Tuesday, 28 November 2023

Skulferatu #109 - Site of the Battle of Roslin, Roslin, Midlothian


I don’t usually write about battle sites, or even tend to visit them, because they tend to be pretty f*cking boring places.  Yet, having said that, on a walk along the old railway path that runs from Roslin to Loanhead, I came across a memorial to the Battle of Roslin and found that lurking in the background of events leading up to the battle, there was a story of thwarted love, jealousy and one man’s desire for revenge.  How true the story is I don’t know, but hey, as they say, why let the truth get in the way of a good yarn!

 

A photo of a stone monument (the memorial to the Battle of Roslin) with a low wall around it.  It stands in a grassy area with trees behind it.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Memorial to the Battle of Roslin

 

Way back in time, in 1303, when the world was a wild violent place with various factions and power-hungry men spilling blood everywhere in their fight for power (nothing changes much), Scotland was in political turmoil.  It had been occupied by the English since 1298, after the defeat of the Scots army at the battle of Falkirk, and was governed by Sir John de Segrave, a knight of the English king, Edward I.

 

While he was in Scotland, Sir John based himself in Edinburgh Castle, where he frequently held functions and official gatherings for the local aristocracy, warlords, people of influence and such like.  One of those who regularly attended at the castle was Lady Margaret Ramsey of Dalhousie.  Sir John was soon besotted with her and hoped to take her as his wife.  Unfortunately, for poor Sir John, his feelings were not reciprocated, and he was spurned by Lady Margaret who instead accepted a proposal of marriage from Henry St Clair, the Lord of Rosslyn.   

 

Sir John was not a happy chap when he learnt of this and flew into a bit of a rage.  So, off he stormed to King Edward to ask permission to raise an army to eliminate the ‘threat’ that the marriage between Margaret and Henry would represent.  Edward, who was a bit of a bloodthirsty old sod and always liked an excuse for a bit of killing and maiming, granted Sir John his wish and he was soon on his way back to Scotland with an army of 30,000 troops.  I do have to point out here that the number of troops may actually have been grossly exaggerated in the tales told after the battle, but that’s the figure I’ll run with in my telling of this little bit of history.

 

On arriving in Scotland, Sir John split his army into three separate divisions.  Ten thousand troops marched off to attack Borthwick Castle near Gorebridge, another ten thousand marched off to seize Dalhousie Castle, the home of Lady Margaret, and the last ten thousand, led by Sir John himself, marched towards Roslin and the home of Henry St Clair.

 

On the evening of the 23 February 1303, Sir John and his troops set up camp near Roslin for the night, with the intention of giving Henry St Clair a good thrashing the next day. However, word of the movement of the English forces had reached the Scots and an army led by John Comyn and Sir Simon Fraser marched through the night from Biggar down towards Roslin, where they hid until just before dawn in the nearby woods at Bilston.  Then, early in the morning of the 24 February, as Sir John and his army still slept, the Scots attacked them.  The English troops were slaughtered, with no mercy being shown to anyone.  Well, that was unless you were of noble birth, in which case you could be held and ransomed for a tidy sum of cash which is what happened to Sir John and a group of his knights, who were captured and held prisoner. 

 

Over the next couple of days bloody skirmishes, slaughters and attacks took place between the Scots and the other two divisions of Sir John’s army.  During one of these, Sir John was freed by his troops, and deciding to cut his losses, marched the remains of his army back to England.  According to the legends that grew up around the Battle of Roslin, only two thousand of the thirty thousand English troops who marched into Scotland with Sir John survived.  The rest lay dead and buried in mass graves in the fields and woods around Roslin.  As the Ballad of the Battle of Roslin recounts, their bones would occasionally be dragged up when the fields they lay in were ploughed -

 

An farmers tae this very day,

When they’re at the ploo-in,

Still find shinbanes in the clay,

At the place they call ‘The Hewin…

 

A photo of a grassy field.  In the foreground is a line of stone at ground level, while in the background sits the stone memorial to the Battle of Roslin.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Site of the Battle of Roslin

 

A close-up photo of the stone monument to the Battle of Roslin.  There is a plaque on it that reads - Battle of Roslin 24th February 1303.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Memorial to the Battle of Roslin

 

A photo of a wooden electricity pylon sitting in an overgrown area of bushes with a cloudy blue sky above.  Another pylon can be seen in the distance.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Pylons at the site of the Battle of Roslin

 

So, what, you may ask, happened to all the main players after the battle.  Well, the hero of the hour, John Comyn, was murdered a few years later by Robert the Bruce when the two of them fell out.  Bruce stabbed him to death by the high altar at Greyfriars Church in Dumfries. 

 

Sir Simon Fraser also died a few years after the battle when he was captured and taken prisoner by the English army.  On King Edward’s orders, he was taken to London and there was hung, drawn, and quartered, with his head stuck on a spike on London Bridge.

 

Sir John de Segrave lived a long and eventful life, he took William Wallace prisoner and escorted him down to London to be executed, he was then himself a prisoner in Scotland for a couple of years after the Battle of Bannockburn, was freed after a ransom was paid, acquired various lands around England, was appointed as the Seneschal of Gascony, and died an old man while looking after the King’s interests there.

 

As for Lady Margaret Ramsey of Dalhousie, well her story is either lost in the mists of time, which given the lack of records relating to women’s lives in that era is quite possible, or she never existed and was purely made up as a love interest to add a bit of oomph to the tale of the Battle of Roslin.

 

While out on my walk through the once bloodstained lands where so many men died, I left a Skulferatu in a gap in the wall around the monument to this now almost forgotten battle.

 

A photo of a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu #109) being held up.  In the background is the stone memorial to the Battle of Roslin.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #109

 

A photo of a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu #109) in a gap between the stones in the wall that sits around the memorial to the Battle of Roslin.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #109 in a gap in the monument wall

 

A further close-up photo of a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu #109) in a gap between the stones in the wall that sits around the memorial to the Battle of Roslin.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #109 in a gap in the monument wall

 

TomTom Map showing the location of Skulferatu #109
Map showing the location of Skulferatu #109

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.862858

Longitude -3.154724

 

what3words: inferior.unheated.dolls

 

I used the following sources for information on the Battle of Roslin –

 

 

Historic Scotland
The Inventory of Historic Battlefields – Battle of Roslin

 

The Scotsman - Roslin 1303: Scotland's forgotten battle
24 February 2017

 

 

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