Scottish Battles E-Book

John Sadler

• Herausgeber: Birlinn
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 518

Beschreibung

Scottish history has been shaped and defined by a series of great battles. John Sadler gives the first full military history of Scotland for many years. From Mons Graupius to Culloden, he shows how terrain and politics shaped the campaigns and decisive engagements we still remember today. Each chapter also features sections on the development of warfare - its tactics, equipment and styles of fighting. For the military historian, Scotland is a fascinating example of how a small country can fight off domination by a far larger neighbour. From Celtic warfare to the feudal host to the professional armies of the eighteenth century, from guerrilla warfare to the pitched battle, from siege to Border Reiver, Scotland is unique in having had almost every major type of warfare taking place within its frontiers. Battles such as Bannockburn, Flodden, and Culloden, have a resonance and impact far beyond Scotland. John Sadler weaves chronicle, narrative and analysis together in a masterly way, recreating the drama and passion of centuries past.

Leseprobe

SCOTTISH BATTLES

This eBook edition published in 2012 by Birlinn Limited West Newington House Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QSwww.birlinn.co.uk

Copyright © John Sadler, 1996 and 2010

The moral right of John Sadler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-84341-047-8 eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-512-3

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

To David Winston Eggleston A brave Douglas and a true friend

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all those friends and colleagues from whom over the years I have had the opportunity to learn, by discussion and by reading, of the many aspects of Scottish military history. As to the opinions and interpretations and, of course, in respect of any mistakes contained herein, however, I remain entirely responsible.

Acknowledgement should also be made of the assistance given by Dr David Caldwell of the National Museums of Scotland; Miss Catherine May of the National Galleries of Scotland; Mr Joseph Wright of Historic Scotland; Mr Brian Moffat of the Johnnie Armstrong Museum of Border Arms & Armour; Ms Alyson Rhodes of the Art Department and to John Ferguson for sharing his researches into Flodden. Thanks are due also to Dr Richard Oram for providing me with an insight into exciting new lines of enquiry with regard to the Agricolan campaigns in Scotland; Mr Charles Wesencraft for allowing me to use photographs of his superlative models; to my agent, Duncan McAra, for his indefatigable assistance and encouragement; to Neville Moir and Hugh Andrew of Canongate Books for their support and enthusiasm; to Glenda-Gill for her patience and forbearance in typing and re-typing the manuscript and enduring my appalling handwriting; and lastly to my wife, Ruth, for her support throughout.

J.S.

Contents

List of Battle Plans

Preface

‘We are not yet subdued’: MONS GRAUPIUS, AD 84

The Four Peoples: NECHTANSMERE, 685

The House of Canmore: CARHAM, 1018

‘Not for glory . . . but for freedom’: BANNOCKBURN, 1314

‘A Douglas, a Douglas’: OTTERBURN, 1388

The Rough Wooing: FLODDEN, 1513

Raids and Reivers: ANCRUM MOOR, 1545

The Paladin: DUNBAR, 1650

The Killing Time: KILLIECRANKIE, 1689

Blood on the Heather: GLENCOE, 1692

Kings over the Water: CULLODEN, 1746

Postscript: The Thin Red Line

Notes on Sources

Select Bibliography

Index

List of Battle Plans

Stirling Bridge 11 SEPTEMBER 1297

Falkirk 22 JULY 1298

Bannockburn 23 JUNE 1314

Bannockburn 24 JUNE 1314

Flodden 9 SEPTEMBER 1513

Pinkie Cleuch 10 SEPTEMBER 1547

Auldearn 9 MAY 1645

Alford 2 JULY 1645

Kilsyth 15 AUGUST 1645

Dunbar 3 SEPTEMBER 1650

Killiecrankie 27 JULY 1689

Sheriffmuir 13 NOVEMBER 1715

Glenshiel 10 JUNE 1719

Prestonpans 21 SEPTEMBER 1745

Falkirk 17 JANUARY 1746

Culloden 16 APRIL 1746

Preface

It is possible to view Scotland’s history as a chronicle of battles from the defiant stand of the Caledonians in AD 84 to the last charge of the clans over Drummossie Moor, the final vestiges of that tribal society pelting through the sleet towards oblivion. The object of this study, therefore, is to provide for the general reader a military history from the Iron Age to the defeat of the Jacobites in 1746.

At a number of key points in the nation’s history its development was decided by a clash of arms. The fateful encounter at Nechtansmere (Dunnichen Moss), in the distant spring of 685, determined that the kingdom would no more be a mere Northumbrian client; later the carnage at Carham in 1018, when another Northumbrian host was decimated, resulted in acceptance of the banks of the Tweed as marking the border. Wallace and Bruce, by their prowess, threw off the English yoke in the early fourteenth century and, of the first four Stewart kings, none died in his bed.

With each of the battles described I shall attempt to sketch in the general political and social background and expound, where appropriate, on the weapons and tactics employed. Obviously, and especially with earlier encounters, the details may be scanty and the existing accounts not infrequently contradict one another. Medieval chroniclers were apt to gild the horrors of battles with poetic licence and certainly tended to exaggerate the numbers involved. As a rule of thumb and when trying to assess the size of forces deployed it is prudent to divide the chroniclers’ estimate by ten.

An understanding of leadership is always vital to an assessment of any battle or campaign; on paper Montrose’s forces, available at the outset of 1645, were paltry yet that was to be the Year of Miracles when successive armies sent against him would reel in defeat. It is certainly possible to say that without Bruce there could have been no Bannockburn and equally without the ostensibly reckless and misplaced ardour of James IV, no Flodden Field. Lord George Murray would never have willingly fought a battle on Culloden Moor, and the Jacobite cause might have triumphed half a century earlier if Dundee had not fallen in his moment of victory at Killiecrankie.

The often bloody trail of Scottish history is strewn with myths. The celebrated nineteenth-century Prussian strategist Von Moltke is credited with the belief that to sustain morale boosting myths ‘is a duty of piety and patriotism’. The employment of myth as a tool of propaganda is not uncommon but it is not history and the historian has a duty to consider the romantic fiction of the past in a more objective light. Hollywood burlesque such as Mel Gibson’s Braveheart has added a new veneer of romantic fiction which plays to a Nationalist sentiment, fuelled by romance ahead of history.

