The Problems of John Balliol

Lindsay Webster

On July 8^th 1296[1] at a meeting in Montrose, John Balliol, King of Scots had the Royal Arms torn from his surcoat in an act of ceremonial humiliation. This final insult brought to a close the sad kingship of a man whose entire reign could be seen as being dominated by the way in which he took power. How true is it that John never escaped from the consequences of his accession to the throne? To answer this it will be necessary to look at John Balliol himself, the nature of his accession and the events of his reign.

One of the things that must first be understood about John Balliol was that he was not Scottish. He was the Lord of Galloway but his father was an English noble based in Barnard Castle in County Durham. John’s Scottish roots lay with his mother, Dervorguilla heiress of the Lordship of Galloway. It must also be understood that John became king through a series of accidents. At his birth, nobody would ever have imagined he would even inherit his father’s lands as he was the fourth son. However, all his brothers predeceased him leaving John to inherit the Balliol title. [2] John’s claim to the throne came through his mother who was descended through the female line from Earl David of Huntingdon, a Grandson of David I. [3] This gave him a very weak claim to the throne particularly since in 1280, Alexander III was still fit and well and had two sons, a daughter who in the early 1280’s gave birth to a granddaughter. This meant the royal line seemed relatively secure. However, fate had other ideas and by 1286, the only members of the royal house left alive were Alexander and his little Granddaughter who was in far off Norway. [4] This did not overly concern anyone as the nobility were willing to accept little Margaret as heir for the moment and at the same time, Alexander took a new wife who soon it seemed was pregnant. However, late one night as Alexander rode home through a storm, his horse threw him over a cliff and he was killed. The young queen’s pregnancy turned out to be phantom and no child came of it. A treaty was negotiated with Edward of England to marry Margaret to Prince Edward, the English heir but before the ceremony could take place, Margaret died while en route to Scotland. Scotland was without a king and without an heir.

            The untimely death of Margaret left Scotland with no clear heir and it would have been all too easy for the country to have dissolved into a bloody civil war to resolve the matter. However, sense and reason won the day and it was decided that the “Great Cause”, the contest for Scotland’s throne would be decided in the courts not the battlefield. This was to have serious implications for the winner as will be revealed later. In total, thirteen claimants emerged with varying strengths of claim on the throne. However, there were two clear frontrunners. John Balliol was one and Robert Bruce was the other. Both claimed descent from a daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon. Balliol’s claim was through the elder daughter but was not through a direct male line from there (the claim was through his mother’s family.) Bruce on the other hand was a direct male line descendant of the younger daughter.[5] This was a complete legal dilemma as nobody could say whether or not Balliol’s primogeniture overruled Bruce’s direct male line. No one can say why but at some point “the ageing and demonic Edward I” [6] became involved in the proceedings. Some would say that he was invited to give advice by one or other of the competitors but there is no real evidence. However he became involved, Edward soon had himself placed in the position of Judge. Watson argues that this was a bad move as if Edward had been brought in as arbitrator, it would have helped to maintain neutrality and would just have involved the two strongest candidates. Judgement on the other hand gave Edward effective control over Scotland.[7] Edward also demanded that whomsoever he chose to be king, would have to swear fealty to him as feudal superior. This demand would reduce the eventual victor to a vassal king and seriously weaken their position as a king. The Great Cause was finally decided by a court of 104 auditors. Forty were selected by Bruce, forty by Balliol and twenty-four by Edward. This effectively meant that the Bruce/Balliol factions cancelled one another out and so the election would be decided by the English votes. Eventually, it was Balliol who won and he was crowned at Scone in November. As a clear sign of who had put him on the throne, the ceremony was carried out by the Bishop of Durham and an English noble named John de St John.[8] That December, John gave homage and swore fealty to Edward.

            John was king, a foreign baron who had sworn fealty to a foreign king. However he was not an unpopular choice. One need only look at a selection of the auditors he was able to call upon for the judgement. They included four Earls, the Lord of Argyll – effectively an Earl -, Six bishops and eight Abbots not to mention that as Lord of Galloway he was a powerful Scottish landowner in his own right.[9] His supporters included the Comyn Earls of Buchan, arguably the most powerful baronial family in Scotland. This support would have considerably bolstered John’s position as king and helped to move him away from just appearing as a puppet of Edward. Indeed Nicholson says “Balliol set out to be no less of a king than his predecessors.”[10] However, it would not take Edward long to begin to fulfil his role as overlord.

