Historia de la rebelión contra la tiranía. En marzo de 1309, Roberto celebró su primer Parlamento en St. Andrews, y al año siguiente, el clero de Escocia reconoció a Bruce como Rey en un consejo general. El apoyo que le dio la Iglesia a pesar de su excomunión tenía gran importancia política.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00In 1315, an army from Great Britain invaded Ireland.
00:19Composed of 6,000 veteran warriors, it was one of the most powerful foreign forces that had never set foot in the country.
00:28It was not an English army.
00:30Its brave soldiers, wrapped in a mesh coat, were Scots, mercenaries and fighters of the Highlands and the Western Isles.
00:41Their commander was Edward de Brus, brother of Robert de Brus, king of the Scots.
00:50They had only one goal, to throw the English and put Edward de Brus on the throne of Ireland.
01:02It was an ambitious plan.
01:04In more than a hundred years, no one had managed to free Ireland from the English yoke.
01:12This is the story of two Celtic nations, a common heritage and a forgotten war that could have changed the course of history.
01:43Open the gates!
01:47Open the gates!
01:49Open the gates!
02:08An urgent message.
02:13For King Robert.
02:16What message?
02:20Sire, the English king is dead.
02:25I contemplated those brothers of limitless ambition.
02:28There was no inexcusable duty, sacred oath or promise of obligatory fulfillment that would interfere with their goal of achieving freedom for their country.
02:55The history of Ireland and Scotland 700 years ago is a history of rebellion against tyranny.
03:01At that time, the Celtic nations were facing a ruthless enemy that seemed willing to subdue, palm to palm, all of Great Britain and Ireland.
03:12Open the gates!
03:18When the Normans conquered England in 1066, their arrival marked one of the greatest transformations in the history of Europe.
03:26And their desire for power and territory was going to change forever the politics and culture of these islands.
03:34Open the gates!
03:39The Normans came from the north of France, where they had been employed in the construction of castles and trained for heavy cavalry.
03:47They bring that military technology with them when they conquer England in 1066 and continue to accompany them when they move to Scotland, invited by the dynasty, and Wales and Ireland as conquerors.
03:59But they were moved by an irrational impulse, evil, an irresistible desire to dominate, they want to own what they had and also what the others owned.
04:11They had come to conquer and for them Wales was as vulnerable as England and Scotland, and of course Ireland was always there, in the background, in their list of pending matters.
04:23Just over 100 years after the Battle of Hastings, in 1066, an Anglo-Norman invading force landed in Ireland.
04:32They conquered the island, established a new base of power and began to be known as the Anglo-Irish.
04:41Most of the native Irish kings could not do anything other than submit to these powerful newcomers.
04:49But many were afraid of the new presence in the country and never managed to accept the English king as their monarch.
04:57At the end of the 12th century, and so it would remain for hundreds of years, two different societies coexisted.
05:05You had the Gaelic society and the Normandy, or as it would later be called the Anglo-Irish.
05:11What fascinates me about the Gaelic Ireland, the medieval Ireland, is the fact that there were two societies well differentiated in many aspects.
05:21So much so that one could travel from Dublin to, say, O'Neill, in Ulster, and it was like going from one world to another.
05:29They are essentially two alien societies, something you don't see in many countries in the Middle Ages.
05:38The peculiar thing about Ireland in the Middle Ages was that it had a very polarized society, which did not happen in Scotland.
05:45You had the native Irish and you also had the English of Ireland, and they were two nations.
05:51They were mutually opposed poles.
05:56As far as the English are concerned, they had good reasons to despise the Irish.
06:02At the beginning of the conquest, they had brought with them a chronicler, Gerardo de Gales,
06:07who, when describing what he had seen, described the behavior of the native population as wild and uncivilized.
06:14The Irish are wild people.
06:19They subsist on what they produce, their cattle, only, and they live like beasts.
06:26A people that has not yet surpassed the primitive customs of transhuman life.
06:34Gerardo de Gales' writings inaugurate a very long tradition of rejection of the Irish.
06:41We could say that, in a way, it alienates them.
06:44It turns them into something that you can fight for what you represent.
06:48It is justified.
06:52They are not willing to give up their archaic customs.
06:57They are devoted to idleness and immersed in indolence.
07:02Their greatest desire is to free themselves from effort.
07:07And their most precious good, the enjoyment of freedom.
07:12This people is truly barbaric.
07:16In fact, all their customs are barbaric.
07:20In everything that requires laboriousness, they are useless.
07:26It is always more pleasant to be told, coming from a colonizing imperial power,
07:31that you are also superior.
07:34But at the same time, there are plenty of testimonies that, politically,
07:39the English were concerned about integration.
07:42The statutes of Kilkenny and other laws are famous, where the English say,
07:48we want the Irish separated, and we want the English separated.
07:53The English should not adopt Irish names or cut their hair in the Irish style.
07:58The law came to regulate things like that, and it was a kind of apartheid law.
08:03Towards the end of the 13th century, killing an Englishman in Ireland was a serious crime,
08:08while killing an Irishman is not.
