Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

The iron was hot, he said. He would forge a lasting peace out of it, for Scotland, if it was the last thing he did.

It was early October before Bruce and Douglas joined forces.

They met deep in the North Riding of Yorkshire, indeed just three miles

from Northallerton, on the same hill where, nearly two centuries

earlier, the King’s ancestor, David the First, had suffered resounding

defeat at the Battle of the Standard. Bruce had come, more slowly this

time-for now his host was an army, even though a small one, and no

mere swift raiding force-once more by the tidal sand of Solway and

Cumberland, since he had no wish, at this stage, to try conclusions

with Harcla, sulking at Carlisle. Then, hearing that King Edward was

in the neighbourhood of York again, and joined by his doleful cousin

John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond, with a new English army from the

south, the Scots had turned eastwards through the Pennine passes,

warily-for here they could, indeed should have been ambushed. But they

encountered no opposition, and proceeding down Wensleydale towards the

lowlands of Swale and Ouse, they saw once again the familiar sight of

burning towns, villages and farmsteads in the plain below, and

recognised that Douglas was there before them. So presently summoned

from blazing Northallerton, the now saturnine Sir James came cantering up to meet his liege lord on the Hill of the Standard, their first encounter in eight months.

“Jamie, Jamie-what an executioner, what a brand of destruction, I have made of the gentle chivalrous youth once I knighted!” Bruce said, clasping the other to him.

“Wherever I go, I hear tell of you. Every prisoner brought before me whispers dread of the Black Douglas! My courtly friend has become the very Angel of Death!”

“Only to the King’s enemies,” the younger man said.

“And until such time as these proud and stubborn English acknowledge your kingship, and my right to be ruled by none other.”

“Aye. It is eight long years since Bannockburn, and still they will not learn their lesson. Nor ever will while Edward lives, I think.

Strange that so weak a man should, in this, be as obstinate as was his strong father. So different, yet both equally blinded with hatred and the lust to dominate other than their own. When they have so much. To the terrible cost of their own, as well as of ourselves.”

Sombrely, Bruce looked around him at the fair but burning plain of Swale.

“Harcla, Sire? What word of Harcla?”

“None. He has not emerged from Carlisle. He is holed up in that fortress like a fox in a cairn. Thomas, here, thinks that he sulks.

That Edward preferred the Despensers to command the Scots venture, rather than himself. He now will teach his silly liege a lesson!”

“He is a strange man,” Moray said.

“Able, but no more to be trusted by friend than by foe.”

“So I have sent him a message,” the King went on.

“Offering my lord of Carlisle … an accommodation. To Thomas’s much disapproval!”

“I

say that there is no good to come of dealing with traitors,” his nephew averred.

“He was Lancaster’s feudal vassal, yet betrayed him. Effected his death. Now he withholds his service from his king. Why should you trust him?”

“I do not. I would but inst il in his treacherous but nimble mind that it might pay him better not to offend both the King of Scots and the King of England at the same time! So that he does not seek to interpose his Cumberland army between us and Scotland. For such accommodation I am prepared to treat even with such traitor.

You are still too nice, Thomas-after all these years and bloodshed.

Unlike Jamie here, who has learned my lesson all too well! Praise your God that you are not King!”

“I do, Sire-I do!”

“So speaks Saint Thomas!” Douglas laughed, but affectionately.

“Praise, I say, the other saints that his niceness does not extend to his sword-hand! I have missed you of late, friend.”

Moray nodded in stiff embarrassment, and found no words.

Bruce looked from one to the other of his two most brilliant captains, and most valued lieutenants.

“What news have you for me of Edward, Jamie?” he asked.

“And this of John of Brittany, that soured fish! Where are they?”

“Yonder, Sire!” Douglas pointed south by east.

“Not far off. I have kept on King Edward’s heels ever since Melrose. Never more than a score of miles behind him and his rabble. We are less than that, here. They say he bides at Rievaulx Abbey. Just behind those Hambleton Hills. Beyond the plain. Fifteen miles.”

“A-a-ah!” Bruce gazed narrow-eyed at the smoke-hazed line of low green hills.

“So near? Only two hours’ riding. Edward Plantagenet so near.” He looked thoughtful.

“Aye, Sire-but Richmond is in the way. The Lord John of Brittany. He occupies a strong position on the hill ridge.”

“How many?”

“His own force, some 20,000. The remainder of the King’s army-who knows? And local levies …”

“But not all up on this ridge?”

“No. Richmond holds the ridge, watching us. Or watching me hitherto. He has sat up there these three days, and seen me burn this Vale of Mowbray. Not ventured down, although many times my numbers. Therefore, I think, he but holds a line, behind which King Edward may rebuild his broken host. At Rievaulx in the Rye valley. He is but giving the King time.”

“Can we turn his flank? Richmond’s? Reach the King’s horde behind.

Without taking the ridge. I do not know this country.”

“I think not. Northwards, these Hambleton Hills run into the Cleveland Hills. Where I campaigned before Boroughbridge. No route through for an army. South are more hills, to Ampleforth.

Not high, but steep escarpments, easily defended. Between, there is but the one gap, by Scawton and Helmsley, to the Rye. But my scouts declare it strongly defended.”

“M’mm. We are well used to mightier hills than these.

We have thousands of Highlandmen. It ought not to be so difficult

..”

“What would you, Sire?” Moray asked.

“A battle? Or just a stratagem?”

”I never fight battles, Thomas, unless I must If we can gain our ends

without a battle, that is best. Edward Plantagenet is but a few miles away. It is not likely that he, nor Richmond, yet knows that I am here. Jamie, yes-but not ourselves. If we struck swiftly, we might surprise Edward. Who knows, even capture him!”

“Capture the King!”

“It might be the quickest way to win our peace-treaty!”

“God in heaven-here’s a ploy!” Douglas cried.

“Could we do it, Sire?”

“Who knows? But we could try. Only, it would have to be done swiftly. Today. By tomorrow’s dawn Edward will know that there is more than Douglas on his heels. He will flee southwards, I swear.

We have but four hours of light-and, not knowing the country, we cannot here fight well in the dark.” Bruce was peering across the three-mile-wide Vale of Mowbray, south-eastwards.

“Is that not a break in the escarpment? Yonder, south of that

village.

Beyond the knoll. A stream comes down there, for a wager. From the high ground.”

“I see it, yes,” Douglas nodded.

“It drives up towards the ridge.

Shallowy. A steep, dead-end valley, I’d say. You think … ?”

“It is wooded in the lower parts, I’d say. A plague on all your smoke, Jamie! I cannot see clear.”

“As neither can Richmond see clearly over here, Sire! To perceive your coming.”

“True. How far north of your gap through to Rievaulx is this break? This corrie? How far north of the defended pass by the place you named?”

“The Scawton Moor and Helmsley gap. But a couple of miles, I’d say.