Battles can be described in a variety of ways; one form of treatment is described by the eminent military historian John Keegan as the ‘general staff approach’ – a purely objective, often sanitised view, aimed at reducing the uncertain horrors of conflict to a scientific study, where battalions advance as pieces on a chess board and whereas troops may be ‘badly mauled’ or ‘suffer casualties’ the agonies and the all too frequent waste are considered irrelevant. In this approach battles are classified by type – battles of encounter, attrition, envelopment – conducted on the basis of set principles, concentration, offensive action, surprise.

This dissection has a role to play, but I believe the study of war cannot evade the stark realities of conflict or ignore the fact that blind chance is frequently an arbiter on the field. War is essentially nasty, battle the antithesis of civilised behaviour, where ruthlessness, brute force, low cunning and deception march alongside valour and idealism.

There is also the ‘great man’ approach, a tendency to view history as being moulded by the actions of outstanding characters. Napoleon Bonaparte may have remarked, ‘History is but a fable agreed upon,’ though I am uncertain if this utterance came before or after Waterloo. I believe war is best seen, as far as possible, through the eyes of the embattled, ‘allowing the combatants to speak for themselves’, though this route, too, is fraught with peril, as frequently those engaged in battle see only a limited position and that, not unnaturally, distorted by stress. Any attempt to see early battles through the eyes of the warriors engaged is frustrated by the fact that most, if not all, were illiterate and many early writers, Tacitus being a good example, are less than impartial in their approach.

Surprise, facilitated by sound intelligence, has always been a significant factor in victory. It was not uncommon in the Saxon era for commanders to agree to meet and do battle at a certain location at an appointed time, like a rather boisterous picnic, but given the difficulty of terrain, the relative smallness of forces and the lack of efficient communications, armies could easily miss one another which would make for bloodless, if frustrating, campaigning. Fear should never be underestimated, terror fuelled by propaganda leading to atrocity, as exemplified by Cumberland’s fatal order in the wake of Drummossie Moor:

A captain and 50 foot to march directly and visit all the cottages in the neighbourhood of the field of battle, and to search for rebels. The officers and men will take notice that the public orders of the rebels yesterday was to give us no quarter.1

In fact, no such order had ever been given but an eyewitness reported the deadly earnest of the redcoats, acting in pursuance of their general’s bidding:

‘the poor men made a shift to get up and went along with the party with an air of cheerfulness and joy, being full of the thought that their wounds were to be dressed’. But an instant later a volley of shots rang out and the twelve ‘poor men’ were poorer still.2

No study of battle can ignore horror and degradation, nor, however, should it dwell upon these. Moral judgements, too, are best avoided; it is difficult in the comfort of one’s own chair to ponder upon what so and so should have done but battlefield decisions are usually made in the heat of the moment, amidst smoke, dust, confusion and not infrequently with shot and shell raining around – factors which can dominate even the coolest of minds.

This history is therefore an attempt to look at a series of battles which were significant in terms of scale and/or consequence. It will endeavour to place each encounter or series of encounters in the context of the period and also look at the tactics, weapons and fortifications of the era. It will try to explain the combat in clear tactical terms whilst seeking to relate how it might have felt to be a combatant. In any event, this work celebrates the rank and file of Scottish armies throughout history, and their present descendants, who through triumph and disaster have never failed to add valour to their country’s name.

‘We are not Yet Subdued’

Evening on the fringe of the Highlands. The four-square marching camp, distinctive playing-card shape, a fresh scar upon the landscape, green-timbered palisade and fresh thrown earth, a raw intrusion. It bears the imperial stamp of Rome and the cutting edge of empire crowds the tented hides.

The attack comes with an appalling swiftness, stillness rent by strident cries, great host swelling unseen, a ragged steel-tipped avalanche. The mad exultant rush carries the outworks, gasping sentries overwhelmed, men from distant Spain vomiting blood onto Caledonian soil. Beneath the slashing swords and stamping feet of the tribesmen many of the Legio IX (Ninth Legion) are falling, no time for triple ordered ranks and wall of shields.

Men struggling with harness, fingers clumsy with fright, mouths dry, but yet they are not children these men of Rome, they are the legions, pride of the empire. Singly, in twos and threes, in groups, centurions screaming obscenities, they stand and fight, a soldier’s battle, no general’s hand or genius guiding. Every man for himself, rally to the standard, painted faces hideous in the near dark. They twist and dart, no room for manoeuvre, no space nor time to cast a javelin, parry clanging on shield, thrust into naked belly, skittering back, clutching entrails.

Across the clear and darkened air the sound of conflict carries to the tent of the Roman general, dread chance already half-anticipated. The camp’s alert sounds, cohorts formed, orders bawled and curses shrieked. Armoured men stumbling through the short summer night across the trackless wastes. The forced march continues through the night till dawn’s first grey light.

Exhausted, depleted, but not yet beaten the Legio IX is still fighting. Discipline begins to tell, the wild charge of the clans has leaked its fury through the savage night. The host seeks refuge in flight, crowding into sheltering mosses, denying serious pursuit.

The Caledonians

By the time the Roman legions, under Gnaeus Julius Agricola, invaded the area now called Scotland in the latter part of the first century AD, the people of Caledonia had a social system which was capable of offering large-scale resistance, able to raise an army to face invaders. Such a force could be maintained in the field and they could produce leaders competent to develop a coherent strategy.1

This strategy manifested itself in the cautious approach adopted by the Caledonians. The tribes respected the armoured legions and did not rush headlong into a pitched battle but sought to probe the Roman columns for weaknesses, to attack supply lines and disrupt communications. As a race the Celts have often been accused of throwing themselves into battle and dissipating their resources in a usually fruitless rush to death and glory. The defeats the southern tribes had suffered at the hands of Rome appear to have taught their northern neighbours wariness.

At this period, some 120 years after the Romans had first attacked under Caesar and 40 years since the Claudian invasions of southern England, the area now called Scotland was a forbidding fringe on the northern frontier of a mighty empire whose southern flank rested on the Euphrates.

Tacitus describes all territory north of the Forth as ‘Caledonia’ but distinguishes the particular tribe called the Caledonii (who were a Highland tribe living round the Great Glen, north and west of the Creones) from others such as the Vacomagi, who seem to have occupied Angus and the Mearns, the Taezali of Buchan, the Decantae of Ross, the Lugi and the Cornovii of Caithness and the Venicones south of the Tay. In the regions to the north-west lived the savage Cereni, Smertae and Carnonacae, who were said to smear their faces with the blood of the slain.2

Celtic Warriors

In their descriptions of the people Roman writers tended to associate the chieftains of Caledonian tribes with the fair-headed warriors from Germany. According to Tacitus, the ‘reddish hair and large limbs of the people of Caledonia . . . speak of German origin’.3 Calgacus, the great hero of Agricola’s war, is more properly known as Calgaich, the Swordsman, a name not unknown in Ireland.

