Edward next appeared in Tethmoy, County Offaly,
home of the de Berminghams, adversaries of the de
Lacys, apparently being waylaid in Clanmaliere by
O’Dempsey, who remained loyal to the Dublin gov-
ernment. Having reached the lands of John FitzThomas
(soon to be earl of Kildare, and second only to de
Burgh among the resident Anglo-Irish baronage),
Bruce attacked Rathangan castle and progressed to
Kildare itself, but the garrison refused to surrender.
Travelling to Castledermot, then north again via Athy
and Reban, Edward was near the mound of Ardscull
when the colonists assembled to deal with the threat.
Led by Butler, John FitzThomas and his son, their
cousin Maurice FitzThomas of the Munster Geraldines
(later first earl of Desmond), and members of the
Power and Roche families, the colonists faced the
Scots in battle at Skerries near Ardscull on January
- Although the government army exceeded
Edward’s, quarrels among its leaders handed victory
to the Scots, despite heavier losses.
Bruce then retired into Laois, safe among Irish
supporters and boggy terrain unsuitable for cavalry.
The routed Anglo-Irish retired to Dublin and swore
on February 4, 1316, to destroy the Scots on pain of
death. Edward II’s envoy, John de Hothum, wrote
from Dublin urgently requesting £500 to replenish a
treasury empty because of the war and the famine (felt
throughout Europe) that had followed unusually bad
weather and a disastrous harvest. Bruce too found
Irish enthusiasm waning, as they blamed him for the
desperate conditions that coincided with his occupa-
tion, and was unable to push home the advantage after
Skerries. He burned FitzThomas’s fortress at Lea,
County Laois, and by February 14 was near another
Geraldine castle at Geashill. But the government army
was now assembling near Kildare. Bruce retreated,
his army being reported at Fore, County Westmeath
soon after, dying of hunger and exhaustion, arriving
back in Ulster base by late February.
After reputedly holding a parliament in Ulster,
Edward visited Scotland briefly in late March. Car-
rickfergus Castle still held out, despite Thomas Dun’s
sea blockade, although the garrison was reportedly
reduced to cannibalism and, by September 1316, had
surrendered (under terms that Edward, characteristically,
honored). He also captured but re-lost Greencastle,
County Down, and secured Northburgh Castle in
Inishowen. Robert Bruce himself was rumoured to
be in Ulster late that summer but cannot have been
there long (if at all), since on September 30, Edward
was at Cupar in Fife with Robert and the earl of
Moray, where, styling himself “Edward, by the grace
of God, king of Ireland,” he approved his brother’s
grant to Moray of the Isle of Man. Edward perhaps
had designs on Man himself and agreed to this in
return for reinforcements in Ireland. Help was cer-
tainly needed, as the tide was turning against him. In
October 1316, Edward II put a bounty of £100 on his
head, and soon afterwards 300 Scots men-at-arms
were killed in Ulster.
King Robert therefore set sail for Carrickfergus
from Loch Ryan in Galloway, arriving about Christmas,
the annals noting that he brought a great army of
galloglass ( Hebridean warriors) “to help his brother
Edward and to expel the foreigners from Ireland.”
By late January 1317, they were on the move, alleg-
edly numbering 20,000 by the time they reached
Slane, County Meath in mid-February, ravaging the
countryside as they went. The earl of Ulster was at
Ratoath manor and possibly attempted to ambush the
Scots, but he failed and fled to Dublin, taking refuge
in St. Mary’s Abbey. The citizens panicked and the
mayor seized the de Burgh family and imprisoned
them in Dublin Castle, suspecting collusion with the
Scots: Earl Richard had a thirty-year association
with the Bruces, and in 1302, Robert Bruce married
Richard’s daughter (now queen of Scotland), but
they were no longer allies and the suspicions seem
unfounded.
By February 23, King Robert was at Castleknock,
and the Dubliners strengthened their defenses by dis-
mantling the Dominican priory to fortify vulnerable
stretches of the city walls near the bridge across the
Liffey. They also fired the western suburbs to deny the
Scots cover, and, although the conflagration raged
beyond control and did enormous damage, the tactic
worked. The Bruces did not risk a siege and, joined by
the de Lacys, headed via Naas to Castledermot, where
they burned the Franciscan friary. They proceeded
through Gowran, County Kilkenny, reaching Callan
by March 12. The Anglo-Irish were assembled in
Kilkenny (led by the justiciar Edmund Butler, the second
earl of Kildare, Maurice FitzThomas of Desmond, and
Richard de Clare of Thomond), but dared not oppose
the Scots in battle, who continued into Munster where
they plundered Butler’s town of Nenagh. The O’Briens
had led Bruce to expect widespread support but, as
with the O’Conors in Connacht, local rivalries inter-
vened. So, having seized de Burgh’s fortress at Castle-
connell on the Shannon, putting Limerick within sight,
the Scots proceeded no further. Butler led 1,000 men
toward them in early April and, as hunger took its toll
(the famine being even more severe than in 1316),
Roger Mortimer, now king’s lieutenant, landed at You-
ghal with fresh troops and began marching north. King
Robert sensed the danger and began a retreat. His hungry
and exhausted troops, having sheltered for a week in
woods near Trim, struggled back to Ulster about May 1,
whereupon Robert returned to Scotland, apparently not
reappearing in Ireland for nearly a decade.BRUCE, EDWARD (c. 1275–1318)