08:22The native Irish had much more affinity with their Celtic cousins from Scotland.
08:28Both territories had a common history that dates back many centuries.
08:33In that common history, the Irish were the aggressors and colonizers.
08:38Since approximately the third century AD,
08:42they conquered large extensions of the neighboring territory to the northeast.
08:47The Scots were originally Irish.
08:50They settled in what is now Scotland at the beginning of the Middle Ages.
08:54The Kingdom of the Scots was an Irish kingdom, Dal Riata in Gaelic.
08:59Until the year 1000, to say Scottish was to refer to someone from Ireland.
09:06The first Irish who settled in Scotland were conquerors.
09:11We tend to imagine Ireland as the invading side of the conquest,
09:15but the people of Dal Riata, who settled on the western coast of Scotland,
09:20came to conquer territory.
09:22And when it began to be like a small province of Ireland,
09:26only separated by the North Canal, the Irish Church also spread there.
09:32The invaders carried a sword in one hand and a Bible in the other.
09:37St. Columba and other Irish monks contributed to spread Christianity in Scotland.
09:45The people who came to Scotland, with famous examples like St. Columba,
09:49belonged to Irish dynasties.
09:51The king of the Scots descended from the Irish royalty.
09:54So we are talking about a kind of Gaelic world
09:57with an absolute continuity from Cork to Argyll.
10:06The links between both territories were stronger in Ulster and western Scotland.
10:11Far from being an obstacle, the sea helped forge them.
10:19The North Canal could be crossed in just two hours in a whirlpool,
10:23a small Scottish galley, similar to the Viking ship.
10:28These ships were usually used to transport soldiers between Ulster and Scotland.
10:33But there were closer links, links forged in blood and friendship.
10:42In Scotland, the Gaelic spirit predominates,
10:45and its heritage is in line with Ireland.
10:48It goes back to Ireland.
10:50In Scottish tradition, Ireland was a kind of promised land for them.
10:56Instead of where they came from,
10:58they considered that their main cultural influence was Irish.
11:04It is possible to refer to the notion of a Greater Scotland and a Smaller Scotland,
11:09an idea that prevailed in the Middle Ages.
11:12The Greater Scotland was Ireland, of course.
11:15This was seen from the Irish point of view,
11:18looking across the borders of Scotland.
11:26There is another thing that establishes a strong link between both nations,
11:30and it is genealogy.
11:32Many of the Highlands clans, for example,
11:35immediately place their origins in Niel of the Nine Herds,
11:39and characters like that.
11:41And even Brian Boru, if they can.
11:44That awareness or connection is another thing
11:47that unites the peoples established on both sides of the Channel.
11:53At the nearest point,
11:5520 kilometers away, they separate Scotland from Ireland.
12:00An exercise that I do with my students is to turn the map of the British Isles
12:05and point to Tenbury, and say,
12:07there is the core of Sir Bruce.
12:10This is Ireland and the Western Isles,
12:13the Scottish coast and the northwestern part of the English coast,
12:16from another perspective.
12:22Between a Royal Court of Ireland and a Royal Court of Scotland,
12:25at the beginning of the Middle Ages,
12:27no one would have noticed the difference.
12:30The language was the same, the culture the same,
12:32the stories that were told,
12:34and in some cases, the families would be the same.
12:38When it came to facing the Anglo-Normans,
12:40the Scots had a great advantage over the Irish.
12:44The Irish did not have an undisputed supreme king.
12:47Scotland, on the other hand,
12:49was decidedly governed by a single monarch.
12:53David I of Scotland, who did not want to see how they conquered their territory,
12:57invited the Anglo-Normans to enter.
13:00He allowed some Norse lords to settle in the country,
13:03and relied on them to safeguard his authority.
13:07The most important of these lords
13:09received his name from a small town near Cherbourg,
13:12from where his family came from,
13:14Drix or Bruce.
13:17The most famous of all the Scottish kings was born of his lineage.
13:22His name was Robert of Bruce,
13:24and his ancestry was not only Norman.
13:27The marriage of his father with the Countess of Carrick
13:30had injected Celtic blood into the lineage of the Bruce.
13:36His mother was Countess of Carrick, by right.
13:40The story goes that when he met Robert's father,
13:43Lord of Annandale,
13:45he fell madly in love with him.
13:47He supposedly kidnapped him,
13:49and this is a novelty in the story.
13:51He kidnapped him and took him to the castle of Themberry.
13:55After three days locked up, they announced that they were going to get married.
13:58Robert of Bruce was the result of what happened there.
14:05Carrick was part of Galloway,
14:07it was the northern part of Galloway,
14:09and it was undoubtedly of Gaelic language,
14:12even long after the reign of Robert of Bruce.
14:16Therefore, Robert was raised in a Celtic area,
14:19or of Scottish Gaelic language.
14:23It can be said that this is what makes Robert and Edward of Bruce
14:27and the brothers in true hybrids, so to speak,
14:30in genuine children of many kingdoms.
14:35I am increasingly convinced that it was a kind of search for a place for Bruce.
