English invasion of Scotland (1385)

In July 1385 Richard II, King of England, led an English army into Scotland. The invasion was partly retaliation for Scottish border raids but was mainly provoked by the arrival of an allied French army in Scotland the previous summer. For the previous 50 years, England and France had been engaged in the Hundred Years' War, and France and Scotland had a treaty of mutual support. The English King had only recently come of age and was expected to play a similar martial role to that which his father, Edward the Black Prince, and grandfather Edward III had done. Although there was an appetite for war within the English nobility, there was disagreement about whether to invade France or Scotland. Richard's uncle, John of Gaunt, favoured invading France, which would gain him a tactical advantage in Castile, the throne of which he claimed through his wife, Constance, albeit so far with little success. The King's friends among the nobility, who were also Gaunt's enemies, preferred Scotland as a target. The previous year's parliament had granted funds for a continental campaign and it was unwise to ignore the wishes of the House of Commons. Without funding, the Crown could not afford a big campaign. Richard chose to summon the feudal levy. This had not been called for many years, and it was to be the last time it was. In the event, the summons caused such uproar that it was soon abandoned, and the Crown proceeded to raise troops through its tenants-in-chief as was by now usual practice.

Richard promulgated ordinances to maintain discipline in his invasion force, but problems beset the campaign from the start. One of Richard's knights was killed by the King's half-brother before the army even reached Newcastle. Once there, the leadership was divided and often occupied more in squabbling among itself than in attacking the Scots, who, with their French allies, had retired in the face of the English advance and refused battle. The Scots destroyed provisions and infrastructure as they retired. The English swiftly exhausted their food and other supplies. By the time they reached Edinburgh, they had achieved little of military value, instead mostly burning churches. Gaunt may have proposed chasing the Scots into the mountains to force them to battle, but the King refused to countenance this and the army soon withdrew to England. As Richard's force left Scotland, the Franco-Scottish army counter-invaded England from the West March, reaching the walls of Carlisle. On its return to Scotland, Cumberland and Durham were pillaged. Richard was to propose another invasion of Scotland a few years later, but this came to nothing. The destination of his next foreign campaign was Ireland in 1399, and while he was there, he was deposed by Gaunt's son, Henry Bolingbroke.

Background

A contemporary painting of Richard II of England

The English government's finances were not sufficiently robust to fight a major campaign. Major English garrisons in Aquitaine, Brest, Calais and Cherbourg required funding, but three out of the four most recent parliaments had refused to grant the King any subsidy at all. Within a few years of Richard's coronation, unable to oppose the resurgent French Crown, many of England's continental possessions had been lost. By 1385 the pace of the war had slowed; what fighting did take place was predominantly through proxy wars, such as during the 1383–1385 Portuguese interregnum. The blame for these failures fell on Richard II's chancellor and favourite, Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who was accused of following a policy of appeasement. The historian Nigel Saul has suggested that, actually, "military retrenchment was not so much a matter of choice for Chancellor Pole; it was forced upon him by circumstances".

King Richard's supporters, predominant among whom were the Earls of Nottingham and Oxford, had fallen out violently the previous year with the King's uncle, John of Gaunt. This rupture gave credence to popular rumours that the Duke was to be assassinated during a tournament. Their rift originated in differences over foreign policy. In December 1384 the royal council had been in favour of a military expedition to Scotland, but Gaunt (and his brother, the Duke of Gloucester) had favoured France. Gaunt, in anger, stormed out of the meeting. Following the rumours of his possible murder, Gaunt retired to his castle at Pontefract, only obeying the King's summons to his presence early in the next year. When he did, he brought with him a large and heavily armed retinue.

France's newly-won gains threatened both English national pride and English economic interests. In 1384, de la Pole announced a royal expedition, although he—probably deliberately—avoided specifying its target. The choice was made for the crown when the French sent Jean de Vienne to Scotland with an army the following year, with a force of about 1,300 men-at-arms and 250 crossbowmen. This force was to both provide the Scots with technical assistance and to encourage an invasion of England. In early June the following year, it was decided at the Reading council that Scotland would be the young King's first campaign. The invasion was part of a broader and older policy of taking a robust stand against breaches of the standing Anglo-Scottish truce; the contemporary—English—Anonimalle Chronicle says it was "badly kept" by Scotland, as the Douglases were slowly eroding English holdings north of the border. However, during this period such truces could have a certain elasticity; the previous truce—between England, France and Scotland—had been negotiated in France in 1383. This state of nominal peace was, then, one which had been frequently broken. It did not stop Gaunt leading a chevauchée into south east Scotland in April 1384 (albeit with limited success), when he reached Edinburgh but no further.

