Scotland and the Crusades

Because of the huge interest and emphasis on the centuries of war between England and Scotland, that Scotland was part of the larger community of Europe tends to be overlooked. In fact, Scots were involved in European affairs and Scots took part in the crusades. 

The First Crusade was called by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in November 1095. There are references to Scots being amongst the crusaders, but no specific names have survived so it is impossible to tell how many or who took part. After the end of that crusade, most crusaders naturally returned home, leaving the captured Jerusalem and lands known at the time as the Levant short of defenders, leading to the foundation of the military orders of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller. 

In 1198, Hugh de Payens, founder and master of the Knights Templar, arrived in Scotland and met with King David I. That meeting went so well, although there are no records of details, that the Scottish King gave the Templars their liberties of Scotland and land for their first Scottish preceptory (the word used for a monastery of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller) at what is now Temple in Midlothian.

There they built one of their typical eight-sided churches. Unnamed Scottish knights then accompanied him on his unsuccessful attempt to capture Damascus the following year. By 1239 the Templars had founded a second preceptory at what is now Maryculter. 

During the Ninth Crusade, led by the future King Edward I of England, we finally have names of Scots who took part led by the Earl of Atholl and included some of the most prominent names in Scottish history. It is a safe assumption that Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller from the Scottish preceptories were there as well. A main responsibility of the knights militant was recruiting members to fight, so without doubt there were at least a few Scottish Templars. The Stewarts and Balliols took part in that crusade. Robert de Bruce, the Competitor, and his son Robert, Lord of Annandale and (through his wife) Earl of Carrick, did as well. 

The widely told story that Marjorie of Carrick held him prisoner to force Robert de Bruce (King Robert's father) to marry her when he brought her word of her husband's death at the fall of Acre is certainly apocryphal as they married before that city's fall. However there are clear records that he did take part in the Crusade. 

The fall of the Templars came in the middle of the Scottish Wars of Independence and I will write about them and their part in Scotland next time. 

After the fall of Acre and the loss of the entire Levant, popes continually called for another crusade, but none happened to recover it. The European nations were too busy fighting each other to mount another crusade to distant lands, but that was not the end of Crusading. Any war against non-Christians or heretics was called a crusade and there again Scots took part.

Thus when James, Lord of Douglas, carried the heart of Robert the Bruce onto the battlefield fighting the Moors in Grenada, he was following his orders to carry it on crusade. He fell in battle near Teba where a monument to him has been erected.

Photograph by Diana Beach.

During periods when Scots could not prove their mettle against the English and there were no more crusades to the Levant, many joined in the Baltic Crusades against Baltic non-Christians. Though rarely discussed, they were every bit as violent and harsh as the crusades in the Levant. The last of the Baltic Crusades was the Teutonic Knights against the Lithuanians which lasted until 1410 in which a number of Scots took part. In 1391 William Douglas, Lord of Nithsdale, illegitimate son of the Earl of Douglas, set off with his companion Robert Stewart of Durisdeer. Douglas was assassinated by the English in Danzig. In gratitude for the efforts of the Douglases, the burgh added the Douglas coat of arms to the High Gate. Such was the end of Scotland's part in crusading.