The Highland Battles

This in-depth history of medieval Scottish warfare highlights the rivalries between the Norse warlords and the early Scottish kings.

Between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, Scotland’s northern and western highlands underwent a turbulent period of significant wars. The Highlands and islands were controlled by the kings of Norway or by Norse or Norse-Celtic warlords, who not only resisted Scottish royal authority but on occasion seemed likely to overthrow it.

In The Highland Battles, Chris Peers provides a coherent and vivid account of the campaigns and battles that shaped Scotland. The narrative is structured around a number of battles—Skitten Moor, Torfness, Tankerness, Renfrew, Mam Garvia, Clairdon and Dalrigh—which illustrate phases of the conflict and reveal the strategies and tactics of the rival chieftains.

Peers explores the international background to many of these conflicts which had consequences for Scotland’s relations with England, Ireland and continental Europe. He also considers to what extent the fighting methods of the time survived into the post-medieval period.