14:40He would be educated by his grandfather and his father,
14:42as probably his brothers were,
14:45to have a certain royal category,
14:48a higher political position.
14:52Robert could aspire to be king of Scotland,
14:55because he was related to a previous clergyman to the throne.
14:59In 1302, he reinforced his position by marrying Isabel,
15:03daughter of Richard of Ber, Count of Ulster,
15:06and one of the most powerful Anglo-Irish chiefs.
15:12Richard of Ber had a very qualified daughter, Isabel,
15:16raised here in Greencastle.
15:19So Edward I, and the one who was ultimately one of his best friends,
15:24Richard of Ber,
15:26agreed on a marriage agreement between Robert of Bruce and Isabel of Ber.
15:35It is possible that Edward I himself will use that marriage as a claim.
15:41It was a way to have one of the lords who ruled in the southwest of Scotland,
15:45part of that Irish maritime world,
15:47as an ally of Ber, Count of Ulster,
15:50and thus stabilize the Irish situation.
15:54While Robert sheltered the desire to wear the crown,
15:57Edward I had his own plans for Scotland.
16:01Edward I was an ambitious and ruthless monarch,
16:05with a groundbreaking success.
16:07And when he decides, around 1290,
16:10that the time has come to establish once and for all
16:14that he is the Lord Supreme of Scotland,
16:17he will not leave a single moment to make that claim.
16:24He is turning it into another Ireland, another Wales,
16:27a land, not a field.
16:29And I think that's why it doesn't take long to become a very hated character.
16:33Now there is already a difference between a Scottish and an English,
16:36and Edward marks it.
16:38The adjectives that the Scots will later use to define the English,
16:42arrogant, presumptuous, overconfident,
16:45are attributed in the first place to Edward himself.
16:50Some refused to kneel.
16:53Among them, there was a young patriot named William Wallace,
16:57who fought a desperate guerrilla war against the English domination.
17:01Robert de Brus covered his back.
17:04First he supported Wallace, and then he supported Edward.
17:07But his greatest concern was his own aspiration to the Scottish throne.
17:13Robert has a reputation for having a slight schizophrenia,
17:17aligning himself as soon as Edward and the English,
17:21as the next day with the Scots.
17:24I think that to understand that duplicity well,
17:27you really have to analyze Robert de Brus in his context.
17:31He tries the political solution, the diplomatic solution,
17:35to approach the Scots for a while, led by Wallace,
17:40to then abandon them and return to the jurisdiction of Edward I,
17:44as a safer bet.
17:46After all, Edward I is the most practical leader
17:49of all Western Europe.
17:51That's where the power is,
17:53and where one can promote the interests of his people.
17:57He's a pragmatist.
17:59He will take the path that needs to be taken to get where he has proposed.
18:03And if one day that required having to surrender to the English,
18:08and fight on their side, he will do it.
18:16If he wanted to be king of Scotland,
18:18Robert had to negotiate with his main opponent, John Comyn.
18:22And in 1307, when both met in the abbey of Greyfriars in Danfries,
18:27something happened that would forever mark the fate of Scotland.
18:33He rode there and met Sir John Comyn
18:37in the abbey of Greyfriars, on the main altar.
18:41With a joke, he showed him the document.
18:44And then, right there, with a knife, he snatched his life.
18:50A great misfortune fell on him for that.
18:55The killing of Comyn is quite disconcerting
18:58in terms of the position of the church,
19:01because what we have to understand is that when Bruce kills Comyn,
19:05he does it on the altar of the church of Greyfriars, in Danfries.
19:10And when one kills someone in that way, on the altar,
19:14he is automatically excommunicated.
19:18So it is surprising then that Bruce apparently
19:22had so much support from the Scottish church.
19:26Because it was worth waiting for the opposite,
19:29that they would have shown him their absolute disdain,
19:32rejecting him for heresy and for having been condemned to hell.
19:36However, for some reason, they do not see it that way.
19:39Bruce has an extraordinary talent around him.
19:43And it seems strange to me.
19:46That action, whether it is a premeditated murder
19:49or an outburst of anger in the middle of a discussion,
19:52is the one that marks the turning point.
19:54He must make a decision right there.
19:56Either he runs away and becomes a fugitive,
19:59or he grabs the bull by the horns and bets on the throne.
20:05We come to the point where Comyn is murdered
20:08and the path extends in a straight line.
20:11And that path is the confrontation between Bruce and the King of England.
20:22With the support of the Scottish church,
20:24Roberto had proclaimed himself King of the Scots.
20:27But Eduardo I did not take long to act to crush the King at Benedizo.
20:31He captured several members of Bruce's family
20:34and had them killed or imprisoned.
20:36Roberto's wife, Isabel de Ber, was taken captive.
20:43Now, Roberto was a harassed man.
20:46Along with his followers, who had been reduced to a handful of men,
20:50he fled to the western islands of Scotland.
20:54It was almost winter, and he had so many enemies around him
20:58that the whole country was at war with him.
21:01Such terrible misfortunes he had to face there,
21:04hunger, cold, relentless rain,
21:07that no one alive could tell him everything.
