Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

“She escaped us by a single day,” Douglas told his monarch, who had come out to meet his friends at the foot of the palace hill.

“She was warned, and fled to Nottingham from York.” He glanced sidelong.

“I have not charged my lord Earl with sending the warning -but who knows!”

Moray was not much of a smiler, but he at least raised his eyebrows.

“My lord of Douglas was inconsolable,” he said.

“Yet, from all accounts, he should thank me. The lady would have devoured him quite, so tender a morsel!”

Despite their differences of character and outlook, these two were good friends, and the most able and effective joint commanders in Christendom.

“Yet Berwick was saved?” Bruce said, an arm linked with each, as they climbed the hill.

“Walter Stewart sent me word, ten days back, that the siege was raised and King Edward gone.”

“Yes. Perhaps the Chapter was even more effective a draw than his Queen!” Douglas suggested.

“The Chapter …?”

“Aye, Sire-we have been keeping strange company since we parted from you. You mind the convocation you told us of? At York? We were constrained to take some part.” Douglas chuckled.

“We made debate with their spiritual lordships and eminences!

They are naming it, we heard, the Chapter of Myton!” “A plague on

you, man!” the King cried.

“Enough of this-or I will have you both clapped in the pit on charge of lise majestie! Out with it? What happened?”

“Heed him not, Uncle,” Moray advised.

“As I do not. He has been deranged since his disappointment over the English Queen!

The matter is simple. King Edward having scoured the North of England

for soldiers to take to Berwick, there were none left at York to oppose

us. Save churchmen and their soft levies. The Archbishop, at least,

did not flee, with the Queen. He is a man, that-if something of a

fool in the matter of warfare! He raised a motley host of clerks

bishops abbots, monks, priests, acolytes and the like, with their

servants, and sallied out to contest our passage. At a place called Myton-on-Swale, east of Boroughbridge, they sought to give battle.”

“William of Melton, did that? He chose to fight? Fight the two most redoubtable captains in these islands!”

“Aye, Sire-he might almost have been a Scots bishop!”

Douglas put in.

“Only, had he been so, he would have known better how to fight, I swear! His flock were as sheep to the slaughter.”

“Save us-did you have to do it? Slaughter them?” It was at Moray that Bruce looked.

“We had little choice. There were great thousands of them-and more dangerous in their flight than in their fight! They streamed across a bridge, to our side of the river-and then quickly decided that they were better back on their own side. Some of our people had set some stacks of hay afire, and the smoke confused them …”

“You would have thought that priests would have been at home in smoke, incense!” the irrepressible Douglas asserted.

“Naught would do but that they all should be back across the river. The bridge would not take them-since I held it-so they must needs swim! In future, clerks should learn to swim!”

“I think you make more of this than you ought, Jamie?” the King said.

“Is it your conscience troubling you?”

“Conscience, Sire? Why, we were picking them out on our lance points Never have I seen such urge to the water. Nor such panic. The Gaderene Swine were not to be compared with the priests of York! More drowned than died in fight-but more still died of fright, I do believe! Of stopped clerkly hearts! It was a sight to be seen. Andwe loaded a thousand horses with their spoil. It seems that they thought to fight more with golden crucifixes and croziers than with swords!”

The Queen, almost recovered, met them at the palace entrance.

“Welcome back, my heroes!” she greeted.

“I have missed you both.

As has His Grace. Did all go well?”

“Your heroes have been distinguishing themselves by slaying priests.

Not one, or two, but a host, it seems. A shameful massacre.

God knows what they were at!”

“We spared all we could,” Douglas protested.

“They died like flies in a frost. There was no stopping them.”

Bruce shook his head over his friends.

“How many? How many died?”

Douglas glanced over at Moray.

“Four thousand,” he admitted.

“Dear Christ-God!”

“Not all priests and the like,” the other hastened to assert.

“The mayor and burgesses of York were there likewise. And their trainbands.”

“Fit foes for Douglas and Moray!”

“There were more than 20,000 of them, Sire. What could we do…?”

“We restrained our men as best we could,” Moray put in.

“But the confusion caused by the panic of so many was worse than anything I have ever seen.”

“Did many great ones fall? Bishops, abbots and the like?”

“Some were wounded. Many roughly handled. But I do not think that many died,” Douglas said.

“They were the nimblest at escaping, first back across the bridge. We captured the Bishop of Ely -but he ransomed himself quickly and most generously, having a high opinion of his own worth!”

“Aye. You may smile, Jamie. But we are in bad enough odour with the Holy See, as it is. How think you the Pope will look on this? How will it be recounted to him? Not as panic and folly, but as a terrible and sacrilegious slaughter by the godless and rebellious Scots. The cry will ascend to heaven itself! For a year and more I have been at pains to fend off the Vatican’s assaults and anathemas.

Yet to preserve a face of respect and worship of Christ’s Vicar. And now …!”

“His Holiness may perhaps be placated,” Elizabeth put in, “by a display of the King of Scots’ generosity and liberality towards Holy Church. Not Holy Church in Scotland or in England, but in Rome! Laying up treasure in heaven is, I am sure, his prime concern.

But treasure on earth has its value also! You gained great spoil from

this clerical host, you say, Sir James? Why not send part of it to His

Holiness? As token of your humble faith and loyal worship? “Moray

swallowed, the King stroked his chin, and Douglas burst into

laughter.

“By the Mass,” he cried, “Your Grace has the rights of it! Here’s a ploy! A selection of crosses, croziers and reliquaries-even Saint Etheldreda’s thigh-bone! What more apt? Better than handing all over to Master Lamberton!”

“I do not like it,” Moray objected.

“It smacks of blasphemy, of irreverence…”

“Tush, man-leave such to the priests,” Bruce told him.

“It is their business, smelling out the like. It might serve-it might well serve. At least to give us time. Bless you, my dear! We will reinforce our envoys at Rome with a train-load of treasure-on-earth from Yorkshire. But I think not Ely’s bone. To be of value, that must be named-and might prove a bone of contention indeed, an embarrassment. Even to His Holiness. But-come, my heart. You should be seated. You are not wholly yourself yet. You must preserve your strength …”

The two younger men hastened to apologise, to offer arms, to all but carry the Queen indoors between them.

“I am sorry, Sire. About the child,” Douglas said, over his

shoulder.

“It was a sore blow. A prince at last-and then …”

“God’s will be done,” Moray said.

It was Elizabeth who answered, not Bruce.

“We shall test God’s will again,” she declared.

“Let us pray, with greater success.”

There was a pause. Then Bruce rather abruptly changed the subject.

“Lancaster did not intercept you, on your road home?” he asked.

“Not Lancaster, no. King Edward himself sought to do so-but we eluded him by striking westwards. Across the hills,” Moray answered.