In addition to this warrior élite Cassius Dio4, writing of Severus’s Campaign, mentions a more primitive people, nomadic hunter-gatherers who had no agriculture and went naked and barefoot. We may thus envisage tall, redhaired chieftains with their distinctive helmets, enamelled shields and proud spears. The peasant levy were distinguished by lime-washed hair and skin tattooed with woad. Leaders, chariot-borne chieftains, clothed in fine tunics and breeches with leather sandals, their distinctive oval, hexagonal or rectangular shields might be decorated with symbols of animals or geometric designs.

As a race the Celts were renowned as horse warriors and, throughout antiquity, had been used as mercenaries by both Greeks and Romans. Indeed, horse and rider were a favourite theme of Celtic art and the horseman seems to have possessed a fairly high social status. Their tactics were often based on the principle of hit and run, combining speed and firepower. It has been suggested that Celtic cavalry may have fought in small tactical units not unlike the medieval lance, in which the heavily armed horse warrior was supported by his more lightly armed followers and groom.

Only chiefs and proven warriors were armoured, with iron helmets and shirts of mail. The long Celtic sword which was worn slung from the hip also appears to have been a badge of rank. The Romans appear occasionally to have been disconcerted by a swaggering propensity for theatrical flourishes of swordplay. Although there is some suggestion that many Celtic swords were of poor temper and often had to be unbent or straightened in the course of battle, some undoubtedly were of fine quality. Examples have been found varying in length from 55cm to 77cm and a particularly fine example dating from between 50 BC and AD 100 was found at Embleton in Cumbria.

Celts were noisy fighters; accounts speak of the huge din their hosts created, a great undisciplined mob of men, horses and chariots, war chiefs resplendent as Homeric heroes and the sinewy horde on foot. There are many representations of Celtic accoutrements, their standards, horns and trumpets. The commonest form of the latter was the Carnyx, a good example of which was found at Deskford.

There appears to be a continuity of identity between the Caledonians and the Picts, or Pictii, first mentioned by a Roman writer in the later third century AD. The description ‘painted people’ has come down as a somewhat disparaging term although the name may have derived from a confusion to Roman ears with the Celtic Pretani mentioned by an earlier traveller, Pytheas of Masillia. Possibly the Caledonians carried on the older Celtic tradition of applying blue-shaded body colouring which appears to have continued north of the Wall some time after it died out in the south. Caesar, in his commentaries on the invasions of 55 and 54 BC, mentions the southern Britons decorating themselves in this way. The more primitive northerners, less tamed by the civilising hand of Rome, may have clung to the old ways.

It has been suggested that the Caledonians, despite their physical similarities to the Germanic tribes, are more likely to have originated in Ireland though there is no real evidence of this, and the nature of their forts or duns suggests a non-German origin. It may be that the western fringes may have been settled by immigrants from the south-western corner of present day England. North and west of the Great Glen there are examples of hill forts timber-laced in the Germanic fashion. The language of the Caledonians also suggests a non-Irish origin, Brythonic as opposed to Goidelic (Irish).

Agricola, General and Governor

Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a member of the Roman governing class and we are fortunate to have a formal biography written by his son-in-law P. Cornelius Tacitus. The general served his apprenticeship under the redoubtable Suetonius Paulinus and was blooded in the fierce campaign against Boudicca and her Iceni. Later he was promoted legate of the Legio XX Valeria Victrix. By the time he began to cast his eyes northward he was already imperial governor of Britain, probably in his early forties and at the height of his considerable powers. He was appointed in AD 77 by the Emperor Vespasian. Earlier in that same decade Q. Petillius Cerealis had conquered vast tracts of northern England and subjugated the hitherto independent Brigantes. His successor Julius Frontinus hammered the wild Silurians and Ordovices of Wales. This policy of expansionism was continued by Agricola, who, within the first two years of his tenure, completed the conquest of Wales and set a firm grip upon Brigantia.

To provide logistical support for his ambitious policy he established a line of frontier forts between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Tay, supported by a typically efficient road system.5 An early expedition penetrated as far as Strathmore and created a forward outpost at Ardoch near Dunblane. Later, in his subsequent campaigns, he sought to block the main exits from the Highlands by constructing forts at Fendoch, Dalginross and Callander. At Inchtuthil, near the junction of the Isla and Tay, he built a major fort, intended to serve as a legionary base.

The first expedition in AD 80 required a force of some 20,000 – 25,000 legionaries, 5000 auxiliary horse and 10,000 foot. The shock troops were drawn from the four British-based legions: Legio II Augusta, from Caerleon, Legio XIV Adiutrix, from Gloucester, men of the Legio IX Hispana, marching out of Lincoln and his old legion, Legio XX Valeria Victrix, based at Wroxeter.

He first advanced into Scotland in AD 79 and overran the country as far north as the banks of the Tay. He consolidated his gains behind the Forth/Clyde line but in AD 81, spurred on by Domitian’s hunger for glory, he began an ambitious and aggressive exploration of the west coast. The following year he made the strategically important advance beyond the Tay and in the final storm fought his great battle which we know as Mons Graupius (the Grampian Hill).6

For the campaign of AD 83 he used a striking force whose cutting edge was comprised of detachments from three legions – II, IX and XX – though all of these appear, particularly Legio IX Hispana, to have been under strength due to overseas commitments. In an auxiliary role he used the fleet which sailed up the length of the east coast, thus exploiting a significant military and naval advantage whilst also securing a line of supply. The Romans always made good use of intelligence and understood the value of detailed reconnaissance; Agricola was clearly master of his trade.

The offensive involved the building of what were, in effect, forward battalion posts which were to be used for aggressive patrolling and further reconnaissance. The Highlands, west of Perthshire, must have appeared unattractive to a heavily armoured conventional army of the time though the Romans had campaigned successfully in even more difficult terrain.7 It made far more strategic sense to make use of the broad valleys running roughly parallel to the east coast.8

The cornerstone of this sustained advance was to be the great legionary fortress at Inchtuthil. His strategy clearly appears to have been to advance northward by this eastern route securing the seaward flank with the fleet and blocking, with a fort, or battalion post, every passage to the Highlands on his exposed left, creating a coastal corridor and securing his otherwise extended lines of communication. By these means he would seek to reach the gateway to Scotland’s granary, the land along the south side of the Moray Firth, west of the Spey, whilst the wild tribes of the west remained confined to their mountain fastnesses.