Gaunt's preferred Scottish policy was one of peace, and he had recruited Scotsmen into his retinue. He also had personal reasons for wanting to avoid war with Scotland. Peace on the northern border would make it easier to further his plans in Iberia. Further, he had been well treated by the Scots on his previous visits; in 1381 the Peasants' Revolt had broken out in England, and the Scots had given him refuge for ten days. Gaunt's policy, though, collapsed with the arrival of de Vienne's forces in Scotland. His pro-peace strategy was not necessarily poorly conceived. If it had been successful, the northern theatre of war would have been neutralised, allowing England to refocus on the French fleet at Sluys. According to the historian James Gillespie, Gaunt's proposal "was a gamble, but a sensible gamble". The King was also influenced in his rejection of Gaunt's strategy by the poor relations that then existed between the two men. The continuing attempts of Richard's favourites to neutralise Gaunt's influence at Court also ensured his views were dismissed.

The invasion was to be one of several long itinerancies that Richard undertook during his reign, for which he left behind a caretaker government consisting of the Mayor of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, Lord Cobham, and Sir Robert Knolles.

The French army in Scotland

Jean de Vienne, left, in a nineteenth-century depiction

As part of their treaty with France the Scots had reassurances that, were war to break out between Scotland and England, France would provide military assistance for Scotland. Gaunt's attempts at furthering peace between England and Scotland did not suit France at all. They were, says the medievalist May McKisack, "eager to profit by England's domestic embarrassments". A small French advance party arrived in Scotland in May 1384. Their arrival followed the fall of Lochmaben Castle—the last English outpost on the Scottish Western March—after its capture by the Scots. The loss of this castle, says Anthony Tuck, left Cumberland "more vulnerable than it had been for the past fifty years". This provided Richard's council with a justification for invading Scotland rather than France.

The main French fleet under de Vienne left Sluys on 22 March 1385 and managed to avoid the patrolling English ships in the channel. It arrived in Leith three days later. His force consisted of 1,315 men-at-arms, 300 crossbowman, and 200 unspecified others (""gross varlets"" in the French records). Legal wonk Jonathan Sumption has estimated that "with the usual hangers-on" the army probably amounted to around 2,500 men. They brought with them horse, 600 suits of armour and other materiel—this for the use of the Scots—and 50,000 livres in gold florins for King Robert II. On 1 July, the French and Scottish battle captains signed articles of agreement (in French) in Edinburgh detailing the prosecution of their campaign. These were highly detailed and ranged from their military ordinances to the required reconnaissance procedure to be undertaken before besieging a castle. The two countries decided on 23 July for the launch of their campaign, although in the event it was brought forward to the 8th. De Vienne's intended strategy was to lay waste the entire English border, although in the event the nature of Marcher conflict made this approach impracticable.

English preparations

First leaf of the English army's disciplinary ordinances, 17 July 1385, in Durham

The latest truce with Scotland was due to expire on 15 July 1385. That the English muster was to take place the previous day indicates that the invasion was to be launched immediately it had done so. Richard II was by now nearly eighteen. The campaign was an opportunity to cast him—as a would-be conqueror of Scotland—in the same light as his father and grandfather. It would show, suggests the historian Christopher Fletcher, "not just what a King would do but also what a man would do"; by following in his father's footsteps, Richard would demonstrate his royal independence. Likewise Anthony Goodman has suggested that apart from the campaign's strategic necessity, its political purpose was to increase Richard's military prestige and political profile, and indeed, says Sumption, "the presence of the English King ... proved to be a powerful recruiting agent".

By 10 July the army had reached Nottingham. The King's and his tenants-in-chief were in York by mid-June, where the first wages were paid to Gaunt. The campaign was already nearly a week behind schedule; the army was expected to be in Newcastle by the 14th. On 16 July proclamations were issued for suppliers in Durham, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland, instructing them to follow the army "with all victuals needful for maintenance of man and horse and to sell them to the army at a reasonable price for ready payment". Towns that the army passed through were instructed to "bake and brew" food and drink for sale to the army; in the meantime, these towns' market rights were suspended for the war's duration. A final muster took place at Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The King's ordinances

Main article: English military ordinances of 1385

The component companies of a contract army could be very heterogeneous in their makeup, which was another reason why common rules, binding all, needed to be made explicit. Individual companies varied enormously in size and the status and background of their leaders; in their ranks, near-professionals with long campaigning records mingled with young men who were "armed for the first time".