21:19Roberto's wife, Isabel de Ber,
21:22Roberto de Bruce was in Mile of Kintyre,
21:26in the very border of Scotland.
21:28From there he could see the coast of Ulster.
21:31There he thought, and it would not be the last time,
21:34that the Irish could help in the war against England.
21:39The key to understand him and the success he finally had,
21:43and to understand what was happening in Ireland,
21:46is partly in its origins, in the Gaelic world.
21:51From Kintyre, Bruce made a short journey to the island of Rathlin,
21:56in front of the coast of Antrim.
21:59It is assumed that he hid here with his followers,
22:02in a damp cave to which he could only access by boat.
22:06From there, apparently, he planned to regain the throne
22:09with the help of Irish allies.
22:11In fact, his two younger brothers, Thomas and Alejandro,
22:14had disembarked in Scotland with an Irish army,
22:17that they had gathered.
22:19But their mission failed,
22:21and they were captured and executed by Edward I.
22:24It would take a decade,
22:26for Roberto to forge his alliance with the Irish.
22:32Open the gates!
22:34Open the gates!
22:36Open the gates!
22:38Open the gates!
22:40Open the gates!
22:47Open the gates!
22:49In July 1307, King Edward I dies,
22:53and suddenly, the greatest obstacle for Scottish freedom disappears.
23:00Shortly before he died,
23:02Edward had two English friars executed,
23:05for claiming that Roberto de Bruce
23:07is the subject of the prophecies of Merlin.
23:10That would mean that Roberto de Bruce
23:13is a second King Arthur,
23:15that his destiny is to unite Wales, Ireland and Scotland
23:19against England,
23:21and to expel the hated English dragon
23:23to the North Sea, where it had come from.
23:28King Edward I will pass into posterity
23:31as the most ruthless and vengeful enemy
23:33that Scotland has ever faced.
23:35In his tomb, in the abbey of Westminster,
23:38the Latin words,
23:40Malleus Scotorum,
23:42hammer of the Scots.
23:44His son, who succeeded him in the name of Edward II,
23:48would be a much less fearsome adversary.
24:10Don't abandon your surviving comrades,
24:14who are still fighting for glory.
24:17Inspire us to emulate your actions,
24:21and may our efforts
24:23yield glorious results.
24:41In 1314, an army led by Roberto de Bruce
24:45entered into battle with the English.
24:48The battle took place south of Stirling,
24:51near a stream called Bannockburn.
24:54For hundreds of years,
24:56there has been disagreement
24:58as to the exact location of the battle.
25:01In 2013, the archaeologist and military historian,
25:04Tony Pollard,
25:07spent a year looking for the place
25:09where the most important battle
25:11in the history of Scotland took place,
25:13and he found it.
25:15It was the decisive confrontation
25:17in that long and cruel war
25:19between Scotland and England,
25:21and a case similar to that of David and Goliath.
25:24The Scots faced twice as many men.
25:28Before the battle,
25:30Edward had led the siege of Stirling Castle,
25:33and this siege was the trigger of the battle.
25:36It is this siege that leads the English army
25:39to move northwards.
25:41Therefore, we have here
25:43three large divisions of well-trained men,
25:45who, in short,
25:47represent a overwhelming triumph of the common man.
25:50These men go on foot.
25:52Many of them are simple commoners,
25:54peasants, inhabitants of small towns.
25:57And for the English,
25:59who at the base of their army
26:01were men on horseback,
26:03wearing armor of their latest model,
26:05it had to be humiliating.
26:07They were literally forced to kneel.
26:11The Scots forced them to bite the dust.
26:15It was an absolute disaster for the English.
26:25Bannockburn would go down in history
26:27as the greatest victory of Scotland over England.
26:30Slowly but surely,
26:32Robert de Brousse led the invaders
26:35on their way back to their homeland.
26:48Scottish historians tend to overlook
26:51the transcendence of Bannockburn.
26:54It really should be considered
26:56the culminating moment of De Brousse's career,
26:59but it will take another 16 years
27:02for the English to recognize him
27:05as King of the Scots.
27:09Robert de Brousse wanted the English
27:11to recognize the independence of Scotland.
27:14But he also wanted something more,
27:16that they recognize the independence of Scotland
27:18and him as their king.
27:20And that had not changed a bit
27:22after Bannockburn.
27:24So he was probably shaking his head,
27:26wondering what he could do next.
27:29This must have been very, very depressing.
27:32And it seems to be one of the reasons
27:35why he decided to open new fronts in the war
27:38against the English after Bannockburn.
27:43Despite the great Scottish victory,
27:45there was another critical chapter
27:47in the history of the war against the English.
27:50But this part of the story
27:52would take place not in Scotland,
27:54but in Ireland.
27:56The Anglo-Irish settlers of the country
27:58were probably devastated
28:00to learn that that Scottish Advenezo
28:02had defeated his king.
28:04In Irish Gaelic,
28:06everyone would think it was magnificent news.