The Roman Legions

The basic tool the imperial governor proposed to use in achieving this victory was the Roman heavy infantryman, the legionary, a man who trained for ten hours a day for five years. Such a soldier was led by a professional officer core of tribunes, all of whom were Roman citizens and usually young men of equestrian or patrician rank, careerists or political opportunists on the first rung.

The legions marched beneath their fabled standard, a silver eagle carried high upon a tall shaft, the loss of which in battle was the greatest dishonour any legion could suffer. In Agricola’s time the armour and accoutrement of the legions had nearly developed to its full extent. Possibly not all were armoured but wore a leather cuirass with an iron helmet, flanged to protect the neck. At the waist a metal-studded belt from which hung six weighted rows of iron beads, on their feet thonged sandals finished with heavily nailed soles. Each shoulder was covered with an epaulette of double thickness, beneath the chaffing leather a close-fitting tunic and breeches which reached down usually to mid-thigh.

The figures marching in worn relief on Trajan’s mighty column show clearly the rounded helmet with its distinctive cheek-guards and knotted sweat-cloth worn around the neck to prevent chaffing. The shirt beneath the cuirass is kilt length and has sleeves ending at the elbow. These legionaries, though obviously dating from a later period, wear the classic armour which consists of a series of five iron strips or loops around the torso, jointed to allow lateral movement, topped off by hinged shoulder plates and known as lorica segmentata. As this armour is believed to have been in service by AD 75–80 Agricola’s legionaries may have looked very similar to their Trajanic descendents. Officers, gorgeous in ornamental plumed helmets and encased in moulded and chiselled breast plates, also sported torques and plaques cast in bronze and gold.

The distinctive curved, legionary shield, or scutum, was rectangular in elevation, framed in wood, covered with hide. Each legionary carried a heavy seven-foot pilum or javelin and short stabbing sword, the gladius, auxiliaries carried the heavier lancea. The legionary javelin had a sharp, well-tempered point connected to its shaft by a long shank of soft iron. Should this, when thrown, strike an enemy shield it would become embedded, the soft shaft bent and the enemy, virtually unable to withdraw the weapon from the shield, was forced to discard it as useless. Thus, when the fighters clashed hand to hand, the short and lethal gladius could do its deadly work beneath the enemy’s upraised sword arm.

The essential tactical formation was the legion itself which, at full strength, would comprise 5280 foot divided into ten cohorts of 480 men each. The cohort was subdivided into six centuries or three maniples. The first cohort, double strength and comprising the fittest and most experienced soldiers, was commanded by the general or legate. The post of adjutant belonged to the camp prefect and each cohort was commanded by its own tribune. To assist them in the realities of military life these young noblemen had a nucleus of senior NCOs, the redoubtable centurions. Of these the most respected and most grizzled carried the honoured and hard-won title of pilus prior. Each century was loosely divided into ten squads each of eight men commanded by a junior NCO, or decurion. Despite his high level of morale and physical fitness the legionary could fight for only 15 minutes at peak efficiency and thus the cohort of 600 was divided into ten 60-men waves so that each soldier fought for no more than the allotted quarter and rested for a full hour; this system thus ensured that the front line was constantly manned by fresh troops.

Battle of Mons Graupius

It was with such a force that Agricola marched north from Inchtuthil in the summer of AD 84. His advance had by now brought him almost to the granary of the northern hill tribes. This was a prize the Caledonians could not afford to let slip. To do so would be to invite defeat through starvation and the martial temperament of the hill tribes was such that they would not suffer humiliation without offering resistance.9

The location of Mons Graupius is uncertain – the word ‘Grampian’ derives from a setting error in the text of Tacitus’s biography of Agricola when it was printed in Milan in the 1470s – but on a warm day in that distant summer it was thronged with 30,000 or more determined warriors led by a chieftain/general called Calgacus. The foot, it appears, were marshalled in ranks upon the slope of the hill which, though it appears to have risen quite steeply in places, was free of forestation or scrub.

In front and occupying the more level plain stood the chariots. This may be somewhat inaccurate, as Tacitus says ‘in the midst’, which probably means the chariots stood in the centre of the Caledonian force rather than to the fore. He later goes on to state that ‘it was the foot who clashed first’ which would imply that the chariots were stationed on the flanks. It is quite possible that Mons Graupius was not really a single hill at all but a series of undulating ridges. We have an impression that the Celtic forces may have crowned a succession of low hillocks, which could help to explain how a division was deployed to menace the Roman flanks, even though the main body was already hotly engaged.

Although the use of chariots in warfare had virtually died out by this time these remote clansmen, far to the north of the civilised centres of the Mediterranean countries, and even of southern England, still clung to the old ways. Outdated as they have been, such chariots none-the-less commanded some respect from the Romans. In construction they were very light and elegant, riding upon two spoked wooden wheels, bound, as were the hubs, with iron and the wheels themselves secured to the axle by means of iron linchpins. The body of the vehicle was open front and back, constructed of a light ash frame, finished with wickerwork panels. Usually the chariots were pulled by no more than two horses or ponies, perhaps similar in appearance to modern Welsh hill ponies, 12 or 13 hands in height, but harnessed with splendidly crafted and enamelled rein rings and flexible bridle bits.

Each chariot had a crew of two; one a driver, the other a warrior. We know from contemporary descriptions that the chariot warriors were capable of running along the pole as far as the yoke whilst travelling at full speed and then turning to run back. The chariot seems to symbolise the very spirit of the Celt, its design embodying practicality and superb elegance in perfect harmony. In all probability the chariots prowled the dead ground between the armies, the warriors hurling Homeric challenges.