            In January 1293, Edward forced John to release him from the Treaty of Birgham that had guaranteed Scottish independence from England during the minority of Margaret Maid of Norway and any other guarantees Edward had made during the interregnum.[11] By releasing Edward from these promises, John was effectively saying that the Independence of Scotland was no longer important and left Scotland open to domination from its larger neighbour. This is quite definitely a consequence of John’s forced homage after his election and shows him failing to escape the consequences of his accession.

            According to Barrow “The impression is sometimes conveyed that King John’s monarchy foundered on the question of appeals”[12] and this was to prove something of a stumbling block for John’s royal authority. There were a number of instances where court judgements were given in Scotland and the losing party then went to the English court to appeal. The implications of this are immense. It effectively added a new tier to the Scottish justice system and meant that John, in his role as king was no longer the supreme justice in the land, if people were not happy with his justice, they could go to Edward and get it overturned. This made John appear to be very weak and left his position as king open to challenge.[13] In fact, Barrow goes as far to say that John “might be regarded as a provincial governor or else a privileged feudatory enjoying ancient rights and revenues but possessing only the shadow of real power. He would certainly not be a king.”[14] Barrow does, however add that there was no mass rush to appeal to Edward and notes that most of the cases brought to Edward were by “foreigners and malcontents.”[15] Nicholson also says that although the cases were few in number they caused a crisis in Balliol’s kingship.[16] He goes on to partly blame John for the situation developing into a crisis as John tried to ignore the judgements coming from England. The English parliament then tried to demand that John was present at court any time there was an appeal from Scotland. This is a quite frankly ridiculous demand to make since John would have been expected to rule from Edinburgh or Stirling not have to constantly travel to London and back to witness appeals. This would have made his job of ruling Scotland nigh on impossible. This was the situation John found himself in and can be seen as a direct result of the nature of his accession. In November 1293, in a rare act of defiance, John failed to attend the parliament. When forced to attend, he apparently declared himself unable to answer for Scotland without first consulting its people. He also said he could “not admit any adjournment, for that would imply recognition of English jurisdiction.”[17] This shows John trying to break away from the English domination that threatened to envelop his reign. However, it failed. John was found in contempt of court and sentenced to lose his three most important Castles and towns. As Barrow says, John was treated by the English parliament like a “defaulting debtor.”[18] With the threat of such forfeiture hanging over him, Balliol gave in showing a great personal weakness and submitted to Edward. Once more it was shown clearly that Edward wanted John to know exactly who had put him where he was and who could strip that power from him in an instant.

            The issue of appeals was further complicated by the fact that for the length of time that the Great Cause had run, Edward had been effective ruler of Scotland and so was the natural source of justice in the realm. When Balliol was crowned, there would still have been unfinished business to attend to which raised the issue of whose court it would be judged in.[19]

            Barrow writes that “the judgement in favour of Balliol was surely the triumph of law, common sense and respect for orderly procedure in the most important public act in which a medieval nation could join.”[20] This is effectively saying that sorting out the succession through law not war was the best thing that could have happened. This is partly true since a war would have been very costly in terms of both lives and resources. However, there was a downside. In most civil wars, there is normally a clear victor, while the defeated leader is either killed, exiled or has his power shattered by military defeat and forfeiture. In the case of the Great Cause, since there was no war, the ‘defeated’ faction (i.e. The Bruce family) still maintained all their power, lands and supporters. This made them a powerful foe and a focus for opposition to John. Of course a civil war may also have destabilised and weakened Scotland leaving it vulnerable to invasion but this is all mere conjecture.

 Young claims that even before John was enthroned, it was obvious that the Bruce’s were never going to accept the accession.[21] He notes that earlier in November 1292, the senior Robert Bruce passed his claim to the throne on to his son to keep the family claim alive. The elder Bruces also refused to swear homage to Balliol.[22] With such a family opposing him, Balliol could never sit easily upon his throne. This is a direct consequence of his accession and shows him failing to escape.

            The Bruce’s used their power to thoroughly embarrass John in 1294 when they invested their own candidate in the bishopric of Galloway. As lords of Galloway, the Balliol’s thought themselves to be the patrons of the see but eventually, John was forced into a humiliating climb-down.[23] This clearly shows the weakness of John’s position caused by not suppressing the Bruce faction.