Maurice Keen, "Richard II's Ordinances of War of 1385" (1995)

Military and naval ordinances were drawn up. in Durham, These were probably authored by Richard, Gaunt—as Steward of England—and Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshal since 30 June, advised by unnamed "wise knights" of the host. The ordinances were promulgated on 17 July.

While disciplinary ordinances had a long history in the martial philosophy of Western Christendom—for example, they were issued to the army of the Second Crusade in 1147, and more recently Edward III is known to have published several in 1346—those of 1385 are the earliest complete code of English military discipline now surviving. Written in French, they consist of twenty-six discrete clauses. They effectively codified the troops' behaviour during the offensive, for example, explicitly prohibited rape and sacrilege. Clause three forbade soldiers:

To rob or pillage a church, or to kill a man of holy church ... or any woman, or to take prisoner any person not bearing arms, or to rape any woman, on pain of being hanged.

They also gave practical instructions, such as reminding ships' captains to stick close to the flagship if caught in a storm, and guidance on punishments for soldiers' wrongdoing (the penalty for taking women and priests prisoner, for example, was to be death). They mandated that all English soldiers would wear the arms of St George, and that any Scottish soldiers captured doing likewise should be put to death.

Such ordinances were necessary as the only effective way to maintain discipline, particularly in an indentured army. Since armies were raised only for relatively short and specific periods, it was impossible to drill martial discipline into troops as it would be with a standing army. By the later Middle Ages the Crown had preferred the mobility and reliability that paid, professional soldiers brought, over an army of raised feudal tenantry. Armies were recruited and then disbanded, and there was no way of ensuring that men whom a previous set of regulations had bound would be recruited again.

The feudal levy

Another problem inherent to medieval warfare was financing. Although the parliament of November 1384 had granted the King a subsidy to fund a campaign, this had been on condition that this would be a continental campaign against France rather than a northern one against Scotland. The latter would be a breach of the Commons' wishes, which, while unwritten, were to be respected by any king who wanted good future relations with them. Parliament may have generally approved of de la Pole's foreign policy as a cheaper alternative to the repeated and heavy taxes required by Edward III to prosecute his French wars. However, in 1285, Richard refused to use the Commons' grant and said this was his personal choice, not the Council's. The King intended, though, that this be an invasion force of substance. His original intention was for it to be one of the largest English armies organised in the 14th century, and the biggest ever raised in the whole of the Hundred Years' War. In the event, while smaller than Richard planned, it was still larger than most, going by contemporary estimates. An extant order of battle indicates around 14,000 men in the invading army, a figure Exchequer receipts—recording the payment of over 12,000 men in 1385— almost match. With at least 142 captains present, the nobility brought greater armies to the King's host than the traditional feudal summons would have obliged the lords to provide.

There has been considerable debate as to why [the feudal levy] should have been needed, given the Crown's power for decades past to raise military forces without such an expedient being necessary. Broadly, the debate hinges on whether a feudal summons was needed to ensure an impressive turnout for Richard's first campaign, or whether the government hoped to ease its fiscal problems by placing financial burdens on those who did not respond to the feudal call to arms.

Alastair J Macdonald, "Border Bloodshed: Scotland and England at War, 1369-1403" (2000)

As the King had committed not to use the parliamentary subsidy, in June 1385, he resorted to the ancient feudal due of scutage to raise funds. This could have raised him around £12000 (equivalent to £12,378,344 in 2023) while six-weeks' campaigning generally cost around £20,000. Writs were sent to 56 tenants-in-chief on 13 June. They included a writ of array to the Bishop of Winchester which requested him to "arm and array all abbots, priors, men of religion and other ecclesiastical persons of his diocese", By bringing the power of the church to bear against Scotland—which, like France, supported the Antipope, Clement VII—he could thus claim the support of Pope Urban VI against the schismatics of the Scottish church. This probably goes some way towards explaining the deliberate targeting of religious houses during the campaign, unlike, for example, Gaunt's the previous year, which spared the monasteries. It also enabled the bishop to provide defence for the south coast of England. This writ had no connection with feudal tenure. It was a normal commission of array such as was authorised under the Statute of Winchester. Richard's old tutor and household chamberlain had been appointed Constable of Dover Castle the previous year, also intending to strengthen the region's defence.

