Battle of the Pass of Brander The Battle of the Pass of Brander in Scotland forms a small part of the wider struggle known as the Wars of Scottish Independence , and a large part of the civil war between the Bruce and Balliol factions , a parallel and overlapping conflict . It was a victory for King Robert Bruce over the MacDougalls of Argyll , kinsmen of John Comyn , also known as the Red Comyn , who had been murdered by Bruce and his adherents at Dumfries in 1306 . The sources do not allow us to determine the date of the battle with any degree of precision : various dates between 1308 and 1309 have been suggested , though the late summer of 1308 would seem to be the most likely . A Scottish Civil War . The slaying of John Comyn was a decisive act in Scottish political history . Soon after this Bruce had been crowned with the full support of the Scottish Church , which effectively set aside a papal interdict , although he still faced some formidable obstacles . The balance of power in Scotland shifted firmly in favour of the English . The chief weakness of the campaigns of Edward I of England , virtually from the outset , was that he was unable to build a lasting alliance with the Scottish nobility , a traditional power base on which his rule depended : friends at one moment were liable to be enemies at the next . With the murder of John Comyn his extensive network of family and kinsmen , long in the forefront of the national struggle , were guaranteed to fight on the side of the English against Robert Bruce , whom they now considered to be the greater evil . Bruce ' s Scottish enemies controlled large and strategically important lands throughout the realm , in Galloway , Lochaber , Atholl , Ross , Buchan , and Badenoch and Strathspey . Much of Argyll was under the control of Alexander MacDougall , the Lord of Lorne , who had been related to John Comyn by marriage . Soon after Bruce was defeated by the English at the Battle of Methven , what was left of his army was mauled by Alexander ' s son , John of Lorne , also known as Iain ' Bacach ' - ' the Lame ' - at the Battle of Dalry near Tyndrum . Bruce , who narrowly escaped capture , took to hiding . Although the king made a remarkable recovery from these disasters , descending on Ayrshire in the spring of 1307 to begin a guerrilla war , it was by no means certain in these early days that he would be able to prevail against the combination of English military power and internal resistance . Soon after his Ayrshire campaign began he was favoured by a major stroke of good fortune : Edward I , on his way north with an army , died just short of the Scottish border in July 1307 . His son , the far less capable Edward II , turned his attention towards English domestic politics , leaving his Scottish allies to manage as best they could . Bruce , who was convinced that the English were bound to return in the summer of 1308 , decided to act with speed and thoroughness . Harrowing the North . The first attack came in September 1307 in Galloway , the hereditary home of the Balliols , against the Macdougalls and Macanns . Here the fighting was so fierce that the local peasantry took refuge over the border in Cumberland . The chief men in Galloway appealed in vain to Edward for help and were then forced to pay tribute to Bruce in return for a truce . With this out of the way the king turned his attention to the north , breaking through the English - held Lowlands and heading for the Red Comyn ' s old stronghold in Lochaber . His march into the Highlands was supported by a fleet of galley s sailing up Loch Linnhe . John Bacach , acting for his elderly father , asked for a truce , unable to face the full force of this combined onslaught . Bruce then wheeled to the north - east to settle manners with his principal enemy , the Red Comyn ' s cousin and namesake , John Comyn , 3rd Earl of Buchan . This campaign lasted through the winter season , climaxing at the Battle of Inverurie in May 1308 . Bruce was now at liberty to turn his full attention back to unfinished business in the west . The Pass of Brander . Alexander Macdougall , too old and sick to take part in the fighting , lay in his castle at Dunstaffnage . John Bacach was left with the task of dealing with the expected onslaught . In the summer of 1308 , possibly late August , his army took up position in the narrow Pass of Brander , where the River Awe slices through the southern slope of Ben Cruachan on its way down from Loch Awe . However , only Barbour ' s poem " The Brus " ( late 14th century ) places the battle ; it does not mention the pass by name but the description fits . The large number of cairn s around Bridge of Awe may give some support to the location . John , who was recovering from an illness , observed his dispositions from a galley on Loch Awe . His men were hidden in the hillside , overlooking the narrow path through the pass . If they looked for a repetition of the Battle of Dalry they were to be disappointed , for Bruce had now learned enough of guerrilla warfare to sidestep so simple a trap . A party of loyal Highlanders , commanded by Sir James Douglas , climbed even higher up the mountain and – completely unobserved – positioned themselves in the enemy ' s rear . As the Macdougalls attacked they were caught in a vice , with King Robert coming from below and the Black Douglas from above . The men of Argyll wavered and then broke . They were chased westwards across the River Awe all the way back to Dunstaffnage , while John escaped down the Loch in his galley , eventually taking refuge in England , like the earl of Buchan . The Lord of Argyll surrendered and did homage to Robert Bruce , but the following year he joined his son in exile , dying in 1310 in the service of Edward II . The campaign of 1307 and 1308 ended the internal threat to the Scottish king . All of his Comyn enemies had been destroyed or exiled and their lands lost . The survivors no longer had a power base in Scotland , and were only able to continue the fight as volunteers in the English army . Nevertheless , a legacy of bitterness remained , eventually to return to Scotland in 1332 , under immeasurably different circumstances . The Battle of Ben Cruachan ? Like the date there continues to be some uncertainty over the exact location of the Brander battle . R . A . MacDonald in his 1997 book , " The Kingdom of the Isles " , argued that the traditional site of the battle is wrong , and that it took place further north on the shores of Loch Etive . From this he concludes that the fight should be more correctly known as the Battle of Ben Cruachan . However , a fight by Loch Etive could only have taken place if Bruce , coming from the east , had first cleared the Pass of Brander , although this was the obvious place for an ambush . An advance along the difficult shores of Loch Etive north of Ben Cruachan in the full view of the enemy galleys would have been military suicide . The author further contends that John ' s escape after the battle would have been possible only on Loch Etive , a sea loch , and not on Loch Awe , an inland loch , which , in any case was controlled by the Campbells , allies of Bruce . As for Loch Awe being ' a Campbell lake ' the author ignores his earlier point that the Campbells had been eclipsed at this time by the Macdougalls . Even on an inland loch a galley would offer the best mode of escape from slow moving land forces . A glance at the map will show that there could never have been a ' Battle of Ben Cruachan . '