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February 2004

Parish History Episode 34

Beck and Scotland

King Alexander III of Scotland had enjoyed a successful reign for over thirty years, but his wife, Margaret, had died, and he was now, in 1286, a widower. Queen Margaret had borne him two sons, but both boys had died unmarried, and Alexander’s only daughter had married Prince Magnus of Norway, and had gone to live in that country. To ensure a peaceful succession in Scotland, King Alexander married again, choosing Lady Yolande, a French noblewoman, to be his bride, and hoping that she would give him a son. She was installed in Kinghorn Castle, just across the Firth from Edinburgh, while awaiting her nuptials. The marriage took place in Edinburgh Cathedral, but after the wedding, Alexander was delayed by matters of state in his capital, while Yolande returned by boat to Kinghorn, and there she waited for her husband to join her. Late that night, when his official business was concluded, King Alexander boarded the ferry for Burntisland, and then rode urgently along the cliff-top path to Kinghorn Castle. The night was dark, the horse stumbled, and the King fell to his death.

He was buried, but the Scots were left wondering who would be their next sovereign. Prince Magnus was now King of Norway, and his Scottish queen was dead, but she had borne her husband a daughter, also named Margaret, and the little girl was now King Alexander’s heir. Scottish lords assembled in Edinburgh, swore fealty to little Queen Margaret, and a party of them took ship to bring her over to her new kingdom. Unfortunately they ran into a severe storm on their return journey, and the “Maid of Norroway”, as she is known in Scots tradition, was drowned along with all her party.

There was now no obvious successor, without going back generations. King Edward Plantagenet I of England offered to act as referee, and decide between the dozen or more Scottish noblemen who seemed to have some sort of claim to the vacant throne. He summoned them all to Norham Castle, right on the Border, above the River Tweed, and he sat in state, to hear the lawyers argue the case for each claimant in turn. Eventually he gave judgment in favour of John Balliol, a man who seemed to have a good case, but - and this may well have been decisive - was also willing, if crowned, to acknowledge the suzerainty of the English king over Scotland.

He was crowned as King John of Scotland, but many of his subjects came to regret their initial acceptance of him. They were aware of the progress of King Edward’s wars in Wales, and soon noticed that the English King was claiming much more than some vague overlordship in the Northern kingdom. He even claimed appellate jurisdiction in Scotland - something he did not possess in the Prince-Bishopric of Durham - and Scottish plaintiffs were being expected to travel to London to enter their pleas. A Council of Scottish lords and bishops persuaded King John to renounce his allegiance to Edward, thus putting themselves in a state of what the English would describe as rebellion, and King Edward mustered men to march North against Scotland. He summoned his vassals, including the Bishop of Durham, to provide men and material for the war.

The Bishop at this time was a man called Anthony Beck. He had been installed in 1283, with the backing of King Edward, who wanted a decisive man to be in charge of his Northern frontier. The King’s support was however balanced by the hostility of the Archbishop of York, who wished to emphasise that the Bishop of Durham was his suffragan, and nobody else’s vassal, and by the monks of Durham monastery, led by their prior, Hugh of Darlington, who wished to emphasise that the See was in origin a monastic establishment, not a secular foundation, and certainly not a fief owing any sort of loyalty to the King of England.

Hugh died in 1289, and the monks elected Richard of Houghton (Ricardus Ottoniae), one of their number, as the new prior. Durham Monastery at this time seems to have recruited from towns and villages in the neighbourhood, and, just as Hugh came from Darlington, so Richard probably came from our village. Though some monks were indeed of peasant stock (one recent prior had been by birth a serf), most of those who rose to any sort of prominence came probably from the local gentry, and Richard of Houghton may well have been a younger son of the Bellasis family. For the next twenty years or so he was to be a thorn in the side of Bishop Beck, and he fought continuously for the privileges of his monks, and also for the rights of the people - at least for the rights of the squires and knights of the shire.

Beck even went on a journey all the way to Rome to see Pope Boniface VIII, and to complain about the insolent way that Prior Richard was behaving. It did Beck no good. A courier from Durham monastery had got to Rome before him, and the Benedictines had friends everywhere, and there were plenty of abbots and priors in Rome, ready and eager to speak up in favour of Richard of Houghton.