The levy was intended to alleviate the Crown's costs by using its barons and nobles as subcontractors, and also to save the government from having to pay them bonuses or ransoms, as was by now usual in royal campaigns. It may have had a secondary purpose of illustrating that the levy was still a viable alternative. Edward III had never summoned one during his fifty-year reign; Richard's doing so in 1385 may have been an attempt to reaffirm the precedent. If this was the case, suggests Michael Prestwich, it would have ensured that the Crown would not "lose its right to demand such service in future". Sumption, on the other hand, has questioned whether it was ever intended to be followed through with, and has suggested that it "may have been made as a prelude to a round of horse-trading". As it turned out, the levy caused such uproar that it was swiftly abandoned, and the King was forced to publicly deny—in parliament—ever intending to enforce scutage. Sumption's suggestion regarding horse trading is strengthened by the fact that, after Richard dropped his claim to scutage, his captains then waived their right to bonuses and ransoms. Although it was never enacted, it was the last time the feudal levy was to be summoned in English history. While its primary purpose was financial, Richard may have expected to receive positive publicity from the summons. The intention may have been to remind his subjects that he was not just the Black Prince's son but Edward I's great-great-grandson. Men would serve, and to just serve not merely cum servitio debito but quanto potentius poteritis.

The army the King eventually gathered, recruited along contemporary bastard feudal lines, mustered in Newcastle under financial contract rather than tenurial bonds.

Campaign

Itinerary of the 1395 campaign

The campaign began poorly, even before the English reached the border. In July, Ralph Stafford—son and heir of Hugh, Earl of Stafford and a knight of the royal household—was murdered. Somewhere between York and Bishopsthorpe, he was killed by Richard II's half-brother, the Earl of Huntingdon. It may have been an act of revenge by Huntingdon for the killing of one of his squires by someone in Ralph's retinue during a scuffle. or just mistaken identity. Whatever its cause, says the historian Carol Rawcliffe, the affair had the potential to threaten the entire campaign. It drew much commentary from political observers of the time. Huntingdon escaped into Lancashire, while Richard, in his grief, angrily demanded that Huntingdon be treated as a common killer.

More positively, the King and Gaunt and their supporters were reconciled on the journey north. The army arrived at Durham on 20 July, where the Duke dined with the Earls of Nottingham, Oxford and Salisbury. Just before entering Scotland, Richard created his uncles Edmund and Thomas respectively Dukes of York and Gloucester. He also made de la Pole Earl of Suffolk. While Richard was nominally in charge, it seems probable that Gaunt was in material command. He was a veteran soldier with experience of Scottish campaigning, as well as being personally well-acquainted with several Scottish lords. The King, on the other hand, at this time had no gift for command, relying on the advice of a small group of trusted individuals.

The army that crossed the border on 6 August was a large one, and included most of the English nobility. Gaunt, Gloucester and Nottingham commanded the vanguard; the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, under the King, commanded the central battle. Accompanying Gaunt—but with his own retinue—was his son, Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby. Gloucester brought 400 men-at-arms and twice that number of archers. Arundel and Nottingham brought nearly 200 men-at-arms and 300 archers between them, while Warwick had around 120 of the former and 160 of the latter. Sir Henry Percy, son and heir of the Earl of Northumberland, brought sixty men-at-arms and as many archers; his indenture specified that at least half his retinue comprise gentz foreines, i.e. men not from the East March. Oxford also provided a substantial force. But their combined force of over 2,000 men was still outnumbered by that of Gaunt, which was in the region of 3,000. The Bishop of Durham, crozier in hand, brought a contingent, while the rear was brought up by the north men under Lords Clifford and Neville. Richard did not solely call upon his nobility either. Approximately 10% of the entire host—around 450 men-at-arms and 500 archers—were under the direct command of his household officers. These were of both the civil service ( departments including the Chancellor, Treasurer and the Keeper of the Privy Seal) and the household (its Secretary, Steward, Chamberlain and the Controller of the Wardrobe). Also included in the royal army were members of the Queen's Household (for example, Henry Burzebo and Henry Hask of Bohemia), as well as Spaniards and Welshmen. Above them flew 38 royal standards, over 90 bearing the arms of St. George's while the flag of St Cuthbert—patron saint of the Palatinate of Durham—was borne before it. Ultimately, Richard led an army of about 14,000 men from nearly every peer of England, over two-thirds of them being archers.

Franco-Scottish preparations

The French had, as Sumption puts it, encountered "unexpected difficulties" with their hosts. They had intended to commence border raids immediately, but the Scots were less than cooperative. Relations soured, therefore, almost from the moment of de Vienne's landing. They journeyed south from Edinburgh on 8 July, raiding Northumberland in expectation of the English army's imminent arrival. The French soldiers are known to have worn black surcoats with white St Andrew's crosses sewn on, and it is probable the 3,000 Scottish accompanying them did also. If so, it was the first occasion in history on which Scottish soldiers are known to have worn the later national emblem. They were accompanied by around 3,000 Scottish soldiers. Crossing the Tweed, comments Sumption,

The French caught their first glimpse of the savagery of the northern war. For several miles on either side of the border they saw nothing but uncultivated wasteland, inhabited only by a few wretches who had been unable to escape in time. The Scots fell on these stragglers and cut their throats.