            It would appear that during the reign of John Balliol, there was very little actual legislation passed. This may be simply that the evidence does not survive or that John actually achieved little. One of the few pieces of legislation that does survive is the creation of new Sheriffdoms in the West of the country to help control the Hebrides.[24] This can be seen as a continuation of the policies of the last two of the Canmore kings.

            Another consequence of the Balliol accession was the further rise of the Comyn family. In 1286, the Comyn’s were already among the most powerful families in the realm and they themselves had a claim upon the throne through Donald Ban.[25] However, John Comyn renounced his claim and threw in his lot with John at the time of the great cause. There must surely have been reason behind this. The Comyn’s had been the dominant family under Alexander III and it may well be that they wanted to ensure this position was kept. Had Bruce won, he may well have suppressed the Comyns and so it was in their best interest to back Balliol. Such was the Comyn influence that Young goes as far as to say that in the Kingdom, the Comyn’s “actually held the reins.”[26] Had the Balliol and Comyn families not been allied, John’s kingship would have been even harder than it already was. The price of this alliance was of course Comyn dominance, a direct consequence of Johns accession.

            One of the final straws that broke the Scottish camel’s back was the issue of service abroad. Edward was very much of the view that since John was little more than a vassal of the English king, he should be treated like any other magnate and so when, in 1294, Edward went to war with France over Aquitane and Gascony, he demanded that John and eighteen Scottish magnates attend the muster and bring troops from their Scottish lands to fight for him. According to Traquair, by taking the oath of homage to Edward, John implied that he would fight when called upon but nobody expected he would. The last Scottish monarch to answer an English feudal summons had been Malcolm IV in 1159 and that had been deeply unpopular with the Scottish nobility.[27] The Scots refused to muster and a full-blown confrontation over the issue was only avoided when Welsh troops, raised and armed for the French campaign rebelled against the English. Traquair is of the opinion that John may have actually agreed to serve on the continent.[28] Whether this is true or not, it was clear to the nobility of Scotland that John could no longer be trusted. In July 1295, parliament removed authority from John and replaced him with a council of four earls, four bishops and four barons.[29] Scotland then negotiated a mutual aggression treaty with Philip the Fair of France, the start of the “Auld Alliance”. The following year, Edward invaded and sacked Berwick. It was at this point that John finally decided to stand up for himself and issued a renunciation of his homage to Edward that included the following line “We cannot any longer endure these injuries, insults, and grievous wrongs, nor these hostile attacks, nor can we remain in your fealty and homage (which, be it said, were extorted by extreme coercion on your part) and we desire to assert ourselves against you, for our own defence and that of our realm.”[30] This shows that John realised the situation he was in and that he had been forced into his original submission. It is clear evidence that John realised himself that he had not escaped the consequences of his accession.

It is not difficult to come to a conclusion about the reign of John Balliol. Having examined the evidence, it is obvious that John never truly escaped from the fact that he gained his throne by submitting to the more powerful Edward. It would also appear that he never escaped from his rivals who were constantly able to oppose and embarrass him, an intolerable position for any king to be put in. John’s position was not helped at all by the fact that he was not a strong willed man and so could easily be brow-beaten by Edward, forced to back down by his rivals and dominated by his allies. John Balliol is an unfortunate character in Scottish history. He was the wrong man for the job which at the time required a strong leader. He has also not benefited from the pro-Bruce writers who have forever recorded him in the history books as “Toom-Tabard” (empty tabard) after the ritual humiliation that ended his reign. Indeed, it is interesting to note that history also remembers him as John Balliol instead of King John, does this show some sort of national embarrassment that the Scottish people do not want to admit that he was their king? That, as they say, is another question altogether.

Bibliography

Barrow G.W.S. Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland (1988, Edinburgh)

Bartlett R England Under the Anglo-Norman and Angevin Kings (2000)

Nicholson, R. Scotland: The Later Middle Ages  (1974, Edinburgh.)

Prestwich, M Edward I (1988 London)

Stell, G The Balliol Family and the Great Cause of 1291-2 in Stringer K.J. Essays on the Nobility of Medieval Scotland. (1985 Edinburgh)

Traquair, P Freedom’s Sword (1998 London)

Watson. F. Under the Hammer (1998 East Linton)

Young A. Robert the Bruce’s Rivals: The Comyns, 1212-1314. (1997 East Linton)

ME2002 Source Booklet

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