The Bruces of fourteenth-century Scotland were formidable and enthusiastic warriors. Former studies of this period of history tend to concentrate on events in Scotland, but England's war with Robert Bruce profoundly affected the whole of the British Isles. Scottish raiders struck deep into the heartlands of Yorkshire and Lanarkshire; Edward Bruce was proclaimed King of Ireland and came close to subduing that country, and The Isle of Man was captured and a Welsh sea-port raided. In the North Sea, the Scots allied with German and Flemish pirates to cripple England's vital wool trade and disrupt her war effort.