De Vienne led the army for the French and for the Scottish, James, Earl of Douglas, with the latter's cousin Archibald Lord of Galloway, King Robert's son Robert, Earl of Fife, Sir William Douglas of Nithsdale and George Dunbar, Earl of March. They swiftly took the castles of Cornhill and Ford and slighted them. Having reconnoitred Roxburgh Castle, an assault was considered, but rejected on account of its near-impregnability. Roxburgh may have been deemed impregnable; Wark Castle was a different matter. Wark had suffered years of neglect and was in a state of severe disrepair; previous Scottish attacks had also left their mark. Disagreement over Roxburgh effectively brought official Franco-Scottish cooperation to an end. Now another argument took place as to whether to assault Wark before, as Sumption puts it, the French attacked "on their own as the Scots stood by and watched". The castle fell after two days of bitter fighting. The French besiegers faced stubborn resistance, and the defenders were only driven off the walls by crossbowmen and hand-to-hand fighting. The garrison was put to the sword, the captain held for ransom, and the castle's wooden outbuildings razed. However, following the taking of Wark, relations between the allies deteriorated. Already poor after the failure to assault Roxburgh, their strategic differences were now irretrievable. The two armies separated: the Scots returned over the border while the French, accompanied by the Earl of Douglas and his retinue, continued to Berwick Castle, eventually reaching as far into Northumberland as Morpeth. Now, in late July, they received word of Richard's arrival in Newcastle, and retreated to Edinburgh. The capture of Wark was the sole notable victory of the Anglo-Scottish alliance.

English invasion

The army crossed into Scotland over the central borders. Almost immediately the English were confronted by a dearth of foodstuffs. No supply train had been established and the Scottish populace had fled before them taking what they could carry and firing what remained. English stragglers and foragers were killed on route. Along the way lay the abbeys of Dryburgh, Melrose and Newbattle. These were burned, an action the English justified by Scotland's support for Clement VII in the Schism. They claimed these abbeys were used for military purposes, making them legitimate targets. The contemporary chronicler Henry Knighton says that when Richard first passed Melrose he left it unmolested—" moved by mercy and by reverence for God and Church"—but when he had moved on, the soldiers he had billeted there were murdered. Knight states that it was only in retaliation for the deaths of Englishmen that Melrose was burnt. Most contemporary chroniclers considered the destruction effectively terrorism.

Arson was explicitly not prohibited under the army's ordinances, and much of Lothian was razed. The English reached Edinburgh on 11 August. It was by then deserted, apart from a garrison at Edinburgh Castle, as the Franco-Scottish army was in retreat via Ettrick Forest to the south. The city was sacked, heavily pillaged and afired. The medievalist Richard Oram notes that this has led previous generations of Scottish historians—the 19th-century antiquarian Robert Chambers, for example, lamented how Edinburgh "suffered its full share of calamities attendant upon these disastrous wars" —to condemn England's "wanton vandalism". Musselburgh Hospital was severely damaged, while St Giles' Cathedral was so badly damaged that it was later torn down and rebuilt. English strategy, says the historian Nigel Saul, was to be "the traditional one employed by the English in Scotland: to draw their adversaries into battle at the earliest opportunity and to crush them by sheer weight of numbers". The Scots refused the bait, however, instead withdrawing into the hillsides, and living off the land. There was little for the English army to forage outside the city. The French viewed this strategy of withdrawal with dismay. Their preferred tactic was, like that of the English, that of the pitched battle for the opportunity to win honour and glory. However, de Vienne realised that the Scottish policy was the only one likely to be effective. The English army devastated much of Lothian in its foraging, which in turn was compounded by the Scots' own scorched earth policy as they withdrew ahead of the English. The English army showed little quarter, often summarily executing prisoners rather than the more usual practice of ransoming them.

This harsh treatment may well have been at the King's direct order. While the King was in Edinburgh he received news that his mother, Joan, Countess of Kent—with whom he was very close—had died. With much of the city burning—including St Giles' Kirk—only Holyrood Palace escaped among the major buildings. Gaunt himself may have ordered it spared, as it was where he had lodged in 1381 and received fáilte hospitality. Holyrood was to be an exception. According to the contemporary chronicler Andrew of Wyntoun, for the rest, the English army was given "free and uninterrupted play [for] slaughter, rapine and fire-raising all along a six-mile front". Only the castle was left alone, from the walls of which, says Sumption, "the Scots looked down impotently".

