Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

“Who can tell? With the English. As a people they are assured of their superiority over all others. Nothing will change them. Now they are struck in their pride-which is their weakest part. Galled by their defeat, who knows what they will do.”

“But that very defeat! Surely it must give them pause?”

“Pause perhaps-but little more, I fear. If England was governed from York, I’d say we should have peace. But from London …!”

“Why say you so?”

“Because the South is too far from Scotland and their warfare.

Shielded from war and its pains, the Southrons are the arrogant ones.

Their armies are mainly of Northerners or Welshmen, or mercenaries. With these they will fight to the last! The southern lords are beyond all in pride. And they are rich-we here cannot conceive of their riches. And there are so many of them …”

“Here’s a sorry tale, I’ faith!” Edward broke in.

“Must we sit here and bemoan our lot? We, the victors! We beat them, did we not? And shall do so again. Enough of such talk. I say, muster and march!”

“What my lord Bishop says is wise,” the King declared, the more sternly in that it was his brother whom he contravened.

“I, who also know the English south, take his meaning. He says, in fact, that the English will not make peace until their southlands suffer. How to make them suffer, then? Here is our problem.”

“How can we reach them, Sire? They are safe from us,” Douglas said.

“Directly, yes. But there may be other ways.”

“What has Your Grace in mind?” the warrior Bishop of Moray asked.

“Not outright war. But enough to make them fear war. And its hurt. To them. On more sides than one. The French threat, again, We are still in treaty with France. There is a new king there, now that Philip the Fair is dead. Louis is weak, perhaps, and may not act-but he this likes Edward of England and grudges him his French possessions. He could be persuaded to threaten, if no more, I think. Across the Channel.”

“Little that will serve us!” Angus Og commented. Although one of Bruce’s most formidable and valuable supporters, he always required to assert his cherished status as a semi-independent princeling, and frequently chose to do so by way of criticism and by never using the normal honorifics of the other’s kingship, to imply fealty.

“Ay, my lord-of itself. But taken with other measures. As, let us say, your own! How far south, on the English coasts, would my Lord of the Isles venture his galleys?”

“Ah-now you talk good sense, Sir King! My wolfhounds will raid right to the Channel, to the Isles of Scilly, if need be. There is naught on the seas to stop them!”

“The English have many stout ships, friend.”

“Stout, it may be-but slow. They have no galleys. My galleys are faster than any other ships that sail the seas.”

“So be it. You will go teach the proud Southrons what war means! Raiding their coasts. My lord of Ross has galleys also-as I know to my cost! He can serve their east coast, while you the west and south.”

The two chiefs glared at each other.

“At the same time, there should be raiding all along the North of England. That is easy. But one fast-moving strong column to drive south. Its flanks and retreat covered by others. To strike fear nothing more. Deep into the soft Midlands. As far as may be, and return safely. How far, think you, it might win?”

“London!” James Douglas exclaimed, amidst laughter.

“I will frighten London for you, Sire!”

“Scarce that, Jamie! But, moving fast enough, you could win far, I believe. Well below Yorkshire.”

“Far further than that…”

There was much spirited agreement now.

But Lennox was doubtful.

“This is war, Sire. Will it not but provoke retaliation? It is peace

we need, I say, not such prolonging of the war.”

“To be sure, my friend. It is for peace I plan this. For permanent peace. Not merely a pause in the fighting. Somehow we are still licking their wounds. Not full invasion. That would cost us too dear. Especially at harvest time. We need this year’s harvest indeed. But sufficient to alarm them, down there in their south.

How say you, my lord Primate?”

Lamberton, his most trusted friend and councillor, former Chancellor of the realm, raised his brows.

“It is worth the trial, Sire.”

“You say no more than that?”

“I do not know, Sire. It would have to be done at once. Before representatives could be sent to the French. If there was something else that we might do …”

“Ireland,” Edward Bruce said shortly.

“Threaten them from Ireland, instead of France.”

“You mean …?”

“I mean use Ireland. The Irish hate their English oppressors near as much as do we. They have risen against the English many times, always they are doing so. Invade, and they will rise again.

Together we shall drive the English into the sea! Then, from the South of Ireland, we shall offer a threat that will make the English tremble in their beds!”

There was much acclaim and support for this bold programme and for the dashing Earl of Carrick. It was not a new idea, of course. Bruce and his associates had often discussed it in the past, as a means of reducing the pressure on Scotland. This was but a fresh aspect of its possibilities.

“That would entail a major campaign, brother,” the King objected.

“Much time. Many men. Too great an undertaking …”

“Not so. Give me but 5,000 men and I will win Ireland for you.

and quickly. Our own Galloway, Carrick and Annandale men, and some chivalry. Have the MacDonald put us over the water in his galleys, before he goes raiding.”

“I say this is folly, my lord,” his nephew Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, contended, the most level-headed as well as the most handsome young man in the kingdom.

“A new war. Across sea.

This would be a mighty adventure. But is it what we would have today?

To win Ireland could take years. A sink for men and ships.

When we require swift results …”

“I tell you-give me but 5,000. Less. And I will have an Irish host facing the South of England in but weeks.”

“There is sense in this,” Angus Og asserted. It was not often that the Lord of the Isles and the Earl of Carrick agreed.

“At such invasion, Ulster would rise, you may be sure.”

Bruce smoothed hand over mouth. Angus and Edward made a formidable

coalition: and the Islesman knew Ireland better than any there, since

it was in Ulster that he was apt to earn his living, with his broadswords and galley-fleets hired for the interminable clan wars.

“Ulster is not Ireland,” he mentioned.

“The south is very different. And it is the south which would count, in this. Besides, brother-you it is who I would look to lead this dash deep down into England.” This, in fact, had by no means been the King’s intention, for Edward was far too rash a commander to entrust happily with so disciplined a thrust as this must be; but the command would undoubtedly appeal to him-that went without saying-and would probably wean him away from his Irish ambitions.

The other looked thoughtful.

“This we can do, then,” the monarch went on.

“At no great upset to our realm. The Irish adventure can wait. My brother of Carrick, and Sir James, Lord of Douglas, to make the dash for the south, my Lord of Moray at their backs to guard their flanks and retreat. Sir Gilbert, the High Constable, and Sir Neil Campbell of Lochawe, with Sir Robert Keith, the Marischal, to command more general and shallow raiding into the English North. While the Lord of the Isles, Lord High Admiral, and the Earl of Ross, harry the coasts southwards. Is it agreed?”

“At least it could be noised abroad, in the North of England, that the French are like to invade across the Channel,” Lamberton suggested.