Andrew de Murray

1. Andrew de Murray The Lost Independence Hero

2. Murray War chief and Rebel • The consequences of the Scots' defeat were not long in being felt as the English King began to impose his will on Scotland. The victor of Dunbar, the earl of Surrey, was put in charge of Scotland by King Edward.[23] English soldiers were soon to be found in Scottish castles and King Edward’s tax collectors followed in their wake. The latter, notorious for their personal corruption, also took the chance to exploit the Scots to enrich themselves. The Scots, who had been lightly taxed by their kings, now faced heavy taxes to help fill the English king's coffers. • King Edward appointed an efficient, if notoriously obnoxious, administrator, Sir Hugh de Cressingham, as Treasurer of Scotland. Cressingham, aided by his corrupt clerks, went about his task with energy, and by the end of May 1297, had dispatched £5,188 6s. 8d. to King Edward.[24] Cressingham's greed, however, quickly created a sense of discontent which was ripe for exploitation. King Edward, in addition to placing a heavy tax burden on his new subjects, was also keen to exploit them for manpower to fill the armies that he was raising to fight in Flanders. He began planning to conscript Scots to serve overseas, including the nobility of the defeated realm.[25] News of this decision caused widespread alarm. A combination of all of these factors meant Scotland grew increasingly restless and resentful under English rule, and the flames of rebellion were soon spreading across the land. • Bothwell Castle, construction of which was begun by Sir William Moray. While the Scots suffered the pain of English occupation, Andrew Moray was dealing with the humiliation of imprisonment. He was, however, far too determined to be held in Chester Castle, and sometime in the winter of 1296-97, he escaped from it. Eventually he returned to his father's lands in north-eastern Scotland, though it is not known how or by what means he made his escape. Although there is no way of knowing how the trauma of defeat in battle at Dunbar and imprisonment in Chester Castle affected him, it would quickly become clear that the man who returned to Scotland in the spring of 1297 was a ruthless and determined leader of men who was about to send shockwaves through English-controlled Scotland.

3. War Chief and Rebel Continued • Andrew Moray was back at Avoch castle in May 1297, one of the most significant months in Scottish history. "In the month of May of the same year", the Hemingsburgh Chronicle notes, "the perfidious race of Scots began to rebel." This first act of this rebellion was marked by two events: Andrew Moray proclaimed his defiance of English rule by openly unfurling the banner of the Morays of Petty at his father's castle at Avoch; and William Wallace marked the start of his rebellion against English rule with the murder of the English Sheriff of Lanark. • News of Moray's return quickly drew supporters to him. It seems to have inspired many people who chafed under English rule, such was the speed with which they joined him. Although Sir Andrew Moray of Petty remained imprisoned in the Tower of London - where it appears he would die as King Edward's prisoner - many of his tenants willingly joined his son in arms. Andrew the younger was also joined Alexander Pilchie, a burgess from Inverness, and a number of other burgesses from the town. English soldiers and administrators stationed in Inverness and the surrounding area must have been deeply shocked by news of this putative rebellion against their authority, fearing what the consequences of it would be for them. Sir William fitz Warin, the English constable of Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness, later wrote to King Edward in July 1297 that • “ "Some evil disposed people have joined Andrew de Moravia at the castle of [Avoch] in Ross." ” • Andrew Moray and the "evil disposed people" that joined him in open rebellion against English-rule would soon possess sufficient strength to begin a serious campaign against King Edward's men and would quickly show just how much destruction they could wreak.

4. Murray… • But not quite the one we know

5. Attack Of Castle Urquhart • The kingdom of Scotland, regardless of the ease of King Edward's conquest of the previous year, lay restless under the burden of English rule. In the spring and early summer of 1297, it was scarred by scattered outbreaks of violence against the English occupiers and their loyal Scots allies. A number of these outbreaks of discontent were so serious that the English officials on the ground sought assistance from the king. The provinces of Argyll and Ross were both riven by violence in the early months of 1297. While on the west coast, Lachlan and Ruarie MacRuarie of Garmoran were in open rebellion, killing the king's officials and destroying royal property. The violence was not limited to northern Scotland. Rebellion gripped Galloway in south-western Scotland in April 1297, with the rebels successfully seizing castles held by the English king's men. There was also strife in Fife, where MacDuff of Fife and his sons were in open rebellion against English rule. It is likely that many other similar acts of rebellion have been lost to us by the passage of time. • News of these acts of defiance began to filter into the English Court in the early spring of 1297. King Edward issued an uncompromising response, ordering that the rebels were dealt with firmly. Early in April 1297, he ordered his loyal supporters in Argyll and Ross to assist “his chosen and faithful subject Alexander of the Isles” to suppress the rebellion there. The rebellion in Galloway was suppressed by Donald mac Can and other loyal chieftains. King Edward wrote to them on 13th June to thank them for their grisly work. The English Sheriff of Aberdeen, Sir Henry de Latham, received orders, dated 11th June, to deal with rebels in the north-east. King Edward appears to have considered the situation to be so serious that he also dispatched men from England to help in the suppression of the rebels. On 4th June, he sent Henry Percy and Walter Clifford to assist in mopping up the rebels in Scotland. It was into this charged environment of violence and unrest that Andrew Moray boldly stepped in May 1297.

