The Hammer falls silent
On 7 July 1307, Edward I of England — the self-styled "Hammer of the Scots" — died at Burgh by Sands on the Solway marshes, within sight of the Scottish border. He was sixty-eight years old and had been marching north one final time to crush Robert the Bruce's rebellion. His death, just miles from Scottish soil, was one of the most consequential moments in the Wars of Independence.
Edward had been the most formidable enemy Scotland had ever faced. It was Edward who had exploited the Scottish succession crisis of the 1290s to impose English overlordship. It was Edward who had sacked Berwick with appalling savagery in 1296, seized the Stone of Destiny, and installed puppet governments. It was Edward who had captured and executed William Wallace in 1305, having him hanged, drawn, and quartered at Smithfield in London. And it was Edward who had pursued Robert the Bruce relentlessly after Bruce's coronation in 1306, driving him into exile and imprisoning his family.
By the spring of 1307, however, Edward was a dying man. Wracked by dysentery and barely able to sit a horse, he insisted on being carried north on a litter. His obsession with Scotland consumed him to the last. According to one account, he ordered that after his death his bones should be carried at the head of the English army until Scotland was conquered. His son Edward II, a weaker and less focused man, ignored the instruction and turned the army around.
Edward I's death transformed Bruce's prospects. The relentless English pressure ceased almost overnight. Edward II lacked his father's iron will and strategic brilliance. Over the next seven years, Bruce methodically recaptured Scottish castles, defeated English garrisons, and rebuilt the Scottish state. The climax came at Bannockburn in 1314, where Bruce destroyed Edward II's army. Had the old king lived, Bannockburn might never have happened. Scotland's independence was won not only by Bruce's genius but by the fortunate timing of the Hammer's death.