On this day in 1314

Following his defeat at the Battle of Methven, King Robert spent time living in a cave off the coast of Northern Ireland. On his return to Scotland, fought an organised campaign that systematically pushed back English forces and captured their land.

By the 1310s, Robert was holding his own parliaments and developing diplomatic relations with other countries. There had been a change in England, too. Edward I had been on the throne at the time of the Battle of Methven, but by 1314 he had died, and his son, Edward II, succeeded him.

England sends troops

Although Edward II was not as belligerent as his father had been, Robert’s growing influence could not be allowed to continue unchecked. When Robert’s men besieged Stirling Castle, one of the last English strongholds in the country, Edward II’s hand was forced, and he sent an army in excess of 20,000 men to face off against Robert’s force of as few as 5000 at Bannockburn.

The battle began on 23 June and concluded the following day. The result was a decisive victory for Robert’s troops, who killed around half of the king’s troops and captured hundreds more. Stirling Castle was surrendered to Robert’s forces, and he ordered that it be destroyed.

Scotland heads south

King Robert also built on his success, by advancing into northern England. His hand was now stronger than it had ever been and in 1320, he issued the Declaration of Arbroath. This was his response to the pope’s decision to execute him following the killing of John Comyn, in which he explained that Scotland had the right to rule itself.

Although this initially led to the pope, John XXII, then living at Avignon, to call on Edward II to make peace with Scotland, he later changed his mind and returned his support to the English king. Thus, the First War of Scottish Independence was destined to continue until 1328 and the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton.

 

...and on this day in 1795

William Smellie left school aged 12 and found work as an apprentice printer. His duties evolved, to eventually include correcting errors in the material being printed. This gave him the experience he needed to find work performing the same task for magazines and, in 1768, he was hired to edit the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which was then being published as a part-work.

The Caledonian Mercury reported Smellie’s death on 27 June 1795 – three days after he died, describing him as a “printer in Edinburgh, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and Secretary to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, translator of Burron’s Natural History, author of the Philosophy of Natural History, and many other ingenious works.”