THE SCOTTISH WARÂ OF INDEPEDENCE
EP.1: ENGLISH INVASION & THE BATTLE OF DUNBAR, 1296
The opening episode of the rollercoaster ride of the Scottish Wars of Independence.
On a pitch-dark night, Scotland's King Alexander III urged his horse to ever-greater speeds, galloping across vales and glens in a wind-driven storm. He was hurrying to see his young and beautiful Queen, Yolande of Dreux. Alexander was 44, she just 22. It was her birthday the next day, and it's likely that Alexander was rushing to help her, let's say, see it in. But in the lashing rain his horse lost its footing, causing them both to crash down a steep and rocky embankment. He was found the next morning on the sand of the shore. With a broken neck.
Little did he know that his lust for his young Queen was about to throw Scotland into decades of civil strife, and plunge it into a bitter war with England where it would struggle for its very existence.
EP.2: WILLIAM WALLACE -
BATTLES OF STIRLING BRIDGE (1297)Â & FALKIRK (1298)
Longshanks seems in control of Scotland - he has the towns and cities, he has the castles, and he even has the King.
But soon to rise would be a Scottish Knight, William Wallace, for whom living under English domination was unbearable.
He and other leaders, like Andrew de Moray, roused the country to rebellion and gathered an army with which
he fought the English at Stirling Bridge and Falkirk.
This famous freedom fighter would shatter the image of English invincibility and be a Scottish talisman for centuries to come.
Find out what happened at Stirling Bridge and Falkirk, what fate befell William Wallace, and what it meant for Scottish Independence.
EP.3: THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN, 1314
After Longshanks' used the world's largest ever trebuchet, War Wolf, to batter Stirling Castle into submission,
he had captured William Wallace and had him brutally executed in London in 1305. Once again,
it seemed that Scotland's destiny as an independent Kingdom was doomed.
But inspired by Wallace's stand and appalled by Longshanks' brutality, there rose a new and even greater leader - Robert the Bruce -
who would lead Scotland to triumph over England in a victory even more shattering than Stirling Bridge had been.
In 1314, he led a force of just 6,000 men to take on Longhshanks' son, Edward II, and an English army of 20,000 men.
They met at a small river, called the Bannock Burn.
EP.4: HIGHLAND CHARGE - THE SCOTS INVADE FOR FREEDOM
THE BATTLE OF STANHOPE PARK, 1327
William Wallace's victory at Stirling Bridge had shattered the English psyche, but Bannockburn was the turning point. Now Scotland had to push a final time to win the independence she had been fighting for, for so long.
But Edward II's England was riven with dissent, and powerful factions were about to rise up and demand firmer action against the Scots.
The die was cast and Scotland's freedom was in the balance.