28:16In April 1315,
28:18Robert de Brousse convened a council of state in Ayr,
28:22in the southwest of Scotland,
28:24to decide on the future campaign.
28:26It has always been thought that it was there
28:28from where Robert de Brousse
28:30sent his famous letter to the Irish.
28:36The king sends greetings
28:38to all the kings of Ireland,
28:40to the prelates and the clergy,
28:43and to the inhabitants of all of Ireland,
28:46his friends.
28:49Considering that we and you,
28:51our people and your people,
28:54free from time immemorial,
28:56share the same ancestors,
28:59and are also compelled
29:01by a common language and customs,
29:04to join with greater eagerness
29:06and joy in friendship.
29:11It was not discovered until the 1950s.
29:14It is a very interesting letter
29:16from Robert de Brousse,
29:18an imperial call to the Irish
29:20to join forces with the Scots.
29:24It is an invocation of the ancestral bond
29:26that exists between the two.
29:31But what if the letter
29:33corresponds to a much earlier period?
29:35Had Robert de Brousse always been
29:37motivated to unify the Celtic nations?
29:40Sean Duffy, from Trinity College in Dublin,
29:43believes that the letter was written around 1306,
29:46when Robert and his followers
29:48were on the island of Rathlin.
29:52If you analyze the small print of the letter,
29:55his messengers are two men called T and A.
29:59He only indicated the initials
30:01because it was the way the letter survived.
30:07It is almost certain that the messengers
30:09to whom Robert referred in his letter
30:11were his brothers Thomas and Alexander.
30:14And so the mission would date from the winter of 1306-1307,
30:18when he was going through so many difficulties
30:21and was clinging to the throne of Scotland.
30:24He needed an alliance with the Irish
30:26to join forces against the English.
30:30We have sent you our beloved compatriot,
30:33the bearer of this letter,
30:36to negotiate with you in our name
30:39about the permanent strengthening
30:42and the preservation of the inviolability
30:45of the special friendship that unites us,
30:48so that with the will of God
30:51our nation is able to regain its secular freedom.
30:57There are those who think that Robert de Brousse's letter,
31:00which was of predominantly Anglo-Norman origin,
31:03was an exercise of pure cynicism.
31:07How dare he speak of our nation,
31:09the Scots and the Irish nation,
31:11and our common language,
31:13as if he spoke the Gaelic language
31:15and was imbued with all things Gaelic.
31:21The letter is authentic.
31:23In my opinion, it was sent just at the beginning of his reign.
31:27I think that with it he achieved great support in Ireland
31:30and that, therefore, we have to accept
31:32that there was a Gaelic side in the character of Robert de Brousse.
31:39I think that the existence of this document,
31:42and I think that Nestor Sohn is right,
31:44indicates that there was already an understanding before the letter,
31:48that there was already a certain sense
31:50of what a nation could be.
31:53It is very forceful,
31:55it has the category of declaration, so to speak,
31:58if there was something that could be considered
32:01the Gaelic nationality as such.
32:05Here the question is whether we should use a current term
32:08to describe a concept of the past
32:10when they themselves did not have a word to designate it.
32:13That is the problem.
32:15Therefore, if nationalism is a word
32:17that does not appear in the English language until the 19th century,
32:21can we apply it to the people who lived in the 13th or 14th century?
32:26But if it is not nationalism that we are talking about,
32:29it would be the same with another name.
32:39During a long winter on the island of Rathlin,
32:43I dreamed that I would help
32:46the sons and daughters of our brotherly kingdom
32:50in their fight against our common enemy.
32:55The English.
32:57And in doing so,
33:00I would bring the Celtic people together.
33:04Scotland with Robert de Brus
33:07and Ireland with Edward.
33:14Were we not colonized by the Irish?
33:19Are we not bound by blood, family and language?
33:24Were we not Christianized by the same church?
33:28Preparations are in place.
33:32Ireland and we will be one.
33:38After Bannockburn,
33:40he feels that he has to bring the torch of peace to the enemy.
33:43It was Bruce's main weapon
33:45to get the English kings to recognize the legitimacy of their reign.
33:49The idea was,
33:50just as we are opening a front in northern England,
33:53we will open another in Ireland.
34:18He gathered men of great courage
34:21and the following month of May,
34:23he embarked on Ayr
34:25and headed straight for Ireland.
34:29They undertook a great project when,
34:31being so few who were there,
34:33they were ready to conquer all of Ireland,
34:36where they would find many thousands armed to face them.
34:40And although they were few, they were brave.
34:44The expert archaeologist in battlefields, Tony Pollard,
34:47was born in England.
34:49His grandparents are from Ireland
34:51and he lives and works in Scotland.
34:54He is an example of the close ties that unite the three peoples
34:58and he is fascinated
35:00by the extraordinary events
35:02that united their destinies
35:04in a bloody conflict 700 years ago.
35:07Today, the Delarn is the port city
35:10between Ireland and Scotland
35:12on the Irish side.
35:14In 1315,
35:15this was where the Scottish army
35:17of Edward the Bruce
35:19after disembarking on the beaches
35:21that extend along this coast.
