A Norman affair

To The Daily Telegraph

Clive Morris says that if it took the English 300 years to regain control of their country from the Normans, then the Scots defeated the Normans – not the English – at Bannockburn.

In fact, at Bannockburn, the Normans beat the Normans. Bruce and his main lieutenants, Walter the Steward (Fitzalan), Randolph and probably Sir James Douglas, were all of Anglo-norman extraction, along with many of the noblemen in the Scottish army.

The nexus between those on both sides was not so much a patriotic objective as feudal duty and inter-family alliances. Moreover, although the battle was, for the Scots, the high point in what is now called the Scottish War of Independence, that war had its origin partly in a contest among three Anglo-Norman-scottish families for the throne on the death of the infant Maid of Norway.

The second Scottish War of Independence started when Bruce, now Robert I, in order to prevent divided feudal loyalties, confiscated the Scottish lands and titles of those Anglo-norman Scots who refused to surrender their English interests.

The Disinherited, as they were called, enlisted help from England to recover their rights. The ensuing war went on until the English got fed up with it. The direct effects of the Norman Conquest were being felt long after Bannockburn – and not just in England. R.J.C. Angus, Allendale, Northumberland