Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

Bruce by no means allowed either this easy progress or the holiday atmosphere to put him off his guard for a moment, to distract him from a commander’s duty. He was there, basically, to cause the maximum of concern and difficulty to the English occupying forces; secondly to give armed support to his brother’s throne. Both with as little loss to Scotland as might be. To that end he was seeking to draw the English and their allies away from the Pale, and from Eastern Ireland generally, into the native and wilder West where they would be infinitely more vulnerable. But that he was taking risks he knew well, especially in the essential matter of sustenance. Six thousand men and their horses require a lot of food and forage, and in an impoverished and war-ravaged country, such was hard to come by.

So, as they went, Bruce was more concerned with collecting and transporting feeding-stuffs than with actual fighting, at this stage.

The area was not actually famine-stricken, but the warnings were that it would get worse as they proceeded westwards. Wherever opposition developed, therefore, they made the people pay, not in blood and treasure but in cattle, horses, grain, meal and hay. And where there was no convenient opposition, supplies were bought from the local population at fair prices-for it was no part of the Scots’ intention to antagonise those disposed to be friendly. Herding cattle along with them would have delayed their advance greatly, so beasts were slaughtered, and evening camp-fires were as much for smoking and salting meat for the future as for cooking the day’s meal. It was only a very rough-and-ready curative process, but it would serve for men whose standards were not too nice. The season of the year helped, though not really cold as Scots knew cold. Long and ever-growing strings of packhorses followed the host, laden with food for man and beast. This supply-train was not allowed to straggle, and was carefully protected.

From Naas, the seat of MacMurrough, King of Leinster, they went by

Castledermot in Carlow to Callen in Kilkenny, de Clare country-where, however, the de Clares remained discreetly out of sight. And ever the face of the land changed. There was no great deal of tillage in the Irish countryside at best, and grain was correspondingly scarce.

Gradually even what there was died away.

But not only this. The rich grasslands and pastures for which this land was famous were now dwindling also, and moorland, bogs, peat-moss, rushes and outcropping stone became ever more dominant.

There were green oases in it all, but the terrain was becoming ever barer. Yet it was not an empty country. There were people in plenty, living in miserable cabins and huts of turf and reeds. The castles and manors and abbeys grew fewer, the townships smaller, the churches less ambitious. Yet it was probably true to say that the population increased as the living conditions deteriorated. And everywhere hunger increased until it became the very taint on the air. From being a faint shadow it became a threat and then an all pervading aura, a condition of life.

The Scots host’s supply-train began to shrink.

There was no problem in recruiting the Irish for Edward’s cause, now. The difficulty, indeed, was to prevent thousands from joining Bruce’s own company, with immediately available food as added attraction. He had to struggle now to keep down his numbers. This was Munster, where the ancient O’Brien ruled, and he was known to support Edward. But only mounted men were of any use to Bruce-and horses seemed this year to be for eating, in Munster, rather than riding. He found it hard, nevertheless, to reject and drive off hungry men. And, willy-nilly, his train grew. And slowed in consequence.

All this time Bruce saw nothing of the real enemy. But they heard of

them, frequently. Sir Edmund Butler, the former commander in Ireland,

who had superseded de Burgh, and then himself been superseded by the

Lord Mortimer, was still in effective control in Kilkenny, with, it was

said, 30,000 men. Hence Bruce’s drive in this direction. An

interesting report said that the de Clare brothers had joined him

there-and the de Clares, related to the English Earls of Gloucester, and therefore distantly to Bruce himself, were amongst the most powerful and influential of the Anglo Irish nobility known to be highly resentful over the present English demotion of their kind.

Bruce pondered this circumstance not a little. Mortimer himself was said to be on the move, from the east, with a large English force, part of it no doubt de Burgh’s late army. De Burgh was said to be still languishing in prison in Dublin Castle; although how rigorous was his captivity would be hard to say, for it was rumoured that the city mob had broken into the castle and slain eleven members of the Earl’s staff-which indicated less than solitary confinement.

Out of all this varied information Bruce made what plans he could. He conceived the disgruntled Butler to be the weakest link in the chain. He would concentrate on him, if possible before Mortimer could effect any linkup.

Then, at Callan, only ten miles from Kilkenny, and Butler, chance took a hand. One of the Scots patrols captured an Anglo Irish knight named dc Largie, with a small escort, who turned out to be a courier from Mortimer to Butler. Brought to Bruce he was civilly treated, but his despatches carefully unsealed and perused.

He proved to be carrying a peremptory message, in unflattering terms. The Englishman told the Anglo-Irish noble that he was coming southwest to take over his army when he had dealt with the presumptuous Scots rebel Edward Bruce and his Ulstermen;

but meanwhile Butler was to hold his hand, do nothing without further orders, and to have no truck with de Clare, who was under suspicion.

Reading this, Robert Bruce slapped his knee and barked a laugh.

“The English!” he cried.

“Will they never change? Never learn?

The blind arrogance of them! This, from a newly appointed commander to the man he succeeds, a man of twice his own years and of prouder lineage!” He tossed the letter across to Moray.

“Read it, Thomas-and then have Will Irvine to fasten this seal down as though it has never been tampered with. He has nimble fingers.

Then give the letter back to de Largie, and let him go on his way to Kilkenny -with my regrets for having interfered between a courier and his duty!”

“Aye, Sire-to be sure. This will gravely offend Sir Edmund Butler.

And the Lord de Clare. Who is his friend, indeed his kinsman, I think.

But-what then?”

“Then, Thomas, I too shall write a letter. To Butler. At once. To follow this de Largie in, say, two hours. That should give Butler time to digest the one and be ready for the other! A much more civil letter.”

“Saying, Sire?”

“Saying that I regret an honourable man’s adherence to the wrong side.

That I find him, and his people, an obstruction on my road to Limerick. That I suggest our differences would best be resolved, in true knightly fashion, before Kilkenny two days hence.

Say, noon. In honest armed combat, knight to knight, host against

host myself against himself. A challenge, Thomas-the gauntlet thrown down. From the King of Scots. How think you Butler will answer that?”

Moray looked thoughtful.

“I do not know.”

“How would you yourself, man? In like case. After receiving that insolent letter from Mortimer?”

“I think … I think that I would remove myself. Make shift to some other place. Quietly. If I had opportunity.”

“Precisely. As would I! That is why I have given him two days We shall see. Aye-and Thomas, before you let de Largie go, set that he believes us to have more horse than we do. Say 10,000 …!”

Butler and de Clare did, in fact, rather better than Moray’s suggested reaction, even though they did not commit themselves to pen and ink. The very next morning they disbanded their entire army, ordered its component parts to return to their homes, and then themselves quietly disappeared. Whichever way they went, they did not go to meet the Lord Mortimer.