Now, indecision arose among the English captains on whether to proceed or withdraw. Divisions between Richard's supporters and his uncle, only superficially healed at Durham, were reopened. Food became scarce, and it was rumoured that Vienne and his Franco-Scottish army were invading England via the West March.

Discontent was arising among the English soldiery. Hunger, already endemic, was now combined with disease aided by the hot weather. Disagreement within the higher English echelons was exacerbated by smouldering jealousies and distrust that persisted between the retinues of Gaunt and Richard, which probably accounts for chroniclers own confusion as to what was happening deep in Scotland. If Gaunt did recommend pushing deeper into Scotland, Richard rejected it as a course of action (probably, says Goodman, on the "reasonable logistical grounds that victuals were scarce and it was likely to lead to starvation among the common soldiers"). According to the Westminster chronicler, Richard harshly criticised the Duke, saying "many shameful things" and even accusing him of treason. When the King declared that he would retire south with his men, Gaunt replied, "but I am one of your men"; Richard retorted ", I see no evidence of that".

Late 16th-century portrayal of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, uncle to King Richard II

The chronicler Jean Froissart—who had spent many years in the Court of Edward III and personally knew several of the leading men of Richard's —on the other hand, says that Gaunt advocated a march across the Pennines to intercept the Franco-Scots force thought to be in Cumbria. The other main source for these discussions, the monk of Westminster, supports the suggestion that Gaunt wanted to head deeper into Scotland. Saul argues, however, that as he was clearly basing his account on that of someone present at the meetings—and biased against Gaunt—the monk's report should be considered "dubious", and that of Froissart was to be preferred. Oxford contributed to the bad feeling further by telling the King that Gaunt only proposed this in the hope that Richard would die on what would certainly be a hazardous journey. As a result, Richard rejected Gaunt's suggestion, telling him that if he wanted to follow Vienne, he would so alone.

English withdrawal

The King chose to return to England. It may have been irresponsible of Richard to reject Gaunt's advice, as the most experienced of his royal captains. The historian Anthony Steel, though, suggests that as Gaunt's plan was to "fling himself into the Highlands in a hopeless search for the enemy", he was wise not to. This had been Gaunt's strategy for his short campaign of the previous year, which had also achieved little of value. Perhaps Gaunt recognised this himself, as he did not pursue the strategy. The King seems to have been particularly concerned for the well-being of the troops. According to "the Westminster Chronicle", he told his uncle that "though you and the other lords might have plenty of food for yourselves, the rest, the humbler, and lowlier members of our army, would certainly not find such a wealth of victuals as would prevent their dying of hunger". As Saul puts it, "the English ... had no enemy to fight and no food to eat. Increasingly hungry and frustrated, they took what revenge they could." Little had been accomplished except the extensive destruction of property.

The English commanders agreed on a withdrawal, beginning around 17 August. Before they left, Richard and Gaunt were once again reconciled. The royal army's line of retreat was guarded by young Percy—now nicknamed Hotspur by the Scots on account of the speed and aggression of his attacks—who deflected several flank attacks. Three days later, the King was in Newcastle, where the army disbanded. Within the fortnight he was in Westminster. Protection of the north was left in the hands of Hotspur, the garrisons of Carlisle, Roxburgh, and a 1,200-man retinue.

French counter-attack and Franco-Scottish divisions

The reports of a Franco-Scottish raid into the northwest turned out to be true; although unable to defend the lowlands, with the departure of the English they could now counter-attack. Crossing the undefended border around 15 August, much of Cumberland was plundered. The invaders approached Carlisle, 10 miles (16 km) from the border around the same day. The Douglases, de Vienne's army and "the whole youth and flower of Scottish chivalry" approached the city across the Solway Firth. A small force under Douglas of Nithsdale invested Carlisle—Douglas distinguished himself in the siege, although still young—while the bulk of de Vienne's and the Douglases' army penetrated further into Cumberland, eventually reaching and passing Penrith. No Scottish raid had reached this deep into England in decades. They then returned north—according to Sumption, "bowed beneath the weight of their loot" —joining the siege of Carlisle on 7 September. Here they brought up French cannon. Although the walls were weak, the garrison was strong and experienced. The attacks on strongholds such as Carlisle suggest that the incursion sought more substantial prizes than mere border booty. The siege was raised when Hotspur, from across the Pennines, attacked from the rear, although Knighton preferred to record how the Scottish army withdrew in panic after the Virgin Mary appeared on Carlisle's walls.