The day prior to the main engagement the Romans advanced towards the foot of Mons Graupius but Agricola was determined to rest his troops before committing them to battle and the men dug, ditched and palisaded a marching camp in their habitual manner. On that next and fateful morning the imperial army drew up beyond the camp in line of battle; 8000 auxiliary foot in two lines of almost equal strength, with 1500 light horse on either flank, faced the foe. The legions themselves were held in reserve; Agricola appears to have been determined to let his auxiliary troops bear the initial brunt. To avoid being outflanked by the superior numbers of the Caledonians the Roman line was spread quite thinly and their front probably covered a distance of some two miles or so. As a further reserve were four brigades of cavalry covering the legions’ flanks.10

It may be that Agricola exaggerated the size of the force which confronted him; a fine victory is never spoiled by higher odds and 30,000 appears a very high figure for a Celtic army though we must remember that he was facing a coalition of tribes, the Caledonii having been joined by men of the Taezali and Vacomagi. Before the battle Tacitus has each of the commanding generals addressing his troops. He puts a fine anti-imperialist speech into the mouth of Calgacus, though this should be treated with some degree of scepticism:

We, the most distant dwellers upon earth, the last of the free, have been shielded till today by our very remoteness and by the obscurity in which it has surrounded our name . . . But there are no more nations beyond us; nothing is there but rocks and waves now, before us more deadly still than these – the Romans.11

Agricola, as befits a true professional, kept his address brief and to the point. He warned his troops that to suffer a defeat whilst engaged so deep in enemy territory would be an irreversible disaster, and with this pragmatic advice the general sent away his horse and took up position, on foot, in front of the legions, beneath the proud glare of the eagles.

With the formalities thus concluded the business of the day could begin in earnest and presently the air was filled with a deadly rain of missiles as each side loosed their barrage. Although many of the Roman javelins must have found their mark their impact failed to shake the ranks of the Caledonians. They stood their ground, dodging javelins, deflecting them with their long-bladed swords. Agricola ordered four of his Batavian and two of his Tungrian cohorts to close with the enemy, these Batavians, from the Rhine delta and the Tungrians from Tongres in the Ardennes were first-quality fighting troops. With commendable élan they swept into the ranks of the Caledonians thrusting with their short swords, jabbing shield bosses into screaming painted faces. So decisive was the shock of impact that the Celts on the lower level began to give way and the cohorts pressed forward.

Although Tacitus is quite emphatic that the Celtic chariots were in the centre of their army, it is certainly not impossible and, in fact, would appear more logical, if these had been positioned on the flanks; it may have been that the opening moves in the battle also involved a brisk cavalry action between British chariots and the Roman horse on the auxiliary wings. Quite possibly it was the Celts who, with the reckless bravado typical of their race, began the attack by charging the Roman squadrons.

At some point, however, horse and foot appear to have become intermingled in one desperate mêlée. The weight of numbers which the tribesmen were able to dispose and the nature of the ground began to slow the otherwise inexorable advance – well-ordered lines shaken and disordered by broken chariots, the mangled bodies of horses and men.

The next initiative came from the Britons. Several bodies of foot had descended from the further ridges and made their way around to outflank the embattled cohorts, a bold move but one which Agricola had already anticipated. He rushed his four reserve mounted brigades, or alae, to the front and threw them against the massed Celtic foot. Thus it was the Romans who triumphed on the flanks as the Britons were driven in some disorder back upon their lines.

Under constant pressure in the centre and hemmed in on both flanks the Caledonian line began to dissolve. Many were cut down as they sought refuge in flight. The Roman cavalry on their flanks were ideally poised for relentless pursuit. A few isolated pockets of Gaesti, or berserkers, continued to hold out, at great cost, but the majority withdrew as best they could towards sheltering woods to the rear.

Though defeated, the tribesmen had some fight left in them, and a body of foot rallied at the woodland fringe and turned on their pursuers. This tactic might have cost the Romans dear as their own jubilant infantry pounded pell-mell after the fleeing Britons. Agricola, though, was master of the situation. The infantry pursuit was checked, the ranks reordered, and the line advanced steadily against the diehards. The Britons melted into the cover of the enveloping trees.

The open plain now presented a grim awe inspiring spectacle . . . equipment, bodies and mangled limbs lay all around on the blood stained earth.12

As the last echoes of combat died away Agricola was able to report that some 10,000 Caledonians lay dead upon the field. Their army, or what remained of it, was in full retreat. As for casualties on the Roman side he reported 360 dead including one tribune, Aulus Atticus, who, according to his commander, ‘was carried away by his youthful bravery and by his spirited charge into the midst of the enemy’.

The next day awful silence reigned on every hand, the hills were deserted, houses smoking in the distance . . .13

Although he had won a great victory Agricola was not able to follow it up due, at least in part, to the lateness of the season. The victorious Romans withdrew into the territory of the Boresti, an unknown tribe whose lands must have lain somewhere around the Moray Firth. By stages the great army dispersed into winter quarters.

The battle of Mons Graupius may have marked the furthest northward advance of any Roman army, prompting Tacitus, with a certain measure of poetic licence, to claim that Britain ‘was completely subdued’. Calgacus himself seems to have survived the battle though his credibility as a general would have been severely if not fatally damaged by the magnitude of defeat. Obviously, the loss of so many young men to a tribal society together with the inevitable damage to their crops must have been a major blow and the survivors would spend a miserable and demoralised winter.

It is fair to say, however, that the larger portion of the Celtic army had escaped and the Romans denied any effective pursuit. Calgacus, as a general, is to be commended for the manner in which he chose his position and for the manner in which the withdrawal was effected.

Despite this seemingly glittering victory Agricola’s forward policy had many opponents in Rome, who asked whether a major expedition into such harsh and unproductive territory was really worthwhile. Whatever the reason Agricola was recalled soon after the battle and his role in the affairs of north Britain came to an end.

The actual site of the battle has exercised scholars and enthusiasts ever since. The discovery of a large marching camp near Inverurie to the north-west of Aberdeen has been used as the basis for suggesting that a hill, known as Bennachie (1073 ft), may have been the location. Other historians, notably W. F. Skene, thought the site lay beyond the Isla at the hill of Blair. A Roman marching camp has been found at Meikleour in the peninsula at the junction of the Isla and Tay, and between these two points there is a flat plain known as the Muir of Blair.14

More than a dozen possible sites have been suggested for the location of Mons Graupius, including the Pass of Grange near Keith and Durno, under the lee of Bennachie near Inverurie in eastern Aberdeenshire. The most plausible is perhaps a site south of the Mounth, where the Bervie Water flows below Knock Hill near Monboddo in the Mearns, a district which in the tenth century was known as ‘the Swordland’, and which, even in the turbulent years of the early medieval period saw more than its fair share of conflict.15

After this bloody interlude Scotland north of the Tay sinks back into obscurity.16 Yet Rome had not finally done with this vexatious northern province and the eagles returned in force in the summer of AD 140 when the governor, Lollius Urbicus, began building the Antonine Wall, completed five years later, stretching for 37 miles and including 18 forts.