6. Urquhart continued • Andrew Moray did not take long to plunge the province of Moray into a state of rebellion. At this time, King Edward's principal follower in Moray was Sir Reginald Cheyne, the Scots sheriff of Elgin. A number of Scots lords continued to actively support King Edward. Although their loyalty appeared to ensure that England could rule Scotland without utilising massive numbers of soldiers and administrators to install a completely alien regime, their ultimate loyalty was frequently questioned by English officials and chroniclers. Cheyne was quickly alarmed by the chaos caused by Moray's rebellion and wrote to the king requesting assistance. The king responded by instructing him to vigorously suppress the rebellion. Sir Reginald ordered all of his principal lieutenants to attend a meeting at Inverness Castle on 25th May 1297 to discuss the best way to deal with Andrew Moray and his band of rebels. One of the participants was Sir William fitz Warin, constable of Urquhart Castle standing on the western shore of Loch Ness. • Once the meeting ended, Sir William fitz Warin made his way back to Urquhart Castle accompanied an escort of mail-clad men-at-arms. A few miles to the south of Inverness, Sir William and his men were ambushed by Andrew Moray, and were fortunate to escape with their lives to the safety of the loch-side stronghold. Next day, Sir William fitz Warin awoke to find that Moray and his men were besieging his castle and later that morning, he sent a messenger to demand the castle's surrender; it was refused. At this point, the Countess of Ross unexpectedly arrived on the scene with her retinue. The countess, whose husband was currently held in the Tower of London, sent a messenger to Sir William saying that she had nothing to do with the ambush and expressing her sympathies for his predicament advised him to surrender. Although this advice was ignored, the supplies that she managed to get into the castle were welcomed warmly, and her actions were later warmly commended to King Edward by Sir William. In the end Moray, with no heavy siege equipment available to him, was forced to abandon the attempt on Urquhart after a failed night attack, leaving Sir William fitz Warin in possession of the castle to lick his wounds and send an account of this brief mêlee to his king.

7. Battle of Urquhart castle

8. Battle Of Stirling Bridge • By the late summer of 1297, King Edward possessed little, if any, authority over Scotland. The reality of the breakdown in royal control was described in a letter to the king from Cressingham: • “by far the greater part of your counties of the realm of Scotland are still unprovided with keepers, as [they have been killed or imprisoned]; and some have given up their bailiwicks, and others neither will nor dare return; and in some counties the Scots have established and placed bailiffs and ministers, so that no county is in proper order, excepting Berwick and Roxburgh, and this only lately.” • Of the castles situated north of the River Forth, only the castle of the port of Dundee was still in English hands. This state of affairs could only be reversed by a full-scale armed invasion of Scotland which would permit the reimposition of King Edward’s authority over Scotland. For Moray and Wallace to have any hope of meeting such a threat, they had to combine their individual forces into a single army. It is not known exactly when and where the two rebel commanders met, but it is possible that it was in the vicinity of Dundee castle, which was besieged by the Scots in early September 1297 • King Edward's lieutenant in Scotland, the earl of Surrey, finally appears to have recognised the need to take decisive action late in the summer of 1297. He had done little to act against the rebels and was subsequently vilified by chroniclers for his indolence. One English chronicler, Walter of Guisborough, said of Surrey: • “The earl [of Surrey] ... to whom our king committed the care and custody of the Kingdom of Scotland, because of the awful weather, said that he could not stay there and keep his health. He stayed in England, but in the northern part and sluggishly pursued the exiling [of the] enemy, which was the root of our later difficulty.

9. Stirling Bridge and Murray • Surrey mustered an army and marched into central Scotland. Moray and Wallace, hearing of its advance marched to Stirling where they waited for it north of the River Forth close to the old bridge at Stirling. • The view over the battlefield from the castle. In the foreground in the mediaeval stone bridge and in the background is the National Wallace Monument, standing on the Abbey Craig on which Wallace is reputed to have stood before the battle. • Surrey's conduct of the ensuing battle, which was characterised by an arrogant and unimaginative adherence on his behalf to the chivalric conventions of the day, was inept and he was easily outmanoeuvred and outfought by Moray and Wallace. He sent the vanguard of his army across the narrow bridge under the Scots’ gaze, who, rather than wait myopically for the entire English army to cross the bridge and deploy for battle, struck when it was only partially deployed. In the ensuing carnage of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Surrey's isolated vanguard was hacked to pieces. The remainder of the English army was isolated on the southern bank of the River Forth and could only look on as their comrades were slaughtered. Soon they began to flee the scene, led in their flight by Surrey, whose “charger never once tasted food during the whole journey” according to Walter of Guisborough. • The defeat of Surrey’s army at Battle of Stirling Bridge on 11th September 1297 represented the crowning moment of Andrew Moray’s rebellion. The most notable English casualty was Cressingham, whose corpse was mutilated by the victorious Scots. The Lanercost Chronicle records that Wallace had • “a broad strip [of Cressingham’s skin] ... taken from the head to the heel, to make therewith a baldrick for his sword” • It is estimated that Surrey lost one hundred knights and five-thousand infantry men in the slaughter at Stirling. The Scottish casualties went largely unrecorded as the Scottish army was largely made up of humble infantry soldiers. There was, however, one irreplaceable loss on the Scottish side: Andrew Moray.

