Agnes Reynolds, Countess of Dunbar, must have watched from the ramparts as William Montague, Earl of Salisbury's huge English army surged into view and formed a camp, cutting her off from aid. A woman of only about thirty who had spent most of her life in the midst of a desperate war, she knew what to expect. Of course, that did not prevent her defiance, but she had to wonder how long even her well-provisioned castle with a deep well within its thick walls could hold out. Her husband, Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, and most of the Scottish army were in the north of Scotland.
Three years before under the leadership of Andrew Murray, the Scots had destroyed the army of David de Strathbogie, the chief lieutenant of the English in the north. Now even the walled city of Perth and Stirling Castle were in danger of falling if Salisbury did not lead his army to their relief. But first Dunbar Castle had to be taken.
The construction of trebuchets began. Then they flung massive rocks and even boulders. Day and night, they pounded the castle walls. However, bombarding Dunbar Castle was not an easy task. They could not be brought close enough to do maximum damage despite the size of the stones used. Some of those boulders the canny Agnes ordered saved for her own use.
The crashes of huge stones against the ramparts were constant. So were the taunts from Agnes as she sent her women to dust the castle's crenellations behind which her archers took potshots at the enemy. At one near miss, Salisbury is said to have quipped, "There comes one of my lady's cloak pins. Agnes's love shafts go straight to the heart."
After weeks of frustration at watching little damage from their bombardment, Salisbury ordered the construction of a battering ram, sometimes referred to as a 'sow'. Out of reach of her archers, his men hung the trunk of an ancient pine by chains from a slanted roof mounted on wheels. Fresh cow hides covered the roof.
As the English soldiers heaved beneath the protection of the roof and pushed it closer and closer to the castle's thick wooden gates, her archers shot fire arrows at it. They all sputtered out when they struck the damp hides. If the English broke through the gate, even her strong castle could not hold out. The sow must be destroyed!
There was still one last hope. That hope had been sent her by the English. Her men dragged and hauled the largest of the boulders that had been flung against her walls onto the ramparts above the gate. Agnes ordered them to hold until the sow was immediately beneath the gate and the first blow resounded. Then they shoved it off. It smashed the sow to splinters. The English attackers not killed fled, many falling to arrows from the walls as they ran.
Salisbury knew that there was more than one way to take a castle. Many castles had fallen to treachery. He managed to get word to one of Agnes's guardsmen that he would be well paid for leaving the gate open the following night. The guardsman agreed. He then revealed the plot to Agnes. When Salisbury led the sneak attack, he was also not stupid. He let his men go first. The portcullis crashed down and the earl barely escaped capture and Agnes called down, "Farewell, Montague, I mean for you to sup with me the night."
Salisbury was frustrated beyond words. No progress had been made, the costs were piling up, and the siege needed to end before Scottish winter set in. As it happened Agnes's brother, Thomas, Earl of Moray, had been taken by the English in an ambush three years previously. He was being held in the dungeon of Nottingham Castle, far to the south as they had wanted to take no chances on his being rescued. But needs must, so a message was sent hundreds of miles south and the prisoner dragged in chains to outside Dunbar. A gallows was constructed, a rope placed around Thomas's neck, and Agnes told that if she did not surrender that her brother would hang.
Agnes sent back the message that as her brother had no children that she was his heir. Hang him if you will, she declared, and I will profit. After a few days, Thomas was returned to Nottingham and his dungeon.
By June Dunbar still had not fallen, but supplies were growing desperately low. The eventual enemy of even the strongest castle was starvation. Agnes sneaked word that she needed aid to the one man who might be able to help. She knew she could count on Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie and she was right. He found a few small boats. With twoscore of his men, he sneaked by night past English ships that guarded the sea approach, reached the seaward gate, and brought ashore fresh supplies. The English saw the resupply effort going on and charged. Ramsay and his men chased the English back to their camp.
Shortly after, on June 10, 1338, Walter Montague, Earl of Salisbury, gave up and retreated to England having done nothing but expend a lot of English gold and make 'Black' Agnes Randolph, Countess of Dunbar, into a heroine of legend. As the ballad puts into Salisbury's mouth, "Came I early or came I late, I found Agnes at the gate!"
(Postscript: I find it amusing that two years later Thomas Randolph was exchanged for that same earl of Salisbury who had himself been taken prisoner.)
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