Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

“Saddled as we were with booty and prisoners, we were in no state to meet him. Besides, we had Your Grace’s command.”

“I

am glad that you remembered it. Even belatedly!”

Hurriedly Douglas spoke up.

“Lancaster was not there, Sire.

Prisoners told us that he had quarrelled with King Edward. When the news of our raiding southwards, and our defeat of the Archbishop’s host, reached Berwick, there was trouble in the King’s camp. Lancaster had words with him. Probably he would have had him march south with him. Or continue the siege alone.

Whatever the cause, he marched off to the southwest, to his own territories, taking near half the force with him. But he gave us no trouble.”

“Aye. There is a lesson there, for any monarch!” Bruce nodded grimly.

“Too great and powerful a noble. Of the king’s own blood.

On such, a realm may founder. You note it, Earl of Moray and Lord of Nithsdale?”

His nephew looked shocked.

“Me, Uncle? You do not suggest? I am your loyalist servant…”

Bruce laid a hand on the other’s arm.

“I know it, Thomas. I but cozen you. Nevertheless, you heard de Soulis, at that last Council.

There are other strings to the Scots lute than Bruce, he said. It be hoves us not to forget…”

Chapter Eighteen

It was to be doubted whether the old Dewar of the Coigreach fully understood the honour that was being done him. Certainly he did not appreciate it. But then, he was a very ancient man, now, and had always been difficult; though far from senile, he was distinctly set in his strange ways, and found anything new deplorable. His next junior, the Dewar of the Main, probably had not the wits fully to grasp the significance of the occasion; but at least he approved of his fine new clothes, and the handsome croft of land he had been granted further down the glen. He was cheerful now, if a little drunk, and indeed adopting a definitely superior if not patronising attitude to the other three Dewars of Saint Fillan, custodians of the Mazer, the Bell and the somewhat mysterious Fearg -which, being wholly encased in silver was of unstated composition but the greater worth. These three had done nothing to aid Bruce in his hour of need, preferring to follow their chief, Patrick Mac Nab of that ilk, Hereditary Abbot of Glendochart, who was a kinsman of MacDougall of Lorn, and so pro-Comyn and anti-Bruce. The King had forfeited Mac Nab after Bannockburn, and given his barony to Sir Alexander Menzies of Weem, a loyal supporter. However, the three junior Dewars, hereditary custodians of the other relics of St.

Fillan, were in a different case. Humble enough men of the hills,

however significant their office in the old Celtic polity, it was

unthinkable that the Abbey of Glendochart should be reconstituted

without their presence-or, at least, the presence of their relics,

from which of course they were by no means to be parted. So there they

were, hanging about in a wary and somewhat suspicious group, scarcely

prepared to believe that they all had been forgiven and indeed granted

crofts likewise, for the maintenance of their office out of the former

Mac Nab lands-for they were now dignified as prebendaries or canons of the restored Abbey.

For that was what was being done this blowy spring day of sun and shower of the year 1320; reconstituting the ancient Culdee Abbey of Glendochart. It had taken nearly six years to see this fulfilment of Bruce’s vow, taken before Bannockburn, that if he had the victory that vital day, he would renew this renowned shrine of the Celtic Church. Building such a place, comparatively modest an ecclesiastical establishment as it was, in such a remote Highland glen, had been slow and difficult, especially with so much else on the King’s mind. At Bannockburn, the Dewar of the Main had carried his relic, the saint’s arm-bone in its silver reliquary, ever close to Bruce and so in the thickest of the battle. The King, excommunicated by Rome but blessed in despite by the strange representatives of the former Celtic Church, was now showing his gratitude.

Although the Culdee Church was long gone as an entity -Queen Margaret

had seen to that, in her burning zeal for Rome -the memory of it and

its practices and attitudes was by no means lost, especially in the

Highlands, where it was an undying influence. After all, it had

flourished for 700 years, and as late as 1272 it had retained an

establishment at St. Brides, Abernethy, the old capital. Therefore, this restoration was not wholly an anachronism, however much the Romish clerics felt bound to frown on it. Glendochart could not now be a Culdee establishment in fact, of course, since no such persuasion existed any more, even in Ireland. But Bruce had done the best he could, setting the Abbey up as part of the Augustinian Order, the nearest in attitude and sympathies to the Celtic ideas of worship. Moreover he was placing it under the general supervision of Abbot Maurice of Inchaffray, now Bishop of Aberdeen nominally, but not confirmed by the Pope, a fighting cleric of similar spirit-who indeed had been the young Dewar’s mentor at Bannockburn, fighting and praying as lustily.

So, in the same green glen of Straufillan, under the towering and still snow-capped giants of Ben More and Stobinian, where fourteen years before the fugitives had worshipped in the cabin-like chapel, and then gone out to their defeat at Dalrigh at the hands of MacDougall, the King and Queen now with a great company, splendid but almost wholly secular, watched Abbot Maurice consecrate the new chapel and bless the new and simply-pleasing whitewashed conventual buildings; supported by the five Dewan, however out of place and uneasy they seemed. All was done in the open ain for three good reasons; the new place of worship would not hold one-tenth of the company; the Celtic Church had always been very partial to the open air, caring little for buildings; and this would tend to prevent any embarrassment to such clerics as were present and who might lack Maurice of Inchaffray’s rugged independence of spirit. Most, of course, had diplomatically been engaged otherwise this March day. Even Bishop David of Moray, who had been one of those present fourteen years before -although even then he had refused to enter the chapel-found it reasonable to absent himself.

The fact was that this was wholly Bruce’s affair, and he was glad enough to excuse the Romish clergy. In essence, it was hut a way of saying thank-you to the strange creature who had blessed him when no other would or could-perhaps saving his reason at the same time-and who later had equally saved his life by getting him across Loch Lomond when trapped by his foes. He owed a lot to the Dewar of the Coigreach and his Saint Fillan. The fact that the saint’s Gaelic name was Faolain an Lobhar, Fillan the Leper, was very much to the point-though some doubted if this was the same Fillan.

So a highly unorthodox consecration service was followed by an outdoor celebration of the Eucharist, dispensing both elements to all who would partake, in the old Celtic fashion, using fistula to suck up the wine. Thereafter a banquet was spread there beside the rushing peat-brown river beneath the mountains. The people of Strathfillan, Glen Dochart, Glen Falloch and other surrounding valleys, were there to watch and participate, along with the more splendid folk of the Court and nobility. Even Patrick Mac Nab himself was there, from the rump of his lands up on Tayside, forgiven but by no means restored; for he was still Hereditary Abbot of Glendochart, to the Highlanders. And there was the MacGregor, too, Chief of the Children of the Mist, who had surprised all by re-appearing from Ireland, after being presumed dead at Dundalk, lame now but very much alive, and more fiercely proud than ever.