Though still impressive the Antonine was a lesser work than Hadrian’s Wall to the south. Though it spanned the narrow Forth/Clyde isthmus it was open unless covered by a strong naval presence to amphibious raids on both flanks, it carried neither mile castles nor turrets and the forts were considerably smaller. It has been suggested that Hadrian’s Wall had, in effect, a dual garrison, a ‘police’ force and a mobile field force ready to take the fight to the enemy. The smaller garrison of the northern bastion had to fulfil both roles.17

The total complement probably never exceeded, say, 7000 men, of whom perhaps a third were legionaries.18 The wall itself was of an altogether more utilitarian construction, turf ramparts with timber palisades. Even the forts were built of wood.19

There has been much speculation as to why the Antonine Wall was ever thrown up in the first place as the earlier wall was certainly not abandoned. The answer most probably lies in the growth in the population and power of the Lowland tribes, many of the hill forts scattered through the present border counties date from the second century AD and it may be that Rome felt the need to lay a restraining hand on these virile and likely quarrelsome neighbours. It could be further suggested that this pacification involved the slighting of numerous of the native forts and some forcible relocations of the inhabitants.20

The dissipation of manpower resources between the two lines of defence may have contributed to a crisis which arose shortly after the completion of the Antonine Wall. The Brigantes, the powerful tribe of north-east England, rose in revolt and the flames seem quickly to have spread to the Lowlands. The northern wall may have suffered and there is some evidence of rebuilding at this period. Late in the century, however, in the ill-fated reign of Commodus,21 a major uprising occurred in the Lowlands and the wall was overrun:

Of the wars waged by Commodus the greatest was in Britain. The tribes in that island crossed the wall which divides them from the Roman fortresses, and did great harm. They slew a [Roman] general and the men under his command. Commodus, greatly alarmed, sent Ulpius Marcellus against them.’22

A good choice, a tough martinet with previous experience in Britain, defeated the rebels and restored order, obviously not without cost. The tribesmen appear to have overrun the Antonine Wall and inflicted serious casualties. Quite clearly, however, Hadrian’s much stronger bulwark to the south held out. Marcellus proceeded to rebuild the northern wall but there is the sense that this was largely a face-saving exercise, for the structure was abandoned before the century was out and the works dismantled. Rome had won another battle but the initiative seems to have passed to the native tribes and the frontier rested on Hadrian’s Wall for the remainder of the occupation.

When Commodus’s unedifying reign was terminated by an assassin’s knife the empire reeled in the wake of civil war and bubbling internecine strife as rival claimants scrabbled for the purple. Not till the rise of the dour ‘African’ Septimius Severus, the former governor of Upper Pannonia, was order restored. Clodius Albinus, his British counterpart, was one of those who threw his hat or rather his sword into the ring – unsuccessfully; he was trounced near Lyons and chose the well-tested option of falling on his own sword.

In launching his abortive enterprise Albinus stripped the northern garrisons and the wall, hated symbol of imperial domination, was thoroughly slighted with a most unbarbarian thoroughness. So total was this epic of destruction that many later scholars believed that Severus had actually built the wall rather than restored it.

Particularly active were the Maeatae,23 who capitalised on Rome’s aberration and weakness to despoil and pillage at will. So powerful were these raiders that Severus at first did not feel strong enough to engage them in the field but relied on bribery and subsidies to buy them off. The emperor spent ten years from 198 to 208 in reconstructing his shattered defences. Once secure he launched a series of punitive raids which occupied him until his death at York in 211.

The effect of these campaigns in Scotland has been the subject of much debate; it has been suggested that this resumption of an aggressive ‘forward’ policy was a failure – no great battles were fought and won, the tribes relied on Fabian and guerilla tactics. In the end Severus died, the northern tribes unimpressed and unsubdued. His son and successor abandoned his father’s policy and Scotland was left alone thereafter.

Conversely it can be argued that Severus’s policy was never aimed at conquest or even permanent pacification; his intention was to intimidate and overawe, to impress with the might of Rome’s long arm. In these limited and more realistic objectives he may well have been successful for the frontier did remain quiet for several generations. It is possible that he did carry out some further forcible resettlement of particularly troublesome clans.

Amidst all of these alarums Scotland did enjoy some of the many benefits of Roman civilisation; the military occupation provided a network of good roads and a boost to the local economy – forts such as Trimontium24, were large manufacturing and distribution centres in their own right. Others such as Inveresk, near Musselburgh, fuelled the development of a civilian settlement or vicus beyond the walls.

The large native hill fort or oppidum at Tap o’ Noth near Rhynie in Strathbogie may be contemporary with the Roman occupation – a major site enclosing about 50 acres and which may have been the focus for a tribal grouping north of the Forth/Clyde line. If so then its inhabitants must have been able to co-exist with the Roman garrisons for there is no evidence that the place was ever stormed or slighted.

As the legions finally withdrew southward the land we call Scotland must have appeared little touched by the Pax Romana and certainly far less so than England. To what extent the Roman occupation influenced the later history of Scotland is a constant, and likely never ending, source of debate. The land was fought over, wasted and patrolled but never finally subdued or dominated. And yet no one who has seen the majestic and still awe-inspiring sweep at Hadrian’s Wall can deny its impact; in the words of another writer – ‘Hadrian drew the line’25 – he created a frontier. Though the line moved north and then south again the eagles were there for over four centuries and the imprint of their culture cannot have entirely failed to leave a mark.

The Four Peoples

The disaster which a confederation of Picts and Scots and Britons from Strathclyde inflicted on the hitherto almost invincible Northumbrian host at Dunnichen Moss (Nechtansmere) amongst the Sidlaw hills in the spring of 685 was a momentous victory. The defeat of the Angles put an end to their systematic inroads onto Scottish soil which had threatened to turn the Pictish kingdom into a mere Northumbrian province. On the occasion of the 1300th anniversary of the fight in 1985 it was hailed as the most decisive battle in Scottish history.

These tough descendants of the Anglian Chief Ida had begun to exert pressure on their Celtic neighbours after they had established themselves on the north-east coast of England. Aethelfrith, aptly named the ‘Destroyer’, had clashed with the Scots of Dalriada led by Aedán mac Gabrain in 603 when the latter attempted to push back the tide of Anglian encroachment.

