Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

“But why? I sent word that we were returning to his aid. And what of his great host of Irish foot? The host that was marching south?”

“It is said that they are dispersed, Your Grace.”

“Dispersed! I’ faith-what mean you? Dispersed?”

The messenger shrugged.

“That is all that I know. My lord of the Isles said dispersed. The talk is that they quarrelled amongst themselves. The Irish kings. And so broke up. Before Drogheda.

But I know not…”

“Save us all-if this is how wars are fought in Ireland! It is beyond all belief. Are they all crazed in this island?”

“When men are in doubt for what they fight, this could be the

position,” Moray suggested.

“We, in Scotland, knew for what we fought. Believed in it. Here it is otherwise. And in such case men tend to fight for their own hands. Or not fight at all.”

“On my word, you are a sage, Thomas!” the King cried, ruefully but not really unkindly.

“But no doubt you have the rights of it. As usual! But-what of us?

For what, for whom are we to fight?

Now? Tell me, you who are so often right, nephew! Tell me. On my soul, I think that we should go home to Scotland! And as fast as we may. What do we here, in the middle of Ireland?”

The heartfelt acclaim of all who could hear the King’s voice was

interrupted by the Earl of Moray.

“You say that I am right-so often right. But I was not right that day

in Annandale. When I came to you, with the Lord Edward I it was who

urged Your Grace to lead this campaign in Ireland. In person. Lest the English win a swift and easy victory.

Against your judgement. I believed it to be the wise course. I much blame myself now…”

“We can all misjudge, Thomas. Ireland has confounded more hopes than yours. Or mine. It is a strange land, where no cause ever truly triumphs, I do believe. The English are finding it so, equally.

I fear my brother is likely to discover the same. But that is his concern, not ours. Dear God-I could wish that Scotland seemed less far away…!” That was strange talk from Robert Bruce.

In the days that followed, as March turned to April, that wish of the King’s became a litany with them all, a refrain often on their lips and never absent from their hearts, as the road home stretched out and seemed to grow the longer. They were forced to turn partly west again, in their travelling north, for the English had now partly reinforced the Pale, and mid-East Ireland was something of an armed camp. The point of fighting battles seemed highly debatable in the present circumstances; certainly the Scots were past the stage of looking for trouble-their empty bellies saw to that. The central counties of Leix, Offaly, Westmeath and Cavan which they were forced to cross, were good lands ruined, pastures neglected and covered with reeds and rushes, peat-bog spreading far and wide, lakes and tarns and swamps everywhere. These were the lands of the O’Farrells, O’Molloys, O’Regans, O’Mores and MacGeoghegans, and these tribes had been far too long fighting the English and each other to care for their land. All was in the fiercest grip of famine. Two nights after the Scots turned north-west from Kilkenny, they started to kill their starving horses. It was a grim but significant milestone on their way.

Thereafter, each day inevitably they covered fewer miles, and more slowly. The magnificent light cavalry host of the warrior King of Scots, one of the most renowned and potent striking forces in all Christendom, was no longer magnificent, scarcely even any longer cavalry. It had become a horde of hungry, silent, scowling men, dragging themselves northwards with only a dogged determination not to leave their prominent bones here in an alien land.

It was perhaps as well that the enemy seemed no more inclined to fight than they were. Starvation may not make for peace and goodwill, but it certainly limits war.

At Rahan, on the 10th of April, they heard that Mortimer, with de Burgh’s men, if not de Burgh himself, was as good as sacking Dublin, and that the savaged citizenry were wishing that they had opened their gates to the King of Scots. Widespread civil war appeared to be breaking out between the English and the Anglo-Irish.

These, at least, were apt to have enough food in their stomachs to sustain the effort.

But even this news was insufficient, now, to distract Bruce and his people from their course. It did mean, however, that they could probably risk moving further to the east in their northwards march.

They turned to cross the bare uplands of Westmeath, towards Trim, and, they hoped, fatter lands.

But now the concomitants of under-nourishment were taking their toll. Sickness and disease were growing rife, and men were dying in increasing numbers. Horses also, so that starving cavalrymen were now concerned to eat their mounts while still they represented sustenance. Only the sick rode, any more, and not all of them.

For Bruce to maintain a degree of discipline in his host, in the circumstances, was no small feat-especially as he was now a sick man himself, His old trouble of fever, vomiting and itching skin had come back-and on an empty stomach vomiting bore especially hard.

Nevertheless he sought vehemently to retain his hold both on himself and on his men, to keep it a unified and manageable force, to uphold the morale of all. He had seldom had a more testing task. That he succeeded was in no small measure thanks to the sheer love his hardened veterans bore him, a love which let them accept from this man what no other, king or none, dared have posed.

They reached Trim on the 19th of April. Here they were only a few miles from Tara, Slane and Navan, a countryside they knew, with the new season’s pasture beginning to sprout for their remaining horses, and a certain amount of food still available for men-at a price. And the Ulster border was only thirty miles away.

Perhaps the Bruce brothers were not so very different in all

respects.

Robert was not entirely free from the same damnable pride that made

Edward so awkward a man to deal with. Here, at Trim of the de Clares,

near the Ulster border, when he ascertained that there was little of

real scarcity, that cattle and fodder were to be had for good Scots

silver, and that no enemy concentrations seemed to be taking any

special interest in them, he ordained a halt. A major halt, not of

hours’ but of days’ duration, a full week of resting, eating and

recuperation, followed by some modest raiding and spoliation in the

Boyne valley, wherein men regained a considerable degree of strength,

vitality and self-respect, and the horses became less like walking

skeletons. As a consequence when, on the last day of April, 1317, the

Scots force crossed back into Ulster, with the bells of Dundalk and

Carlingford celebrating the Day of the Blessed St. Ninny, it was as a

dignified, disciplined if depleted body of men, at least half of them

mounted, carrying along with them a number of highly-placed Anglo-Irish

prisoners for hostage and ransom, with sundry enemy banners and

standards displayed beneath their own. Also there was quite a sizeable

herd of cattle driven along behind, as thoughtful contribution, gesture

and parting-gift for his brother, even if these cost Bruce the last of

his money to purchase. He was still less than well, but he would die

rather than turn up at Edward’s court looking like anything but a

victor with largesse and to spare. He had brought a starving,

disease-ridden army right across a famine stricken,

pestilence-devastated Ireland, from southwest to northeast, over 200

miles, mainly on foot-but that must not be obvious to any at

Carrickfergus. He was still The Bruce, the First Knight of