Scotsman will be Free:
I am aware that Bruce was excommunicated and that all of Scotland was placed under interdict by the Pope [i.e. No Eucharist could be celebrated and sacraments will not to be administered unless death of a person was imminent].
The Pope’s intent, was to get the war stopped. Edward at first promised to ask the Pope to lift the interdict on the Scottish people while still claiming Scotland as part of England. When he broke his promise, the Pope began to refer to Robert Bruce as King of England and within 5 years, the Pope lifted the interdict on the Scottish people and King Bruce, which then gave diplomatic recognition of Scotland as a free state.
In other words, the Pope of Rome was the first to formally recognize Scotland as free as No other country or King came out in favor of Robert Bruce and against England until the Pope recognized Scotland and King Bruce as Independent.
That is the only point I am making, early on, the Pope did want the war stopped and wanted the Scots to accept English rule but as the violation of the Scotish rights by the English grew, as well as England’s oppression of the Irish, eventually the Pope did in fact recognize Scotand’s freedom and he did intervene in the English oppression of the Irish, although unfortunately, the Irish did not have the same sense of National unity and lacked the leadership that Robert Bruce provided for the Scotts.
Again, I don’t disagree with you about Robert Bruce winning on the battlefield but politically it was Pope John XXII who was the first “head of state” as the Pope was the head of the papal states as well as the Bishop of Rome to formally recognize Scotland as a sovereign state.
edit to my earlier post.
Refer to King Bruce as the King of Scotland
The Pope merely accepted the inevitable and was playing politics. He sided with the english because they were the most powerful. When they got whipped, he changed his tune.
Other european countries claim Scotland? The French were allies of Scotland. Who else would claim it, and more importantly, enforce their claim? The Scots were free, freed themselves, and the Pope was a day late and a dollar short. Refusal to recognize that many Popes, if not all of them, played man’s game by man’s rules when they engaged in what is termed “The Great Game” is simply ignoring reality. Sympathy for the down trodden wasn’t part of the equation in Scotland, and I doubt that it was in Ireland, either.