I - The Provision of Ships for Edward I's Campaigns in Scotland, 1300–1306: Barges and Merchantmen

Summary

Froissart's vivid descriptions of the discomforts of campaigning in Scotland and the absolute necessity of ensuring that the armies were properly supplied with victuals and all the other things needed provide the background to Edward I's concern with using the Naval resources of his kingdom to supply his forces in Scotland. In 1327 Froissart wrote:

the men had to sleep in full armour, holding their horses by the bridles since they had nothing to tie them to, having left their equipment on the carts which could not follow them over such country. For the same reason there were no oats or other fodder to give the horses and they themselves had nothing to eat all that day and night except the loaves which they had tied behind their saddles and these were all soiled and sodden with the horses’ sweat. They had nothing to drink but the water of the river … they had no lights or fire and no means of kindling them.

In 1298, at the siege of Falkirk, the English army had almost starved for lack of supplies; clearly an army could not expect to live off the country in Scotland but must rely on all supplies being brought up from the south with transport by water being the most practical method.

The documents printed here illustrate two aspects of the need to provide shipping to support campaigns in Scotland in the later years of Edward I's reign. First there are four accounts which give details of the building of vessels, usually called barges, for the king [1–4], and secondly there is a selection of writs and accounts which provide examples of the way in which shipping was arrested by the Crown for these campaigns and the kind of problems which could arise [5–7]. All the documents come from the class of Exchequer Accounts Various (E101) at the National Archives at Kew.

Edward I had become involved in the affairs of Scotland after the death of Alexander III in a riding accident in 1286, leaving no direct heir except a young girl, Margaret, the Maid of Norway, his granddaughter. Her mother, also Margaret, who had been sent from Scotland to Norway to marry King Eric II, had died, probably in childbirth, leaving this little daughter as the only surviving direct descendant of Alexander, whose two sons had predeceased him.