35:24Around 6,000 men aboard 300 boats,
35:27as they say.
35:29And these were Birlings,
35:31the ships in charge of the daily transactions
35:34between Ireland and Scotland.
35:36And since they traveled from the top to the bottom,
35:39the western coast of Scotland,
35:41they wouldn't have been an uncommon sight.
35:49But to have been out here,
35:51in these hills that we have behind us,
35:53and to have seen 300 these boats
35:55coming towards the shore,
35:57must have been quite a breathtaking.
36:10Get back! Get back!
36:18Guards! Bring in the guards!
36:20Put them down!
36:23Scots used the threat of the Scots
36:25to be afraid.
36:26The Scots will come and take you.
36:28But then in May,
36:30they were no longer separated by a strip of land,
36:32they were there.
36:33The whole of the Anglo-Norman community
36:35panicked.
36:36They never thought
36:38they would end up fighting the Scots
36:40in their own backyard.
36:42When those 6,000 men arrived in Antrim,
36:45it was as if their worst nightmare
36:47had come true.
37:05Look, see what's over there?
37:08That?
37:09How close, eh?
37:10It's Aleskreg.
37:11Yes.
37:12So that's Scotland.
37:13Scotland.
37:16We're on the hill that dominates Larn,
37:18on the coast,
37:19and this is said to be where
37:21the first battle of the campaign took place.
37:23Absolutely.
37:24This is where Sir Thomas Mandeville
37:26brought together all the Norman lords of Ulster.
37:29The Bissetts, the Savage, the Logan,
37:31and he brought them here
37:33because he could see Larn from here.
37:38This is a victorious army.
37:40Bruce gets 5,000 or 6,000 men,
37:42those who crushed
37:43Edward II's army in Bannockburn,
37:45and it was a real day of...
37:47Yes, a day of...
37:48If Mandeville managed to stop Bruce here,
37:51the campaign would have been over.
37:53Yes, he would have kicked him...
37:55Kicked to the sea.
38:08Argh!
38:39Edward de Bruce knew he could count on some allies in Ireland.
38:44The first and main one was called Donald O'Neill,
38:47King of Tyrone,
38:48who had committed to support the Scots.
38:55Robert had made useful preparations,
38:58but we wouldn't have succeeded in Ireland
39:01without the help of the Irish families,
39:05whose attitude towards him
39:07was the axis around which his plans revolved.
39:15Donald O'Neill was a descendant of the ancient Irish kings.
39:19He had no doubt about his royal lineage
39:22and the place he himself occupied
39:24at the top of the power pyramid in Gaelic Ireland.
39:28The problem was that many other Irish
39:31rejected his plans to become king.
39:36If you were a descendant of Brian Boru,
39:39you weren't necessarily convinced
39:41that you were the ancestors of O'Neill,
39:44who had the monopoly of the high reign.
39:47He was a realist,
39:48and he recognized that it was more convenient
39:51for everyone to unite around another figure.
39:55Surely, like all politicians,
39:57and like all men with power,
39:59he moved the benefit he could get.
40:06Though the Irish population is poor
40:09and their space is small,
40:11he sees his small plot as the plot of all.
40:15There is no palace of any prince
40:17that shows the insignificance of his humble bed.
40:25Worthy of this world
40:27is the man who rejoices in it
40:29and makes the most of it.
40:42The English king
40:45and the English lords,
40:47born in Ireland,
40:49have inflicted cruel wounds on us
40:52and on our ancestors.
40:58They have forced us to live in mountains,
41:01forests, swamps,
41:03and other uninhabited places like wild animals.
41:09It's not just the lay population,
41:12but also part of the clergy.
41:14They say it is no longer a sin to kill an Irishman
41:18as it is to kill a dog or another lower creature.
41:23We are forced to declare a lethal war.
41:28If you had the chance to receive assistance
41:32to repel an invader
41:34or attack an enemy
41:37called Scotland,
41:40your hospitality has taught you to be grateful
41:44and in your heart
41:46your kindness has left a deep impression.
41:52The English have been the first to
41:54establish the Irish as a nation.
41:56The English have been the first to establish
41:59the Irish as a nation.
42:09Today, Carrickfergus is a satellite city of Belfast.
42:13But in the 14th century,
42:15Belfast was nothing more than a modest village
42:18and Carrickfergus the most important town in Ulster,
42:21a strategic position of great military relevance.
42:25It was of vital importance that Edward of Bruce
42:28took it and prevented the English
42:30from disembarking their army there.
42:33Castles like Carrickfergus
42:35were the basis of the power of the Anglo-Normans
42:37or the Anglo-Irish.
42:39They were the ones who had arrived
42:41and had conquered Gaelic Ireland.
42:43Those were the people that Bruce
42:45intended to put to the test in his invasion.
42:47Therefore, for Edward of Bruce,
42:49the castle is a very important objective.
42:52He has to take Carrickfergus.
42:54If he can take Carrickfergus,
42:56that means that Robert,
42:58in his wars against the English in the north,
43:00would have the field open.