They made their way back to Scotland through the Middle March and the lowlands perhaps contemplating a renewed attempt at Roxburgh. It had been a tempting prize for Scottish armies throughout the Middle Ages. Still, de Vienne was not anxious to endanger his knights. He insisted that if the castle fell, it would be a French prize. These terms were unacceptable to the Scots, and the assault did not occur. In the event little of military value, although a significant quantity of plunder, was achieved after leaving Cumberland. Froissart—with what Sumption calls "calculated ambiguity" —claimed the Franco-Scottish raids into the wealthy bishoprics of Carlisle and Durham won them more than was held within the whole Kingdom of Scotland. The destruction in Cumberland was such that the following year's taxes were commuted to a £200 lump sum in acknowledgement, as the Exchequer writ puts it, of "the great mischiefs and destructions which are done to and inflicted on the people of the holy church and the commons of the county of Cumberland by the invasions of our enemies of Scotland".

The contrasting approaches of the French and Scottish captains were grounded on their different experiences of how war with the English was best fought. Nicholson has suggested that "in this type of warfare there was little room for French knights". Correspondingly, argues Sumption:

The French wanted a sustained campaign which would tie down significant English forces. They wanted to attack the major walled towns and castles of the English borderlands. They believed in careful, advanced planning and disciplined movement. The Scots wanted to fight the kind of campaign which they had always fought, involving fast movement by formless hordes of men, maximum physical destruction and the capture of valuable cattle.

Neither's strategy was compatible with the other, and this led to mutual hostility. Relations further soured from the contempt the French knights held their hosts in. They were dismayed at the "primitiveness" of both the land and the people. The French had been told that Edinburgh was a Paris of the north; when they discovered it comprised the castle, cathedral and around only 400 houses they were unimpressed. The erubescent King Robert did not cut a charismatic military figure, and they considered the people savages, lacking the courtesy and chivalry that the French court held so highly. They found much to complain of, ranging from the size of their lodgements and the hardness of the beds, to the quality of the provisions and the lack of good wine. Relations worsened when the knights, as was customary, sent their servants out to forage from the land and villages. This went down poorly with the locals, who often retaliated violently. In some cases, men were killed. On the few occasions when the French found Scots willing to trade with them, they complained about being overcharged exorbitantly. The French were considered foreigners, unable or unwilling to speak their language, and who damaged their crops by riding several warhorses abreast.

For the Scots, says Sumption, "the resentment was mutual". Although the Scottish leaders—the King and his lords, such as the Earls of Douglas and Moray—respected the French as peers, the acrimony over the assault on Wark Castle had made things worse. Even after the English withdrawal, the Scots refused to allow the French to leave until they had satisfactorily compensated their hosts for the damage they had caused. To this end, de Vienne was effectively held hostage until a large sum was received from Paris. He was unable to depart until mid-November 1385, although the bulk of his army had left early the previous month. May McKisack posits that when he eventually left, it "was less due to English activity than to French distaste for living conditions in Scotland": de Vienne later described the country as containing nothing but "wild beasts, forests and mountains".

Prisoners

The campaign had been short yet bloody. Although mostly one of ambush and guerilla tactics, some small battles had been fought by Douglas of Nithsdale and Hotspur. Notwithstanding the lack of quarter given, some prisoners had been taken, particularly at the siege of Carlisle. The Percies captured Paton Herring—"the person of Patron Heryng, a Scotsman, whom the Earl has in Alnwick Castle as prisoner", noted a later entry in the Exchequer roll—and still held him in November the following year when the Crown sought to gain his keeping. Herring was sufficiently important a figure to be worth the Crown paying Percy £500 (equivalent to £515,764 in 2023). Several senior French knights were held in Carlisle Castle. Among them was Hennequin du Bos, who assisted his captors by advising them as to how much ransom they could expect for his comrades. He chose d'estre Englés et de tenir la partie des Englés ("to become English and to take the part of the English", as the subsequent French judicial record notes), and became an English spy in Calais detailed to do intelligence on the fleet then being assembled at Sluys.

Aftermath

Jean de Vienne's assault on Wark Castle in 1385, from an illustration in Froissart's "Chronicles"

Following the King's return to England, Gaunt remained in the north to oversee a new truce with Scotland. This was to run until 31 May 1387. By now, Gaunt's relationship with Richard worse than ever. Alienating his uncle, though, was to prove a mistake. Over the next few years Richard found himself increasingly at odds with his barons, but Gaunt barely supported him. The Scottish expedition left the south coast exposed to a French attack, and, indeed, a French fleet was being assembled at Sluys that same year. Although the widely expected invasion had not materialised, the continuing threat cast a pall over the parliament which assembled in October 1386. The prevailing sentiment was anger, both at Richard's attempt to reintroduce scutage and the extravagant largesse bestowed by the King upon de la Pole. Such was the indignation of both the houses of the Lords and the Commons that—"with one mind ... complaining grievously", states the parliamentary record—de la Pole's impeachment was sought as a prerequisite to the expected royal request for funds.

