Sieges of Stirling Castle - Siege of 1304

Siege of 1304

After the defeat of William Wallace's Scots army at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298, it took Edward I six years to gain full control of Scotland. The last stronghold of resistance to English rule was Stirling Castle. Armed with twelve siege engines, the English laid siege to the castle in April 1304. For four months the castle was bombarded by lead balls (stripped from nearby church roofs), Greek fire, stone balls, and even some sort of gunpowder mixture. Impatient with lack of progress, Edward ordered his chief engineer, Master James of St. George, to begin work on a new, more massive engine called Warwolf (possibly a trebuchet). The castle's garrison of 30, led by William Oliphant, eventually surrendered on 20 July after Edward had previously refused to accept surrender until the Warwolf had been tested.

Historians disagree on what eventually led the garrison to surrender. One explanation says that Edward succeeded in filling the moat with earth and stone and prepared scaling ladders and ropes, and the garrison saw their fate and offered their surrender. Another says that Edward managed to breach a wall with a ram, which convinced the garrison to surrender. A different possibility is starvation. Despite previous threats, Edward showed great mercy to the rebels. He spared all the Scots in the garrison and executed only one Englishman who had previously betrayed the castle to the Scots. Sir William Oliphant was imprisoned in the Tower of London.