43:02If they can take Carrickfergus,
43:04the entire area of the North Sea will be theirs.
43:07And probably,
43:09the entire maritime area that extends to Bristol.
43:13And if one cuts that channel,
43:15he will have managed to practically interrupt
43:17the supply routes of Edward II.
43:23Surely, an objective of the Irish invasion
43:26would be to damage the supply routes
43:29and harm the English supply sources.
43:32If you could interrupt that supply line,
43:36especially in times of famine,
43:38you could wreak havoc on the enemy's support routes.
43:41And I think Ireland was ...
43:43Well, it was known that Ireland
43:45was a great breadbasket for the English.
43:50The Scots took Carrickfergus
43:52without much difficulty.
43:54The conquest of the castle
43:56was a more difficult undertaking.
43:58Edward of Bruce did not have the necessary means
44:00to take the castle by assault.
44:02So he surrounded it
44:04and was prepared to submit to his garrison
44:06by means of famine.
44:08When Edward of Bruce arrives in Ireland in 1315,
44:11he feels committed to the cause of Carrickfergus.
44:14In fact, while he is here,
44:16about a dozen Gaelic chiefs
44:18and even minor kings
44:20appear before him
44:22and proclaim him king of Ireland.
44:32Then all the kings of the Irish
44:34came to be Edward
44:36and pleaded with him.
44:38Now he was well positioned
44:40to conquer all the territory.
44:42He had on his part
44:44the Irish and Ulster.
44:56Once Edward is proclaimed
44:58king of Ireland,
45:00many Gaelic leaders
45:02decide to support Bruce's invasion.
45:06Allying with a Scottish king in Ireland
45:08was preferable to supporting
45:10an absent English king.
45:15The Bruce had Irish allies
45:17who convinced them
45:19that the plan could work.
45:21The Irish wanted to throw the English out,
45:23but they had proven themselves
45:25incapable of uniting
45:27after a single figure in Ireland.
45:29Therefore, it was best to get
45:31someone from outside Ireland
45:33capable of allying them.
45:37It is a very interesting part
45:39of the history of Ireland and Scotland.
45:41There are cultural links,
45:43there is no doubt about that,
45:45but in reality there is
45:47a considerable political jump
45:49between the two.
45:51Edward comes and claims
45:53the supreme crown
45:55and there will be those who say
45:57that it was badly advised,
45:59that it was a political maneuver
46:01of prestidigitation,
46:03but I think that in reality
46:05it indicates that there was
46:07a possibility that there was
46:09something that he could promote.
46:11The links were solid
46:13and had been maintained
46:15since the Middle Ages.
46:17The invasion took by surprise
46:19the Anglo-Irish
46:21who also reacted slowly.
46:23The English king ordered
46:25his representative in Dublin,
46:27Edmund Butler, to gather
46:29the Anglo-Irish lords
46:31and form an army.
46:33The most powerful of these lords
46:35was the Earl of Ulster.
46:37He was also the father-in-law
46:39of Robert de Brus.
46:41The Scots went south
46:43through the lands of De Beers
46:45in Ulster, until they reached
46:47an unevenness between
46:49Sleat Galleon to the west
46:51and the Cooley Mountains to the east.
46:53This area is known as
46:55the Moiry Pass and still today
46:57it constitutes an important corridor
46:59between the north and the south of Ireland.
47:01Edward de Brus was being
47:03led to Ulster by people
47:05who had old accounts
47:07with local Anglo-Norman lords.
47:09The most famous Anglo-Norman family
47:11was that of the Deverdon,
47:13with extensive properties
47:15in the areas of Meath and Louth.
47:17The Deverdon had imposed
47:19a violent regime on the people,
47:21basing their local reign
47:23on fear and extortion.
47:27This was the castle
47:29of the Deverdon family,
47:31which would be a really important piece
47:33in the fight against
47:35the Scottish invasion.
47:45The feudal system
47:47is really like a protection rations.
47:49If you are a peasant
47:51you pay taxes and you do service
47:53for your lord.
47:55If you are a farmer
47:57you pay taxes
47:59and if you are a lord
48:01your lord will protect you.
48:03And that is the purpose of this castle.
48:05It symbolizes that power
48:07and that ability to offer protection.
48:09But it doesn't really work.
48:11Brus comes down
48:13from Ulster
48:15with his army.
48:17He takes one look
48:19and he thinks very sensibly.
48:21We are already limited
48:23with an siege in Carrickfergus.
48:25This place looks pretty impregnable
48:27so they just leave it.
48:29But there is more than one way
48:31to get rid of a cat
48:33so they decide to burn
48:35the nearby town of Dundalk.
48:39And that demonstrates
48:41to the local population
48:43that their lords and masters
48:45don't have the ability to protect them.
48:47And it does exactly the same
48:49as taking the castle
48:51but it's much easier.
48:57Screams
49:13Dundalk suffered a lot
49:15during the Brus invasion
49:17which I think was not indiscriminate
49:19but because it was held
49:21by the Deverdons.