(A silly story was told about Beck’s audience with the Pope. It is said that an Eastern merchant entered the Papal presence, with a consignment of gorgeous silks which he hoped to sell. Boniface looked at them, and waved the merchant aside, saying that he could not possibly afford such wonderful textiles. But then, it is said, Beck called the man over, and bought his entire stock, saying that he needed them for horse blankets! The story is not true, we may assume, and was probably first told by some ancestor of Bobby Thompson, the Penshaw comedian - it is in his style. But stories such as this possibly encouraged the Papal Court in its hopes of extracting more and more money out of England. The country seemed to be fabulously rich.)

Meanwhile, plans for the invasion of Scotland went ahead. Beck was very pleased when King Edward proposed to divide his Army of Invasion into two columns, one under his own command, and the other to be led by Bishop Beck. The Bishop was of course expected to find the men and equipment for this second column, and every village was ordered to provide its quota. We do not know what assessment was made on Houghton-le-Spring, but in later wars our village was expected to provide, and equip, three lancers and six archers. We may have got away with less on this occasion, with help from Prior Richard, who was looking for every excuse to challenge Bishop Beck’s appropriations. Those men who were taken for the wars - they were called the “Haliwer Folc” (the Men of the Holy One, i.e. Cuthbert) - did not show up well in this campaign. They alleged that they were only liable for military service in defensive wars - wars in which the Scots invaded England - and not for wars of conquest: hardly the spirit for which the Durham Light Infantry would one day be known !

The English army entered Scotland, and the King’s Column won some victories. King John surrendered, and was taken back as a prisoner to England (along with the Stone of Scone, on which the Kings of Scotland had hitherto sat at their coronations). Those lords and bishops who had joined him in repudiating King Edward’s suzerainty were either killed or saved their lives by flight. One of those who needed to flee in order to save his life was Bishop Wishart of Glasgow, and Anthony Beck entered that city, and persuaded the cathedral chapter to elect him as their bishop (he did not of course resign the See of Durham).

Everything was going very well, and Beck was making an inventory of the treasures in Glasgow churches, when a Renfrewshire knight called William Wallace led a rebellion, and defeated the King’s army at Stirling. Some of his men then marched on Glasgow, and Beck in his turn was only able to save his life by flight. The Chapter assembled and re-elected Wishart as bishop.

King Edward was absent in London, arguing with the emissaries of Pope Boniface, who were trying to claim much more money from the English Church than earlier popes had raised, when news reached him of Scotland’s “treachery”. He marched North, instructed Beck to assemble the Haliwer Folc again, and hurried on into Scotland with the main body of his army, while Beck came up behind him with such men as he could conscript. The English and Scots met in battle at Falkirk, and the English won a great victory. It was marred by the escape of Wallace and many of his men who broke out of their encirclement by smashing their way through the English line at its weakest point - that sector held by the Haliwer Folc.

Wallace was eventually captured, and put to death with great barbarity, but after the Battle of Falkirk, Beck found that the King of England was against him - as well as the Archbishop of York and Richard of Houghton.

King Edward I died in 1307, and was succeeded by his son, Edward II. Pope Boniface VIII was dead by then, and the Papacy had been moved from Rome to Avignon. Beck went to Avignon in 1308 to meet Clement V, the new pope. If he had brought money for bribery, it was insufficient in amount. Emissaries from the Scottish Church were there before him, and they saw that Beck’s claims to Glasgow and other places in Scotland were disallowed.

But Beck did gain some things on this trip, things worth more even than horse blankets. Pope Clement appointed him (titular) Patriarch of Jerusalem (of course, the city was then under Saracen rule, and Beck had no possibility of getting there). Even sweeter than that, the Pope agreed to have Richard of Houghton retired from his post as Prior of Durham, and a new man, friendlier to Bishop Beck, was appointed.

Bishop Beck himself died in 1311. By that time he was describing himself as King as well as Patriarch. The new King of England was not as warlike as his father, and the rebellion in Scotland had flared up again, now under the leadership of Robert Bruce. Bruce’s men had taken the war into enemy territory, and had invaded Ulster and the Isle of Man, and would soon invade England. Edward II tried to persuade others to defend his lands, and he offered to make Anthony Beck the King of Man, if he would defend that island against the Scots. Beck accepted the title, but needless to say, he had even less success in getting the Haliwer Folc to sail across the sea to the Isle of Man than in getting them to march into Scotland.

King/Patriarch/Bishop Anthony perhaps died a disappointed man. He never got to Jerusalem (nor, probably, to the Isle of Man), and he died in Durham. If it was any consolation to him, he was buried in the cathedral precincts - the first man, apart from monks, to have been granted that honour. But he was happy to die knowing that Richard of Houghton was out of a job, and unlikely to ever get any preferment again. He did at least triumph in one of his fights.