Watson, Fiona J.

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WATSON, Fiona J.

PERSONAL:

Female. Education: Attended University of St. Andrews (medieval history); University of Glasgow, Ph.D. (Scottish history).

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of Stirling, AHRB Research Centre for Environmental History, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland; fax: 441786 466251. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Author, historian, and educator. University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, senior lecturer in Scottish history and director of Centre for Environmental History and Policy. BBC Radio Scotland, presenter of History File radio program.

WRITINGS:

Under the Hammer: Edward I and Scotland, 1286-1306, Tuckwell Press (East Linton, East Lothian, Scotland), 1998.

(With T. C. Smout and Alan R. MacDonald) The Native Woodlands of Scotland: An Environmental History, 1500-1900, University of Edinburgh Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2000.

Scotland: A History, 8000 B.C.-A.D. 2000, Tempus Publishing (Charleston, SC), 2001.

Contributor to periodicals such as Environmental Archaeology: The Journal of Human Palaeoecology. Contributor to volumes such as Scottish Woodland History: Essays and Perspectives, edited by T. C. Smout, Scottish Cultural Press (Dalkeith, Scotland), 1997, and European Woods and Forests: Studies in Cultural History, edited by C. Watkins, Cabi Publishing, 1998.

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian Fiona J. Watson started her career in academia as a medieval military and political historian, she remarked in an autobiography on theAHRB Research Centre for Environmental History Web site. However, Watson's academic interests migrated to environmental history as the result of her work with T. C. Smout, a renowned Scottish environmental historian and Scotland's Historiographer Royal. Watson has published works on topics such as woodland management, use of semi-natural woods, and sustainable usage. She also conducts research in "land management and the interaction between people and resources," particularly as they relate to Scotland, she noted on the AHRB Research Centre Web site.

Watson's Under the Hammer: Edward I and Scotland, 1286-1306 examines in great detail the attempts by English King Edward I to gain and maintain control of Scotland in the latter part of the thirteenth century and the early fourteenth century. Watson's book is "a lively and challenging study" of England's attempts to conquer Scotland, "rather than one of Scottish resistance to Edward I," noted Michael Prestwich in the English Historical Review. She avoids "any overt preoccupation with personality and ideology" of such players as William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, and Edward I himself, and instead closely analyzes the "'nuts and bolts' of Edward I's attempt to control Scotland: the logistics of military and personal domination," commented Steve Boardman in Times Literary Supplement.

Watson discusses the military conflicts between Scotland and England, but her focus remains with the complicated, difficult logistical and administrative underpinnings of England's attempts to take and maintain control over Scotland. Watson argues that Edward I absorbed the lessons of the mistakes he made in 1296, "when he conquered Scotland with deceptive ease, and imposed an inappropriate administration, which provoked rebellion in the following year," Prestwich stated. She offers the story of both countries' "relentless search for hard cash, for food to maintain garrisons and to keep armies on the march, and the marshalling of forces for war, conquest, and resistance," Boardman stated. "Bald statistics range from the cost of a garrison to the pay of a foot-soldier, or from the price of a quarter of wheat to the provisioning of the crucial stronghold of Berwick," remarked D. D. R. Owen in Historian. By necessity, most of the statistics relate to the English, as similar records for Scotland are very rare, Owen noted. "The book's fairly detailed examination of the logistical effort underpinning the English military effort in Scotland may not hold every reader's attention, but generally the work is written in an open, accessible style and avoids unnecessary technical jargon," Boardman noted. Owen concluded that "this fact-packed study should have a prominent place on the shelves of historians, students, and general readers alike."