A great battle was fought at Degsastan, which may be Dawston in Liddesdale, though sites as far distant as Dissington, near Ponteland, just north of Newcastle upon Tyne, have been suggested.1 The Scots came on full of impetuous valour and in the first clash the Northumbrian van, led by the king’s brother, Theobald, was overcome and its chieftain killed. Aethelfrith countered with his main body and for a space the field was hotly contended as both sides held their own and casualties mounted. The discipline and staying power of the better drilled Anglian warriors began to tell and the Scots host, at length, disintegrated, Aedán fled for his life but counted most of his followers amongst the fallen. ‘From that day until the present,’ wrote Bede in 731, ‘no King of the Scots in Britain has dared make war on the English.’2

This should not imply, however, that the Angles had it all their own way; this influx and expansion were not uncontested. Relegated to the land of bardic myth is the principality of Rheged whose capital may have been Carlisle and whose kings claimed descent from Magnus Maximus. Even the boundaries of this Celtic state remain a mystery. None-the-less its most celebrated ruler, Urien, was a favourite hero whose praises were sung by Taliesin and Llywarch Hen. He defeated the Angles in a series of battles and succeeded in penning them up in their coastal fortresses.

Hussa reigned seven years, against whom four Kings made war, Urien, and Rideric, and Guallian and Morcant . . . and he shut them up three nights in the island of Metcaud [Farne Island]: and during that expedition he was slain, at the instance of Morcant, through envy . . .3

Disunity, the tragic flaw of the Celt, jealousy and the assassin’s blade ended Urien’s brilliant reign. He was treacherously struck down at the mouth of the Low Burn near what is now Beal, presumably at the instigation of his supposed ally Morcant.4

With Urien slain the mantle of chieftainship was passed to Owain his son, ‘Chief of the Glittering West’ and a worthy hero to succeed his father. Owain, too, became a favourite of the bards, whose noble verses chronicle the death-throes of Celtic Britain.

Owain is credited with a great victory over the Angles at Argoed Llwyfain, when the Saxon prince of Fflamddwyn is said to have suffered defeat and death. Ultimately he too failed to stem the tide and fell at the battle of Catraeth (Catterick?) around 593, an end made glorious by the poet Aneirin’s epic of the ‘Gododdin’.5

The Rise of Pictland

Though Rheged vanished the other British kingdoms survived. Saint Patrick wrote to the Damnonii, secure in their rocky fastness at Dumbarton, ruled by one Coroticus or Ceredig, who was roundly lambasted by the saintly traveller for trafficking in slaves.

North of the Britons lay the kingdoms of the Picts and Scots. The former, who comprised the majority, were the descendants of those who had rallied to Calgacus. Their origins were obscure; Irish legend chronicles the Picts’ first arrival as invaders from distant Scythia, an interesting if unlikely conjecture. It does appear that there were two distinct Pictish kingdoms, for as early as 310 Cassius Dio refers to the Caledonii as living north of the Maeatae, who so disturbed the reign of Commodus. In 565 Columba visited the Pictish king, Bridei, in his dun near the future site of Inverness.

Several centuries later Bede distinguishes the northern from the southern Picts, early kings, who could be graded in the Irish manner: rí tuaithe – a petty king or tribal chieftain; ruirí, overking and the rí ruirech or King of overkings – and who were little more than local warlords with power shifting on the thrust of a spearpoint.

It may be that in this early period the balance of power lay more with the northern Picts but seems to have finally swung in favour of the more southern province of Fortriu which originally covered what is now Strathearn and Mentieth. Gradually a series of aggressive ruirí extended their sway over, first, the Mounth and, finally, the whole of the north. The chief hold of Fortriu was at Scone, a site that in the reign of Kenneth mac Alpin in the ninth century began to acquire its deep religious and mystic significance.

Bridei mac Bile, who slew Ecgfrith, brought all of the Picts beneath his own potent banner, and carried it against the Scots of the western seaboard, attacking their formidable capital at Dunadd. His descendant Oengus MacFergus (752–61) finally defeated the Scots and achieved a Pictish supremacy.6

The Scots of Dalriada

These Scots were immigrants who had filtered across the Irish Sea in relatively small numbers, probably not beginning to arrive before the fall of Rome. By 500, however, their chieftain Fergus Mor and his two brothers had established toeholds in Kintyre, Lorn, Islay and Jura.

Their principal hold was that splendid fortress of Dunadd, a site which even today remains heavy with the scent of legend. Columba built upon the faith of these invaders and religion appears to have strengthened the infant kingdom which sturdily maintained its independence from its numerous and warlike Pictish neighbours.

Aedán mac Gabrán was the great-grandson of Fergus Mór; he established himself king of the Dalriadic Scots in 573 and was crowned by Columba. He pursued an aggressive policy towards his Pictish neighbours but was first repulsed by them and then crushed by the Northumbrians. Further disasters followed: Aedan’s grandson, Domnall Brec Aedan, fell in battle against the British King Owain of Strathclyde in 642. Thereafter the Scots were beset by internecine feuds leading to an epic sea battle in 719 when a cadet branch emerged triumphant. Even this could not stop the rot and a new breed of warlike kings of Fortriu battered Dalriada; in 741 Oengus led his Pictish warriors to victory over the Scots.7

The Art of War

Skirmishes between these uneasy neighbours were frequent affairs, swift and bloody encounters opened with swarms of lightly armed horse warriors, mounted on sturdy garrons, deluging their opponents with a shower of lances. When the foot closed they massed in solid formations, phalanx-like, armed with strong, heavy-bladed spears and square shields. Stone carvings suggest that these formations may have been quite well organised with rows of pikemen protected by a separate rank of shield-bearers, perhaps suggesting the origin of the later medieval schiltron.

The rank and file would not be likely to possess fine weaponry, armour or accoutrement; such as was to be found would be the reserve of chieftains, who carried long-bladed swords, possibly of Irish origin, and wore rounded iron helmets. Casting spears were undoubtedly also in use by the foot and the Irish Annals speak of javelins propelled by attached thongs, the grip retained by the thrower who could thus recover the dart if the cast missed its mark.8

Naval warfare was also important at this time; we have already seen how the sub-kings of Dalriada fought at sea and Pictish kings also maintained substantial fleets of swift galleys, each typically having seven benches, 14 oars and a crew of twenty-odd.

The Annals of Ulster also record the fury of the attack on Dunadd by Oengus MacFergus in 742 when the fortress fell to the Picts and the kingdom thereafter survived only as a client of Pictish kings.