49:23If you look at
49:25all the places they attacked
49:27there was usually
49:29a local political reason behind it.
49:31It's not that they swept Ireland
49:33with indiscriminate bombing
49:35or anything like that.
49:37Unless the king of England
49:39invades Scotland again
49:41the Scots will try to conquer Ireland
49:43this winter and the Irish
49:45of Ireland will help him.
49:47I have lost everything fighting
49:49against Eduardo de Brus.
49:51My lands, my horses, my armor,
49:53my land!
49:55My land!
49:57My land!
49:59My land!
50:01My land!
50:03There was barely
50:05a concerted opposition
50:07against Eduardo de Brus
50:09but by the end of his first summer
50:11in Ireland the government
50:13was beginning to take off
50:15and he understood he had to
50:17form an army and go after him
50:19and try to take him out
50:21Richard de Berg
50:23was Earl of Ulster
50:25he created an almost
50:27invincible kingdom
50:29for him.
50:31He's one of the most powerful
50:33Anglo-Normans on the island
50:35he controls lands in Conard
50:37he controls most of the territory
50:39here in Ulster.
50:41He's the one who tells
50:43the main governor
50:45Edmund Butler
50:47that he wants to face
50:49in person to Brus.
50:53I have here a force
50:55of 20 battalions
50:57it's big enough
50:59to expel an equivalent number
51:01of men from the country
51:03or to kill them in him.
51:05He wants to go back to Ulster
51:07and fight to take him out
51:09to the Brus
51:11because for him it's almost
51:13a personal insult.
51:15He's his son-in-law saying
51:17and Richard de Berg
51:19answering in practice
51:21I'm not going to tolerate it
51:23and he thinks
51:25I'm going to march from Conard
51:27join my Gaelic allies
51:29and defeat Brus in my own land.
51:47Music
51:49Music
52:15Looking at this
52:17don't you think this part
52:19is more prehistoric?
52:21Look there
52:23there's a big stone wall
52:25I know, it's the most interesting
52:27Look how big
52:29the chairs are
52:31Yes, but it's collapsing
52:33I know
52:35This is known as the old fort
52:37and in Conard today as the trench
52:39But it's a moat, isn't it?
52:41Why is it here?
52:43What function did it serve?
52:45In a way
52:47it was a very important
52:49Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical center
52:51We think it might have been fortified
52:53so that when de Berg was in pursuit
52:55of the army of Brus
52:57he would suddenly find himself
52:59without supplies
53:01He came from Antrim to here
53:03because there were reserves
53:05of everything they needed
53:07Well, he comes here to defend him
53:09and takes the deposits
53:11Brus is out there watching him
53:13Music
53:17De Berg comes with an Irish ally
53:19Philem O'Connor
53:21However, O'Connor
53:23who is on the way
53:25of the campaign of persecution
53:27returns to Conard
53:29So de Berg stays with the will
53:31Sir Philip Mowbray
53:33is the one who really organizes
53:35the Scots to go out
53:37and wave their flags
53:39He provokes the Anglo-Normans
53:41De Berg sees the flags
53:43and departs in that direction
53:45being reached by the flank
53:47Brus sees the battle
53:49and decides to intervene
53:51It was one of the worst
53:53and bloodiest campaigns
53:55As an archaeologist
53:57I found it very interesting
53:59He says the field was covered
54:01with arms, arms and corpses
54:11The field was soaked
54:13with blood right away
54:15They fought fiercely
54:17one side against the other
54:19They took such terrible blows
54:21with sticks and stones
54:23that it was horrifying to see
54:41Music
55:11Music
55:15De Berg is the most powerful lord
55:17of Ireland
55:19He is a brother of Edward I
55:21He was in Bannockburn
55:23He has a military mentality
55:25He is a good warrior
55:27But although here he presents
55:29as an all-powerful being
55:31after the battle of Conard
55:33his power has been practically destroyed
55:37He leaves here destroyed
55:41After Conard
55:43Ulster is Scottish
55:45It is no longer a property of De Berg
55:51If he thought that he could
55:53send a message to the Brus
55:55that, stop there, this is my fief
55:57what actually happens
55:59is that he has to leave Ulster
56:01He flees Ulster
56:03The annals of Conard
56:05refer to him with nostalgia
56:07as a wandering soul
56:09without land and without power
56:15Ready?
56:19Present weapons
56:23In position
56:25Ireland
56:27was just a front in the war
56:29that Roberto de Brus fought against the English
56:31He had razed territories
56:33in the north of England
56:35and personally led the army
56:37to his place in the English town
56:39border of Carlisle
56:41No one could deny that the Brus brothers
56:43were causing serious problems
56:45to the English
56:47inside and outside the house
56:51The more they are
56:53the more honor
56:55will be ours
56:59If we proceed as men
57:03Here we are in danger
57:05of honor or death
57:07We are too far away from home
57:09to flee
57:11Therefore let each one be strong
57:13to continue
57:15Those men have been recruited
57:17in this land
57:19and I am sure
57:23that they will flee
57:25if they are seen attacked
57:27with courage
57:35To be continued