#balliol

On December 25th in the year 1319 a two year truce between Scotland and England began.

This little known peace treaty is often overlooked, probably due to the Bruce’s government issuing the Declaration of Arbroath the following year.

After Bannockburn King Edward II of England never forgot his humiliation, and he threatened war against Scotland. The Bruce got there first, raiding south as far as York in a bid to capture prisoners to be held for ransom. Edward also had his troubles at home with a trebellion.

The King was also talking to some of the great Northern lords and it looked as if they would do a separate deal with the Bruce to stop him destroying their land. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, was one of the rebel barons but paid for it with his life after the Battle of Boroughbridge was won by forces loyal to Edward.

Encouraged by ending the civil war in England, Edward came north with a great army, but Bruce deployed the same tactics he had used prior to Bannockburn, destroying anything that could be of use to the English, who were forced to retreat when famine and disease broke out.

In September 1319 The Bruce won a decisive battle at Myton in Yorkshire

Earlier that year Edward II had moved an army North and laid siege to Berwick in an attempt to recapture it from the Scots. In response the army of several thousand Scots, commanded by the Earl of Moray and the Good Sir James Douglas, bypassed the Northern town and marched through the north of England torching all in their path. Their secret objective lay in Edward’s court at York; where they hoped to abduct Edward II’s wife, the 21 year old Queen, Isabella. On September 20th 1319 they neared York and The Battle of Myton ensued.

The outcome of this unequal contest was never in doubt. Formed up according to their custom in a single division, the Scots uttered together a tremendous shout to terrify the English, the Highland charge began racing towards the men from York, who straightaway began to take to their heels at the sound.

The York contingent was an odd mixture of men thrown together to meet the emergency, including priests and monks losses were reported of 3,000, among them Nicholas Flemyng the city mayor.

For Edward II, already at odds with many English nobles, it was another disaster. Meanwhile the victorious Scottish army retreated back across the border into Scotland carrying their ill-gotten gains and prisoners.

Robert the Bruce

Robert I of Scotland, better known as Robert the Bruce, reigned as King of Scotland from 1306 to 1329 CE. For his role in achieving independence from England, Robert the Bruce has long been regarded as a national hero and one of Scotland's greatest ever monarchs.

Robert succeeded John Balliol (r. 1292-1296 CE) but only after a tumultuous decade of side-switching and military ups and downs against English armies led by Edward I of England (r. 1272-1307 CE) and those of rival Scottish barons. A grand victory over the English at Bannockburn in 1314 CE cemented Robert's claim to be the rightful king of Scotland and his skilful diplomacy brought recognition of Scotland's full independence both from the Pope and Edward III of England (r. 1327-1377 CE). Robert was succeeded by his son David II of Scotland (r. 1329-1371 CE).

Early Life

Robert (VIII) the Bruce was born on 11 July 1274 CE at Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire, Scotland. His father was Robert (VII) the Bruce (d. 1304 CE) and his mother was Marjorie, Countess of Carrick. The Bruce family had been the lords of Annandale since the 1120s CE, and they claimed descent from Earl David, younger brother of William I of Scotland (r. 1165-1214 CE). Robert spent a period of his youth in either the Western Isles or Ulster. As the family had estates and properties in England, so, too, he spent time in Carlisle Castle and London. In 1292 CE Robert inherited the earldom of Carrick.

Around 1295 CE Robert married Isabel of Mar (d. c. 1296 CE), daughter of Donald, earl of Mar, and then, in 1302 CE, Elizabeth de Burgh (d. 1327 CE), the daughter of Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster. With Isabel, Robert had a daughter Marjorie (b. c. 1295 CE) and with Elizabeth, he had two daughters - Matilda and Margaret - and two sons - David (b. 1324 CE) and John (possibly the twin of David but he died as a child).

For the second week in a row we have an Oxbridge college taking on a London college. I really would like to put together a searchable database of all the University Challenge matches so that I could come up with ludicrously niche stats about things like how many times such a sequence has occurred before. There are a few people on Twitter who have that sort of dataset for football and they come up with the most marvelously trivial coincidences (see links)

Disregarding any insights that may or may not have arisen from the analysis of such a spreadsheet, Balliol came into this quarter final having scraped past Clare College Cambridge (a satisfying triple C) in a low scoring first round match, before beating an impressive St John’s in a much improved round two performance. Like Imperial, whose Captain Kohn used the extended gap between recordings to get mentally swole, Balliol appear to have got some serious practice in. King’s, meanwhile won a pair of low scoring matches, though they did so convincingly, and it will be interesting to see how they stack up against a resurgent Balliol.

I’ve also come to a conclusion about what to call the name of the quarter final format. If you read last week’s review you’ll know I had some qualms about the use of the term double elimination since the rest of the tournament doesn’t follow those rules, so I reckon single stage double elimination double qualification just about covers it (SSDEDQ). If none of this makes any sense to you then go and heck out last week’s post, which may (or may not) help you.

Anyway, that’s enough talk of double S ded Q (as it would surely be referred to), here’s your first starter for ten (brief aside here to mention VCM’s closer on tonight’s OC, in which she said that a Michael Portillo show would be replacing The Challenge, because she may have surpassed herself in the bad jokes (are they jokes) stakes with her worst one ever)

Balliol captain O’Connor is repping a set of dungarees in a move I, as a recent purchaser of dungarees, respect to the highest degree. He just about manages to avoid the ‘minion cosplay’ combo (which I have fallen accidental victim to) of yellow jumper and blue dungs, with a sea-green set of overalls. No one else is wearing dungarees, and it shows, as O’Connor takes the opening starter with I. A religious set of bonuses gave them fifteen points, but the captain dropped five of those with a neg next time out.

This was picked up by a lackadaisical Triggs, leaning back relaxedly in his chair, but King’s could only manage one bonus on Irish sports stadiums. Another from Triggs gave them the lead - perhaps dungarees don’t make as much of a difference as I insinuated earlier on - which they extended with one more on crystallography.

Both sides miss the picture starter, but O’Connor picks up the replacement. Scholefield then becomes the first non-Triggs/O’Connor contestant with a correct buzz, an impressive one of planetary nebulas. She looks rightly pleased with herself.

A strong night for Triggs continues on the next starter, before we have what feels like a very early music question, which no one recognises. Its the Everly Brothers, and Triggs is the only one to guess, with an apologetic ‘Mamas and the Papas?’. When the bonuses come, Balliol struggle with them too. I wonder how long it will be before a simpering Daily Mail article comes out about how young people have no respect for the cultural history of the west (apart from all the ones about statues I mean).

There was a video on the #UniversityChallenge hashtag last week of a guy filming the TV as a question about Rosewood was read out. He kept repeating ‘rosewood’, ‘rosewood’, ‘rosewood’, ever more exasperatedly as the team struggled to get it, and when they guessed mahogany he grunted out ‘idiots!’. I’m always amazed by how annoyed people get at the contestants for not knowing certain things, when they know quite a lot about a lot of other things. 

Going into the music round the scores were tied at 55 each, but Balliol took the match by the scruff of the neck and would score 90 points before King’s won another buzzer race. Actually, thats not true, they did win one, but they were wrong, and only succeeded in losing five points.

With the game lost, King’s restore a bit of respect, and three starters in a row almost lets them creep into three figures.

Final Score: Balliol, Ox 145 - 95 King’s, LDN

A surprisingly low scoring match, with flashes of brilliance from both teams. But both will need to do better if they are to win their next matches and move onto the next stage of the gruelling SS DED Q format.

If you want to read about the SS DED Qs from 2015-16, you can do so on Patreon, where I’ve been writing retro review for that series. Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next week