Death of Sir Andrew Harclay – Earl Of Carlisle

Death of Sir Andrew Harclay – Earl Of Carlisle

The people of the Middle Ages liked the idea of Fortune’s Wheel, endlessly turning to raise men and women to riches, fame and power, and then casting them down again.

Few medieval Englishmen can have embodied this concept more than Andrew Harclay, a little known Cumbrian squire who rose to be an earl – only to perish miserably less than a year later, as a convicted traitor.

Andrew Harclay suffered a terrible death by hanging, drawing and quartering.

Andrew Harclay was born in about 1270, son of Michael Harclay, sheriff of Cumberland and Joan Fitzjohn of Yorkshire.

He had a sister called Sarah and brothers named John and Henry.
Little is known about Andrew, until the year 1315.
By then Sir Andrew was a battle-hardened knight, a veteran of numerous campaigns against the Scots.

It was just over a year since the English had been routed by the Scots at Bannockburn.
Now there was a huge Scottish army, led by Robert Bruce himself, intent on taking the town of Carlisle.

It is estimated the Scottish numbered around 10000 men.
Defending Carlisle’s two-mile wall perimeter were approximately 600 men.
An easy picking, the Scots may have thought.

In charge of defending Carlisle was Sir Andrew Harclay.
Not only were the Scots far superior in number, but the defendants were short of supplies of all kinds, including weapons.

However, Andrew did his best.
He stockpiled rocks, arrows and javelins along the walls, knowing the Scots would try to scale them.
The Scots, in turn, were confident they’d overrun the walls.

For close to two weeks, Andrew and his few men held the walls, rebutting every attempt made by the Scots to take the city.

After yet another attempt to scale the walls failed, the Scottish leaders decided to give up, and Robert the Bruce decided to return home.

The defence of Carlisle earned Sir Andrew Harclay some well-deserved fame, personal praise and a nice heavy purse from the king.
He also earned a lot of jealousy from other well-born knights in the region, who did not exactly warm to the scruffy and forthright Andrew.

Later in 1315 Andrew was captured by the Scots who demanded a substantial ransom for him.

Andrew’s absence gave those who disliked him, an opportunity to whisper their opinion in the royal ear – or at least in that of the up-and-coming royal favourite, Hugh Despenser.

The king however, contributed to the ransom.

Andrew was restored to his post as constable of Carlisle, and was named sheriff of Cumberland in 1319.
Things were as calm as they could be, this close to the Scottish border.
Or maybe not….

The infected relationship between King Edward and Thomas of Lancaster exploded into a full-blown rebellion.

Sir Andrew was ordered to ride south in haste, and in March of 1322 he commanded the royalist forces that defeated Thomas of Lancaster and Humphrey de Bohun, at the Battle of Boroughbridge.

The rebellion was crushed, the king was victorious and generously inclined towards his loyal knight.

Sir Andrew was rewarded with the title of Earl of Carlisle.
Life, it seemed, was good.

Despite Andrew’s good fortune, the Scots continued to raid with impunity.
Robert the Bruce was determined to use violence to force Edward II to the negotiating table.

For the people living along the Scottish border, life was difficult and frightening—and Andrew seems to have genuinely cared for them.

Edward II, meanwhile, was meting out harsh justice to those who had participated in the rebellion against him.
Many lost their lives, most through hanging, a handful through the substantially more gruesome death of being hanged, drawn and quartered.

The king was in no mood to be conciliatory. Edward, just like his father, considered himself overlord of Scotland, declaring Robert the Bruce a traitor, rather than a fellow king.

Andrew despaired of ever seeing some sort of permanent peace.
Andrew began his own, very private negotiations with Robert the Bruce.

Early in January of 1323, Sir Andrew rode to meet Robert the Bruce in person, and a treaty was signed.

Andrew must have been a fool to enter into an agreement with Robert the Bruce on behalf of England.
This was, in effect, treason.

It didn’t matter that Andrew’s main concern seems to have been to create some sort of lasting peace, and thereby allow the people of the north some respite from continuous raids and violence.

Within a week or so after the treaty was signed, King Edward was informed of its existence.

King Edward did have a lot to thank Andrew for, but ultimately no medieval king could tolerate such an affront to their authority.

Sir Andrew Harclay was arrested for treason.
He was not allowed to speak for himself.

Instead, he was ungirded of his earl’s belt and had his spurs struck off.
No longer neither a knight nor an earl, Andrew Harclay was condemned to die a traitor’s death.

As Andrew stood by the gallows on 3rd March 1323, he expressed what he had not been allowed to express at his trial.

What he had done, and what he did, was for the sake of the greater good, wanting to broker a permanent peace between Scotland and England.

Once he’d said his piece, Andrew turned himself over into the hands of the exEcutioner.

By all accounts, Andrew died ‘well’, or as well as one can die when you are first hanged, and cut down while alive.
Then disembowelled in such a way, that you are still alive to see your intestines burned before you.

He was then b-headed.

After his death, his head was taken to the king at Knaresborough in Yorkshire, before it was hung up on London Bridge.
The four parts of his body were dispersed around the country, and displayed in Carlisle, Newcastle, Bristol, and Dover.

Less than three months after Andrew Harclay’s exEcution, Edward II agreed on a thirteen-year truce with Scotland!

Sir Andrew Harclay’s head was on display in London for five years before it was taken down.

His sister petitioned the king to return the various parts of the body for a Christian burial, and in 1328 her request was granted.

In the reign of King Edward III, Harclay’s nephew Henry approached the king in the hopes of having his uncle’s conviction overturned.

It didn’t happen, and so Andrew Harclay’s epitaph in the royal rolls is simply
“lately the king’s enemy and rebel”

? The hanging, drawing and quartering of Hugh Despenser, as depicted in the Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse.
The same fate that awaited Sir Andrew Barclay.