Despite this bloody feuding there was a great deal of intermarriage, for example of Dalriadic kings bearing Pictish names and vice-versa. By a strange twist of fate it was a Scots chieftain, Kenneth mac Alpin, who took the Pictish throne in 843 and who began the business of unification, though this business took some four centuries to complete. Exactly how this coup was achieved is uncertain. The Picts were wearied and battered by Viking raids and Kenneth’s lightning campaign appears to have succeeded without any major battle. As Pictish Kings ruled afterwards, it appears possible that the two peoples may have been closer to unity than was previously supposed.

The Angles

When Aethelfrith, the pagan victor of Degsastan, himself fell beneath the blade of his successor Edwin, the heroic age of Northumbria could be said to have begun. The emerging power of the northern Anglian kingdom began to reach into Lothian. This pattern of conquest was far from consistent. Northumbrian kings were frequently diverted by bloody squabbling with their powerful southern neighbours from Mercia. Edwin himself is credited with giving Din Eidyn (Edinburgh) its name. Anglian armies frequently pushed northward to the Forth/Clyde line and Dunbar became the stronghold of a Northumbrian Ealdorman.

The late seventh-century king Ecgfrith had developed a considerable contempt for the Picts borne out of earlier and easier victories. Apparently, quite early in his reign, a Pictish confederation had rebelled against the Northumbrian yoke, only to be decimated when the Angles stormed their redoubt. Ecgfrith’s cavalry, possibly aided by Pictish allies, slaughtered the lightly armed Celts in a lightning attack, ‘filling two rivers with the corpses’, according to the Anglian Chronicler Eddi.9

In his spring campaign of that fateful year he pushed up to the Forth without meeting any serious opposition and crossing at Stirling drove up through Perthshire to the Tay. It may be the expedition was less than popular with his own subjects, some of whom viewed this aggressive stance as pure warmongering for little practical gain.

Bridei mac Bile was no mean opponent and the Northumbrian’s overconfidence proved his undoing. Bridei had come to preeminence early in the decade when he had established himself as ruler of all Fortriu.10 A formidable confederation was arrayed against Ecgfrith, memory of the Angles’ prowess temporarily blotted out internecine rivalries and the Picts may have been joined by Scots from Dalriada and Britons from Strathclyde.11 The same Fabian tactics that had, generations earlier, foiled and frustrated the emperor Severus, served well for the Anglian host, which was led onto broken and difficult ground amidst the Sidlaw Hills. Respect for the well-armed Northumbrians kept the tribesmen at bay but, already, the killing ground had been chosen.

The Northumbrians

The Anglians were a warlike race, sprung from that virile Saxon stock which first reached these shores as mercenaries in the service of the British chiefs they were soon to supplant. Chiefs of renown attracted a unit of hardened warriors to their banners, a retinue of house-carls who were expected to follow their leaders to victory or death – for one to return home when the chief had fallen was the greatest dishonour.

The Northumbrian host would comprise a hard core of these seasoned veterans gathered around the person of their king with a more motley array of levies, latterly called the ‘fyrd’. These commoners would be scarcely better armed or accoutred than their Pictish foes.

Few would boast any form of armour other than leather jerkins and simple iron skull-helmets. Swords were a rarity and most would carry the cruder sax and heavy thrusting spears, long leaf-shaped heads socketed onto seven-foot ash staves. Shields were rounded and slightly convex, of wood covered with hide and stiffened by a metal rim and bands.

Chieftains and their retainers could present a far more martial appearance – protected from throat to thigh by a short-sleeved mail shirt or byrnie, the ‘ring woven corselet’ or ‘woven breast nets’ of bardic lays. The head was covered by a helmet framed in iron and finished with plates of horn perhaps surmounted by the warrior’s crest, say, a bronze boar, such as the example found in a burial at Banby Grange in Derbyshire. It was not unusual for helmets of this period to come with sculpted facepieces, giving the wearer a degree of bizarre anonymity.

Swords were rare and precious things, the true emblem of a warrior elite, given as prestigious gifts or handed down through families. A yard-long blade, straight, double-edged and shallow-fullered, short functional quillons, grips of wire-bound wood. The distinctive, angular or ‘cocked hat’ pommels might be mounted with gold and bejewelled. Particularly prized samples were often given names such as Egils’ Dragvandil.12

Nechtansmere

South-east of Forfar, at Dunnichen Moss on 20 May 685, the Pictish confederation was waiting and as the Northumbrian host lumbered into view they struck. A storm of missiles poured from the hills dropping unarmoured levies by the score. The traditional fighting formation of this period was the unwieldy but often redoubtable shield wall – the chieftain and his warriors in the centre, lesser mortals massed on the flanks. Bridei had chosen his ground well; the terrain did not favour a regular deployment and the suddenness of the onslaught appears to have caught the invaders totally unaware.

If the Northumbrians were ever able to form a line of battle they did not long retain their ranks. The levies, stunned, bruised and now a very long way from home, broke and ran – a fatal error, it may be supposed, for most, however, as their retreat was hampered by the presence of a small lochan called Nechtansmere. It was here around the banner of their king that the Northumbrian élite paid the full price for his headstrong folly. The lochan itself, located somewhere between Dunnichen and Leithen, no longer exists nor is there any trace of the contemporary settlement which may have stood on the south side of Dunnichen Hill and whose presence further hindered the invaders’ attempt to deploy.

Any attempt to ascertain the numbers involved in the battle would be purely speculative – we may certainly assume that they were not great. It is not improbable that the Picts and their allies outnumbered the Northumbrians. It may be that the mere fact of a confederation suggests warbands from each kingdom rather than the mass array of Calgacus’s day. Ecgfrith’s warband numbered a few hundred at most, a total force of perhaps 500 or 600 men.

The victory was total. The threat of Anglian dominance declined and the country moved a definite step towards nationhood. It may be possible to speculate that without the defeat of Northumbria the union of Picts and Scots might have been delayed and Kenneth mac Alpin’s overlordship may not have occurred when it did. By uniting, even temporarily, in the face of a common foe, the disunited peoples of Scotland began to function as a race. Even without this defeat it is probable that the Anglian threat would have diminished. Ecgfrith was the last of the easy ‘heroic’ kings of Northumbria and his death marked the advent of a more cautious age,13 though some of his successors such as Eadbert in the mid eighth century won great renown.