent to Edward II. But Bruce had not escaped the slaughter. His body lay elsewhere on the battlefield. As the Gaelic prisoners were led away, a Scots knight, Sir Philip Mowbray regained consciousness and broke away with other captives. They carried the heavy news of Edward Bruce's death, Robert last brother, home to Scotland.

The Bruce
After the death of his vainglorious brother, Bruce held his kingdom for eleven more years and until death, but under almost constant opposition and assualt from without. He held it by the consent of the mass of its people and the majority of its barons. Four years before Bannockburn the Scots clergy at Dundee had declared that the nation would live and die with a king who, "possessing the right of blood and endowed with the other cardinal virtues, is fitted to rule and worthy of the name of King and the honour of the Kingdom". By the sword, they said, had Robert restored the realm. Now after Bannockburn, success was all, the throne was his and doubt was buried with the dead at Bannockburn.

He would have preferred peace, but Edward II was stubborn in defeat and Scots reckless in victory. A Border war continued fretfully across the Solway and the Tweed, the ill-protected and ill-supported northern shires of England resisting when they dared, or buying peace when they could not. On either side of that arbitrary frontier, men of the same stock, same racial ancestory, built their tall black towers, thumbed their noses at each other, and plunged into a reiving (stealing, robbing) way of life that was to last for over three centuries. Scots armies went south like bandits, intent on blood and plunder, but Bruce's tactics in carrying the war to the land of his opponent were wise, not spiteful. England might survive the bleeding of its northern counties, for its arteries flowed from the south, but the heart of Scotland was within reach of the Border and bled from every raid across it.

Celtic Unification does Take Effect in Ireland

In that second decade of the 14th century, it seemed as if the Celtic realms of Britain and Ireland might rise together and throw back the descendants of the Normans and Saxons. In the real event such a dream did not come true, and the English held onto many of their Celtic possessions. But the struggle had not been in vain. In Ireland, English control had been further weakened. Irish chieftains now contested the land as strongly as the Anglo-Irish barons. Although some admitted the overlordship of the English king, all were united in their determination not to be ruled by a middle strata of Anglo-Irish adventurers.

Norman dynasties were bundled out of several Irish estates. A Gaelic revival was under way that would eventually reduce the power of the English to the Pale -- the royal territory around Dublin. The authority of the great Irish lordships emerged intact from the Celtic highlands. Already, in 1258, an attempt had been made to restore the high kingship of all Ireland. In 1327, after the Bruce attempt at Celtic unification, Leinster -- the heartland of the Anglo-Irish support -- had thrown itself behind the MacMurroughs [a strongly Celtic family] and elected one of them king of Leinster, the first since the Norman conquest [1066]. Military victories were paralled by a resurgence of Gaelic culture that engulfed the Anglo-Irish and ensured that the Celtic tongue and law were dominant in Ireland until the coming of the Tudors.

The Bruce dream of a united Celtic Britain and Ireland had failed, but in its failure it had sparked a Celtic Irish revival that was not to be denied. In the failure, an Irish Celtic culture was, perhaps, saved for all time.

Robert the Bruce ruled for another eleven years, finally getting long awaited offical recognition as King only a year before his death. It seems the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320, had finally been taken seriously by even the Pope. Robert would remain, somewhat sadly, the most distinguished and successful king ever to rule Scotland. Just before his Robert's death, he gathered those of his friends and advisors around him, warning of the foolhardy risks of facing future English armies in a direct confrontation such as had occurred, with success, at Bannockburn. But with the deaths of his able lieutenants, James Douglas on crusade in Spain, and Thomas Randolph in Scotland, Bruce's warnings were forgotten -- or ignored.

Next, chronologically, the English and Scots face off again at Dupplin Moor, Berwick and Halidon Hill. These battles, with a background history, are online to read under the topic "The Second Scottish War of Independence".