It was the smallest battle on the road to Scottish independence and the one that decided it. On St Andrew's Day, 30 November 1335, in a forest above the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, Sir Andrew Murray's 800 Scots intercepted a force of 3,000 led by David de Strathbogie, the titular Earl of Atholl. Strathbogie had spent the autumn trying to wipe out the Bruce-loyal freeholders of the northern Highlands. He was Edward Balliol's chief lieutenant, the man on whom the English-backed claim to the Scottish throne practically depended in the north. By the end of that short winter day, he was dead at the foot of an oak tree, refusing to surrender, and Balliol's hopes died with him.
The Second War of Scottish Independence was also a civil war. After Robert Bruce and his supporters murdered John Comyn in 1306, the great Balliol-Comyn faction never reconciled with the Bruce party. When Bruce won at Bannockburn in 1314, the Scottish Parliament passed sentence of forfeiture against those who continued to fight for the English. They became known as the disinherited - exiled lords with claims to land they could no longer reach. Bruce's death in 1329 left a child king, David II, on the throne. The disinherited saw their chance. Under Henry de Beaumont they raised an invasion in 1332, won at Dupplin Moor, and crowned Edward Balliol king. Edward III of England eventually committed his open backing, and the Scots were crushed again at Halidon Hill in 1333. By 1335, Edward III had brought a full English army north and then left the disinherited to manage on their own. They were not managing well.
In September 1335, the surviving Bruce loyalists met at Dumbarton Castle and appointed Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell as Guardian of Scotland. His father had been joint commander with William Wallace at Stirling Bridge in 1297. The younger Murray had inherited the family inclination toward guerilla warfare - the style King Robert had perfected - and the men who gathered around him at Dumbarton formed the nucleus of national revival: the earls of March and Ross, Sir William Douglas, Maurice Murray, and William Keith. The chronicler John of Fordun records that Strathbogie 'practised among the people' such cruelty that 'words cannot bring it within the mind's grasp' - some disinherited, others murdered, all aimed at erasing the freeholder class that had been the backbone of Scottish resistance since Wallace. Murray's wife Christina Bruce, aunt of the boy king, was holding Kildrummy Castle against Strathbogie's siege. The Guardian marched north.
Murray had 800 men. Strathbogie, by Lord Hailes's reckoning, had 3,000. The Scots had carefully avoided pitched battle since Halidon Hill, but Kildrummy could not be allowed to fall. Strathbogie raised the siege and moved south to intercept, choosing ground in the forest of Culblean. North of the Dee, east of Strathbogie's position, Murray was joined by 300 men from Kildrummy under a local guide named John of the Craig. Through the night of 29-30 November, John led Murray's force on a long sweep south and west, aiming to take Strathbogie from the rear. The element of surprise was lost at dawn when enemy scouts spotted them. But Strathbogie's troops were largely conscripted local men, and he had no archers. Murray split his force in two. William Douglas led the forward unit; Murray himself held the rearguard.
When Douglas halted in feigned hesitation, Strathbogie took the bait and charged downhill. His ranks broke as they crossed a burn - a Highland stream - and Douglas counter-charged at exactly that moment. Murray's rearguard struck the exposed flank. The chronicles record that the charge was so fierce the bushes in its path were flattened. Pinned in front, attacked from the side, the larger army broke. Strathbogie stood his ground against an oak tree, refused to surrender, and was killed in a last stand beside Walter and Thomas Comyn. Survivors fled to the nearby island castle in Loch Kinord; they surrendered the next day. Compared with Bannockburn or Halidon Hill, Culblean is small enough to be forgotten. The 20th-century historian W. Douglas Simpson called it 'the turning point in the second war of Scottish Independence.' Edward Balliol spent that winter, the Lanercost Chronicle records, 'at Elande, in England, because he does not yet possess in Scotland any castle or town where he could dwell in safety.' He never would again.
Coordinates 57.0899N, 2.9341W. The battlefield lies in the forest of Culblean, near Culblean Hill, a few miles north of the River Dee in Aberdeenshire. Loch Kinord, where Strathbogie's survivors took refuge, sits immediately adjacent. Recommended viewing altitude 3,500-5,500 ft AGL. From the air, look for the irregular shape of Loch Kinord with its small wooded island (site of the medieval castle), surrounded by the heather and pine of the Muir of Dinnet National Nature Reserve. Culblean Hill rises modestly to the north. The site sits roughly between Ballater (west) and Aboyne (east). Nearest ICAO: Aberdeen (EGPD) 35 nm east; Inverness (EGPE) 70 nm northwest. Royal Deeside weather is changeable; low cloud is common over the surrounding hills October through April.