10. Stirling Bridge and Murray

11. Murray’s death • It is widely believed that Andrew Moray was only wounded in fighting at Stirling, dying sometime in the winter of 1297-98 of the wounds that he sustained in the fighting. This belief can be traced to the survival of two letters bearing his name. There is, however, evidence that he was actually killed in the fighting or, at the very least, died in its immediate aftermath. • An inquisition into the affairs of Sir William Moray of Bothwell, Moray’s uncle, who had died in England was held in Berwick in late November 1300. It was determined, during the inquisition's proceedings that Andrew Moray was:["slain at Stirling against the king." In contrast to this firm piece of evidence regarding the Moray's death, the belief that he survived into the winter of 1297-98 rests on the survival of two letters bearing his name. The first letter was sent from Haddington on 11 October to the mayors of Lübeck and Hamburg, two of the towns of the Hanseatic League, by: "Andrew de Moray and William Wallace, leaders of the kingdom of Scotland and the community of the realm." The second one was issued to the prior of Hexham on 7 November by:[48] "Andrew de Moray and William Wallace, the leaders of the army and of the realm of Scotland." Since the name of Andrew Moray does not appear on any other document after this date, it is deduced that he must have succumbed to his wounds around this time. • But the importance of these letters is undermined by the lack of any mention in English or Scottish sources of Moray's presence at Hexham during the invasion of northern England when this latter letter was issued. William Wallace was certainly there. • It seems clear that, although Moray had died in the fighting at Stirling Bridge, William Wallace continued to need to issue documents jointly in the name of his deceased co-commander. Wallace may have had possession of Andrew's Moray's seal, thereby allowing him to issue documents bearing his dead comrade's name. The death of Moray had not only robbed Wallace of a comrade but also of a shield against the jealousies of the traditional elites. Moray was himself a noble with connexions to the highest echelons of Scottish feudal society; without him, Wallace, the former outlaw, was dangerously exposed, as much at risk from the political intrigues of Scots nobles who felt he had usurped their natural right to exercise power as from military reprisals by the English. Wallace's action in continuing to associate himself with the name of Andrew Moray added a much-needed measure of political gravitas to his actions prior to his appointment to the guardianship of the realm. Only once Wallace was knighted and emerged as Guardian of Scotland, as he did some time prior to March 1298, was it no longer necessary to issue letters jointly with Moray.

12. His Death continued • The name of Andrew Moray did not, however, disappear from the pages of history. A few months after his death, his widow, whose identity is lost to us, bore him a son, also named Andrew.[50] The child, who would accede to the lordships of Petty and Bothwell, would also play a decisive rôle in resisting the attempts of Edward III of England, grandson of 'The Hammer of the Scots', in the 1330s to conqueor Scotland. Sir Andrew would twice occupy the position of regent for King David II, the son of King Robert I, and lead the realm in the king's absence. Sir Andrew Moray of Petty and Bothwell would display a remarkably similar aptitude to that shown by his father for leading the armies of the kingdom of Scotland in the face of English aggression. And, like his father, he would also die prematurely in defence of the realm.

13. Murray’s Rep • The death of Andrew Moray robbed Scotland of a gifted military leader at the time of the kingdom's greatest need. Moray's achievement in the summer of 1297 was immense, and had a list of the castles that he captured or razed ever been written, it would surely have been a long and impressive. It is likely that, had Moray lived, his position in Scottish society and his contribution to the campaign of 1297 would have meant that he, like Wallace, would have been knighted and appointed to the guardianship of the realm. The documents issued in his name after his death all but confirm this belief. • But Moray was not, of course, a talented soldier by accident. It is likely that the training that he received in his youth as he embarked on the path to knighthood would have laid special emphasis on equipping him with the skills to perform an important leadership-rôle in the command of the feudal-host of the Scottish kingdom, such was his place in thirteenth-century Scottish society. It is no accident that he possessed the ability to direct the Scottish army at Stirling to a famous victory: it is to him, therefore, that much of the credit for the victory at Stirling Bridge should be assigned. • A combination of Andrew Moray's early death in battle and his close association with William Wallace, a man who has become an almost mythical figure in Scottish history due to the embellishment of his deeds by Henry the Minstrel who sought to use him to advance the political aims of his patrons, has meant that the spectacular achievements of Andrew Moray are little known in Scotland today. There was, perhaps thankfully, no part for him in the historically-frightful Wallace biopic Braveheart. Indeed, while there are many statues to William Wallace scattered across Scotland from Aberdeen in the north-east to Dryburgh in the Scotish borders, there is nothing similar to commemorate the brief life and heroic exploits of Andrew Moray. It is hardly a fitting fate for a heroic and important Scottish patriot.