There was, however, some good news. This came from the Iberian Peninsula, by then wracked by a civil war. Gaunt had been persuaded by the news of a Castilian defeat that he should enter the dynastic contest. The following year, he led an army to make his claim. His absence from English politics enabled Richard’s baronial enemies to strengthen their attacks on Richard's favourites. In March 1386, Richard recognised Gaunt as King of Castille. He was probably as keen for Gaunt to go as Gaunt was to be gone, probably explaining the King's willingness to advance him a loan of 20,000 marks to defray the Duke's expenses.

Later events

The ordinances that King Richard issued before the campaign were later the basis of those issued by Henry V before his 1415 French campaign. Although Henry's contained nearly twice the number of clauses as Richard's, twenty out of Henry's first twenty-three were copies of those from 1385. A similar instrument of summons was used by Henry VII in 1492 to raise the army that briefly invaded Brittany. Ordinances issued as late as 1585—when Elizabeth I ordered the invasion of the Low Countries—were also clearly modelled on those of 200 years earlier. Richard's ordinances not only provided a blueprint for these later summonses but, says the medievalist Maurice Keen, "remained the principal means of recruitment of royal hosts, and influenced the regulation of armies even longer".

For the Scots, they had established the value of their relationship with France. They would never again embark on such close coordination with their erstwhile allies, choosing instead to fight when it seemed opportune and not when called upon or when events on the continent dictated. Sadler argues that the alliance's failures "had achieved that which English diplomacy had failed to do—they had driven a clear wedge" into the Auld Alliance.

Richard did not abandon his plans for military success in foreign campaigns. He planned—although to no effect—another invasion of Scotland in 1389. Similarly, complaints persisted to the end of Richard's reign that the Scots regularly violated the truce. Truces were subject to regular breaches, many of them simply never recorded; even in a time of truce, there was a perennial atmosphere of conflict, with local raiding the norm. The truce was renewed in 1389 and again ten years later. Richard's next foreign enterprises were in 1394 and 1399, when he invaded Ireland; during the latter invasion, Richard II was deposed by Gaunt's son, Bolingbroke—whom Richard had dispossessed of his inheritance after Gaunt died—and who took the throne as Henry IV.

Historiography

Whether the King's campaign is viewed as a success or not depends on what his priorities are considered to be. It is often considered a failure by historians; G. L. Harriss called it "ignominious" and May McKisack, "inglorious", while Gillespie argues that it had "failed to live up to the careful preparations" which had preceded it, spending as it did less than a fortnight in enemy territory. Alastair Macdonald suggests "an important feature" was the campaign's indecisiveness. However, Tuck has suggested that if considered more of a punitive raid, it was arguably a success: the Scots accepted repeated truces. This, says Steel, was a far more positive result for the campaign than has generally been accepted, considering "southern Scotland had been wasted so effectively that there was no more danger from the north" during that period. John Sadler has also argued that the Scots were no more successful in their own country than the English had been. Their raids had been repelled, their capital city destroyed and their alliance with France exposed as a chimera. Macdonald also argues that Richard had a secondary, punitive purpose to the invasion of punishing the Scots when he could not defeat them. Gillespie has highlighted the King's character traits that the 1385 campaign revealed. The chevauchée to Edinburgh, he suggests, indicates "a headstrong ruler determined to exact vengeance on the Scots" although he also later made Melrose Abbey a grant towards its rebuilding. Similarly, Richard II's concern for the well-being of the ordinary soldiers is, he says, an early indicator of the "remarkable concern ... that would later endear the King to his Cheshire guard". Tuck, too, has remarked upon Richard's "unusual sensitivity" and compares it to similar empathy demonstrated towards the rebelling peasants of 1381. Professor Peter Stone has credited Richard's Ordinances as one of the earliest examples of cultural property protection in war, particularly referencing its protection of religious buildings.

Richard's main problem in the aftermath of the campaign, according to Gillespie, was the popular perception, which saw a large army and greater expense with few material or political gains. More positively though, the campaign revealed the King to have "a grasp of strategy and the will—perhaps even the courage—to carry it out". While the campaign may have had successful aspects, Richard singularly failed to match up to the image of the successful warrior princes as epitomised by his father and grandfather as had been intended. The war had ended in stalemate, and ultimately had exposed Richard's financial and military impotence.

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