Scottish-French Raid into Northumberland and Carlisle (1385)
Who Fought
History & Significance
In July 1385 Richard II, King of England, led one of a long series of 14th-century invasions of Scotland. The campaign was retaliation for Scottish border raids but was also provoked by the arrival of an allied French army in Scotland in 1384. England and France were engaged in the Hundred Years' War, and France and Scotland had a treaty of mutual support. Richard had only recently come of age and was expected to emulate his father Edward the Black Prince's, and grandfather Edward III's martial success. The English nobility had an appetite for war but they disagreed on whether to invade France or Scotland. Richard's uncle, John of Gaunt, favoured France, which would gain him a tactical advantage in Castile, the throne of which he claimed through his wife, Constance. The King's friends—several of whom were also Gaunt's enemies—preferred Scotland as a target. The previous year's parliament had granted funds for a continental campaign; it was deemed unwise to ignore the House of Commons. Without funding, the Crown could not afford a campaign. Richard chose to summon the feudal levy, which had not been called for 58 years, and was never to be again. The summons caused uproar and was abandoned; the Crown raised troops the usual way, contracting with its tenants-in-chief to raise and arm their tenants and receive wages for doing so.
Richard promulgated ordinances to maintain discipline in his invasion force, but problems beset the campaign from the start. One of Richard's knights was killed by the King's half-brother before the army reached Edinburgh. There, the leadership was divided and often occupied itself more with infighting than with campaigning. The Franco-Scottish army retired in the face of the English advance and refused battle, destroying provisions and infrastructure as they retreated. The English swiftly exhausted their food and other supplies. Little of military value was achieved, apart from burning private property. In late August the army withdrew to England. As it did, a Franco-Scottish force raided England from the West March, reaching Carlisle, and pillaging the region. Richard launched few military campaigns following this; his last, to Ireland in 1399, saw his deposition in his absence by Gaunt's son, Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV.
By the late 14th century, England had been at war with France for nearly 50 years. With outbreaks of plague and harvest failures, this strained the country's finances, which could not support a major campaign. Major garrisons in Aquitaine, Brest, Calais and Cherbourg required funding, but three of the four recent parliaments had refused the King grants. Following Richard II's 1377 coronation, facing a resurgent French Crown, many English continental possessions were lost. By 1385 the war had lost momentum; fighting predominantly took place through proxy wars, such as during the 1383–1385 Portuguese interregnum. Richard's chancellor and favourite, Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, was blamed for this lack of success and accused of appeasement. The historian Nigel Saul has suggested that "military retrenchment was not so much a matter of choice for Chancellor Pole; it was forced upon him by circumstances".
The ground they fought on
The site of Scottish-French Raid into Northumberland and Carlisle (1385) lies on Yoredale Group, bedrock that formed in the Bashkirian. The rock here is limestone, sandstone, siltstone and mudstone.
The most striking aspect of this raid is its timing. The Franco-Scottish force did not strike while the English army was advancing in strength through Scotland; instead, they waited until the English withdrew, exhausted and short of supplies, having burned towns and achieved little. Only then did the raiders pour across the West March, reaching Carlisle and laying waste to the surrounding region. It was a pointed demonstration that the Franco-Scottish alliance could absorb an English invasion and then punish England on its own soil, turning the failure of Richard II's campaign into an act of retribution against the very border communities the expedition had ostensibly been mounted to protect.
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