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In the winter of 1315-1316, Sir James Douglas
besieged Berwick, still held by the English. Heavy rains the previous spring and
summer had already led to the beginning of the Great European Famine. Throw in a
little siege, and Maurice de Berkeley, the commander of Berwick, was reduced to
begging Edward II for help by October 1315. Few rations could get through the
Scots’ blockade, however.
Finally, on February 14, 1316, a company of
Gascon soldiers decided they would go get food for themselves. Under the
leadership of a Gascon noble, the knight Sir Edmund Caillhau (or Raymond, in
many sources), this company ventured into the rolling farmland along the River
Teviot. They spread out, looking for cattle.
One Sir Adam Gordon saw
some of them and raced to Douglas to report that there were a few cattle raiders
out and about. Douglas accepted the report and went to intercept them. Instead
of a few cattle raiders, he found a host of well-armed fighting men.
There are relatively few accounts of this battle to be found on the internet.
The most detailed account I have found comes from David R. Ross’s wonderful book
James the Good: The Black Douglas. He reports that the incident happened at
Skaithmuir (SKAY-mur) a few miles north of Coldstream. Douglas came upon
Caillhau’s brigade in the flat, open country of the Merse, perfect for cavalry,
but with no natural defenses. Just the sort of situation James Douglas typically
avoided.
With only seconds to decide whether to retreat or attack, he
made the decision he would not run on Scottish soil, on his own marches, of
which he was warden. His men were seasoned fighters, having spent the previous
ten years and more fighting the English, and he had great faith in them. He
stationed his men behind a small ford before unfurling his famous white banner
with the blue band and three white stars, signalling his intent to fight.
The Gascons charged. They no doubt expected to easily overcome this small
group. John Barbour, in The Brus, tells about the fight:
The Scotsmen
bravely fought them back
There one could see a cruel fight.
And
strokes exchanged with all their might
The Douglas there was full hard
pressed
But the great valor he possessed
So lent his men
courageousness
That no man thought on cowardice.
The Border
Magazine, Volume 12, 1907, adds the picturesque touch that old tales say so much
blood was shed in the battle that the river ran red for three days afterward.
(The author of the piece seems to doubt it, but it is interesting that such
stories would continue for centuries.)
John Barbour, interviewing men who
knew Douglas, says Douglas later called it the hardest battle he ever fought.
But, like Bannockburn, it resulted in sound defeat for the larger English force
with amazingly few losses at all on the Scots’ side. Douglas himself fought his
way to, and killed, Caillhau. With their leader dead, the Gascons lost heart,
and were quickly beaten. James himself learned a lesson from this, and from that
time on, always went for the leader of the opposing armies.
Most reports
on Skaithmuir say there are no records of the size of James Douglas’s force,
except that it was significantly smaller. David R. Ross says that Caillhau had
80 to Douglas’s 40. Maurice de Berkeley reported four days after the event that
twenty men-at-arms and sixty foot soldiers were missing.
In the wake of
Skaithmuir, James Douglas disappeared back into the Ettrick Forest, but
afterwards, the tale was told by Englishmen of how he fought and won against
overwhelming odds, and he was spoken of with awe.
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