King Caupens

Yesterday I forgot to post on the anniversary of the Battle of Roslin in 1303, so here’s another tidbit from the Wars of Independence.

In the spring of 1304, on his way to reduce the last patriot garrison at Stirling, Edward I was met at Findo Gask in Strathearn by a band of Scottish women. They came not to hurl jibes at the foul tyrant but serenade him. The entry for their payment, by the king’s gift, translates:

“To the seven women who met the king on the road between Gask and Uggelville, and who sang in his presence as they were accustomed to do in the time of Lord Alexander, late King of Scotland, this is as sent as the king’s own gift.”

Possibly the meeting was spontaneous, though a nasty suspicious person like me might see it as a clever bit of PR, cooked up by Edward’s advisers to project his takeover of Scotland as a natural progression from the days of Alexander III. There was, of course, no mention of John Balliol.

Edward was certainly fond of Scottish music, and employed two prominent Scottish musicians at his court. One was James de Cowpen, who first performed for the king at the wedding of his daughter, Princess Joan, to Gilbert de Clare in 1290. James was described as ‘King Caupenny of Scotia, who came to Westminster to the feast of the aforesaid nuptials’. He was paid the considerable sum of 50 shillings, by the king’s gift, for performing as ‘Rex Haraldorum’ or King of Heralds.

These heralds were officials at the court, responsible for organising jousts and tournaments and drawing up lists of knights for muster. They were also employed as messengers and spies. James de Cowpen appeared again at Edward’s court in 1296, after the deposition of John Balliol, and appears frequently in the accounts after that date. He received many gifts of favour from the king, including jewellery and a horse, and his name appears as Jakketus de Scotia, Monsire Capenny, Capigny, Capainy, Capini, Capin and Copyn.

In the last reference, dated 1307, he is “Roy de Copiny, harpour’. In 1306 James travelled north to Lanercost, where he played to the king to soothe the pain of Edward’s final illness. His last payment is dated 13 June 1307, at Carlisle, after which he vanishes. One of his descendants - or a copycat - played for James IV in 1503 under the name ‘Johne de Cowpanis’.

The second musician was Master Elyas, once the personal harper of Alexander III. Edward first heard Elyas play at Westminster in 1278 and awarded him 60 shillings. Elyas transferred his services to Edward after the death of Alexander in 1286, and was afterwards known as the King’s Harper or Master Elyas le Harpur. In 1296 he was granted lands in Perth and Fife, and was probably one of the five Scottish harpers who played for Edward in 1303 at Sandford near Largo Bay in Fife.

Back to the border (1)

Shortly after the end of the war in Scotland in 1304, Stephen Brampton, the English constable of Bothwell, sought recompense from Edward I for his ‘painful’ service. Brampton claimed that he had defended Bothwell against the Scots for a year and nine weeks, until all the garrison were dead except himself and a few companions. These were kept in ‘dure prison’ in Scotland for three years.

This probably relates to the year 1300, when the Scots took Stirling, the key to the Forth. It would make sense for them to march onto Bothwell afterwards, and the siege may have begun sometime between January-April 1300. Edward’s intention to campaign in Scotland in 1299, aborted because most of his infantry deserted, gave the Scots a breathing space.

From January 1300 the gears of the English war-machine started to grind again. On 5 January the king wisely appointed John de St John as constable of the troubled West March, where English control was fragile: there was also a competing Scottish constable in the shape of Sir Adam Gordon (no relation to the famous outlaw Adam Gurdon of Hampshire). St John was one of Edward’s most competent lieutenants, and the king had paid an eye-watering ransom of £5000 to get him back from a French prison. St John and his colleague John of Brittany returned from Gascony in time to fight at Falkirk.

St John was given some intriguing private instructions. On 25 September he was paid over £413 in ‘secret expenses’ for performing some mysterious task, probably involving cloaks and daggers. Both English and Scots made effective use of spies, including women and children: one particularly enterprising ‘boy’ seems to have taken money from both sides.

St John also possessed a degree of charm, sorely lacking in most of Edward’s officials in Scotland. The gentry of Gascony had fond memories of his time as seneschal, and flocked to his banner when St John arrived in the duchy to repel the French: they even named a town after him on the edge of the Pyrenees. After the excesses of the vile Cressingham, Edward may have hoped St John would perform a similar trick north of the border.

Dancing in the ring

The Battle of Falkirk, 22 July 1298. Instead of dancing in the ring with Edward and Wallace again, I thought it more interesting to focus on a far more obscure individual.

In 1306 the Prior of Durham wrote to King Edward, reminding him that many of the tenants of the barony of Coldingham had forfeited their property during the Scottish wars. Coldingham is a parish of Berwickshire on the Scottish Borders, near the southeast coastline, and home to the ruins of a medieval priory. A separate rental roll exists, which shows that as many as sixty tenants of Coldingham bore arms against the English between the submission of 1296 and August 1298. Three of them fought for Wallace at Falkirk. One, Roger le Pouer, was killed in the battle. Another, Adam Collan, survived but died shortly afterwards at Lilithgow, possibly of his wounds.

The third was Adam Bell. He held one toft and half a carucate. A toft was a house with a narrow strip of land, and a caracute a medieval unit approximating the amount of land a team of oxen could till in a single annual season. Adam, therefore, was a small landholder. He appears on the Ragman Roll of 1296, when the gentry of Scotland swore allegiance to Edward.

Coldingham Priory

It seems Adam was still alive when his land was seized after Falkrik, and afterwards vanished. He had the same name as a famous north country outlaw, Adam Bell, who was said to haunt Inglewood Forest in Cumbria with two accomplices, William of Cloudeslee and Clym O’Clough. The oldest printed copy of this ballad dates from 1505 and the tale is probably much older. Perhaps the story was inspired by the survivor of Falkirk. Coldingham is in southeast Scotland and Inglewood Forest in Cumbria, but this isn’t a problem. In the Tudor era plenty of ‘Border Reivers’, as they were called, escaped justice by flitting back and forth across the border line. There is no reason to think their ancestors didn’t do the same. Adam may well have fled down to the English West March, and drifted into the company of a small band of thieves in Inglewood Forest.