Primary Sources

Jean le Bel provides an extremely important first-hand account since he was present for the whole campaign with the Low Country mercenaries with Jean, count de Beaumont, with whom he went to England and Scotland in 1327, Le Bel wrote his Vrayes Chroniques (“True Chronicles”), recounting the events of the reign of Edward III. He writes about the campaign in the first person and provides much fascinating detail especially on the Scottish ways of war. An English translation is available: The True Chronicles of Jean le Bel 1290-1360, translated by Nigel Bryant (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011), pp. 34-50.

Froissart, who was the service of Queen Philippa of Hainault, copied much from Le Bel for this period and is therefore not an independent source, but his chronicles are easily accessible on line in the Thomas Johnes edition (in English) of 1874.

The Lanercost Chronicle was probably a Franciscan chronicle later expanded at the Augustinian Priory of Lanercost. It covers the period from 1201 to 1346 and therefore is reasonably contemporary with the events of 1327. It was published in Latin in 1839, and a part translation was published in 1913 (Sir Herbert Maxwell, The Chronicle of Lanercost 1272-1346, translated with notes. This is available at https://archive.org/details/chronicleoflaner00maxwuoft..

The Scalachronica is one of the few early chronicles written by a layman by Sir Thomas Grey of Heaton near Norham in Northumberland, while he was imprisoned by the Scots in Edinburgh Castle, after being caught in an ambush in October 1355, and completed in England after his release.

The Brus was a poem in Scots by John Barbour which covers the Scottish war of Independence from 1296 to 1332. It was written around 1375. It has been published a number of times and te version edited by Emeritus Professor A.A.M. Duncan is available at https://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/STELLA/STARN/poetry/BRUS/contents.htm

John of Fordun (1360 approx.-1384) was a Scottish chronicler and a secular priest who composed his history in the latter part of the 14th century. It is probable that he was a chaplain in St Machar's Cathedral of Aberdeen.

Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III: Volume 1, 1327-1330 Edited by H C Maxwell Lyte. Covers the period from January 1327 to February 1330. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1896. Available at https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/edw3/vol1

Clifford Rogers, War Cruel and Sharp. English Strategy under Edward III, 1327-1360 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000). Chapter 2 ‘He might come and amend it’: The Weardale campaign of 1327, Edward III’s military apprenticeship’.

John Chaucer’s service is discussed by Andrew Ayton, ‘John Chaucer and the Weardale campaign 1327’, Notes and Queries, 36 (1989), pp. 9-10. This is based on a muster roll in the National Archives for the company of John de Bedford (E 101/35/2 m. 1). The basic structure of Bedford's retinue (70 men-at-arms, 30 hobelars, and 164 archers) is confirmed by a pay account, also in the National Archives, TNA E101/18/7). The seventy men-at-arms listed include John Chaucer and his half-brother, Thomas Heyronn.

N. B. Lewis, ‘The summons of the English Feudal Levy 5 April 1327’ was published in Essays in Medieval History presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed. T. A Sandquist and M. R. Powicke (Toronto 1969), pp. 236-49. The article is available on line at https://www.degruyter.com/toronto/view/book/9781487583521/10.3138/9781487583521-014.xml

 

Secondary sources

W.M. Ormrod, Edward III (Yale Monarchs, 2011)

C. McNamee, The Wars of the Bruces. Scotland, England and Ireland 1306-1328 (Edinburgh: Tuckwell Press, 1997)

M. Brown, The Black Douglases (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1998)

I. Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor: the Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1^st Earl of March (Vintage Books edn, 2010)

R. Barber, Edward III and the Triumph of England (Penguin Press, 2013)

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