Even before construction could be completed, the sight of the giant engine so intimidated the Scots that they tried to surrender. Edward, declaring, ‘You don’t deserve any grace, but must surrender to my will,’ decided to carry on with the siege and witness for himself the power of the masterful weapon. The Warwolf accurately hurled missiles weighing as much as three hundred pounds and leveled a large section of the curtain wall.

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In 1300 Edward had besieged Caerlaverock Castle. Located in the Scottish Borders about three miles from Dumfries, the castle of the Lords Maxwell posed a formidable obstacle to the king’s plans to control Scotland. In a contemporary poem titled ‘The Song of Caerlaverock,’ Walter of Exeter, a Franciscan friar, chronicled the entire event, from the gathering of troops and materials for the siege train to the assault with siege engines. Originally composed in French, the work remains an invaluable record of the tactics and technology involved in conducting a castle siege.

According to Walter, ‘Caerlaverock was so strong a castle that it feared no siege before the King came there, for it would never have had to surrender, provided that it was well supplied, when the need arose, with men, engines and provisions.’ Edward required all of England’s noblemen who owed knights’ service or held property in his name to assemble at Carlisle, in the northwestern corner of the country. He commissioned Brother Robert of Ulm as his master mason, and a variety of specialist laborers to construct a cat, battering ram, belfry, springalds, and robinets (probably trebuchets). Edward also stockpiled large stones, timber, bolts, animal hides, and tools. Ships hauled in supplies by sea, while the siege train journeyed northward to the castle.

Once at their destination, the English army set up camp, erected tents and huts, stabled the horses, and foraged in the surrounding countryside for timber and other resources. Then they laid siege to the Scottish castle. English and Breton soldiers toting small arms charged the castle walls while siege engines began their assault. Despite suffering several deaths, the garrison remained defiant, and the siege continued for some twenty-four hours. Finally, the siege engines breached the curtain wall. Waving a white flag, the Scots first requested a truce to discuss terms, but their spokesman was killed by an arrow, and they soon surrendered. The English ended the siege by formally taking over the castle and flying the king’s standard. The garrison had amounted to only sixty men, whose fates varied from reprieve to hanging.

If a castle was strong enough to withstand the pounding of siege engines and if the garrison refused to surrender, the commander of the besieging army still had several options. He could employ sappers to dig tunnels underneath castle walls and towers. Once the miners reached their destination, they filled the tunnel, sometimes called a sap, with tar-soaked beams, branches, and other flammable material that was set on fire. If things went according to plan and the flames consumed the timber props inside, the tunnel would collapse, as well as the tower or section of wall overhead. Besiegers would then storm through the breach.

Undermining was not without risks, and miners were sometimes killed when a tunnel collapsed too early. Yet the technique was an effective tactic and resulted in the capture of formidable fortresses. In late 1215, England’s King John besieged Rochester Castle, which was held by a group of rebellious barons led by William d’Albini. For almost seven weeks John used five siege engines to pound away at the powerful stronghold, but he failed to take the castle from the well-supplied and well-armed defenders. The king then turned to his miners.

First the sappers managed to breach the outer wall, and John’s troops rushed into the bailey. In response, the rebels retreated to the protection of the great keep, which was one of the strongest in the kingdom. John’s sappers were soon undermining the southeastern corner of the huge rectangular structure and filling the tunnel with the usual flammable items.

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