Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

That infantry, nevertheless, earned any renown available to Richmond’s force that evening. Some, but only a few, fled. Most formed up to face this dire and unanticipated threat, in tight groups-it would be too much to name them schiltroms -and stood their ground nobly until ridden down in the rush of pounding horses and yelling men. There were no very large numbers of bowmen, but these acquitted themselves well and almost all such Scots casualties as fell were the victims of these. But they had no backing and there was no unified command. Gilbert Hay lost a horse shot under him, and was in dire danger of being trampled to death by his own oncoming followers. The standard-bearer took an arrow in his shoulder, but his chain-mail and the padded leather doublet he wore beneath saved him from serious hurt. Bruce himself was untouched. They plunged on and past the scattered and heroic infantry, leaving them for the rear ranks to deal with.

And now, in front, was only the escarpment edge and empty air.

Bruce indeed saw himself in real danger of being forced right over the lip of it by the charging press of so many behind, and yelled to his personal trumpeter to sound the halt. Only just in time the pressure relaxed, as the arrowhead’s flanks swung outwards, amidst savage reining in of pawing, rearing, slithering, colliding horses.

And there, lining the edge, the Scots sat their panting, snorting, steaming mounts, and stared down into the already shadow-filled cauldron of the corrie, at the quite extraordinary sight of a separate and quite self-contained battle, a tight-packed struggle, concentrated by the shape and dimensions of that hollow of the Roulston Scar, where in a huge U-shaped conformation Richmond assailed Douglas’s elongated schiltrom, 15,000 men locked in a death-struggle- or as many of such as could get to grips with each other, which was no large proportion at any one time. Some subsidiary activity was still going on along the flanking shoulders, distinct smaller battles of Highlanders and English infantry.

Bruce did not plunge down that slope to the rescue, as all impulse dictated. Instead, he called orders to be passed along for every trumpeter, and bugler in his host to sound the Rally, and to keep on sounding it. Ragged and scarcely recognisable as such, the call began to blare out, along the escarpment edge, and went on, gaining in power, coherence and authority.

The effect down in the corrie was quite electrical, almost comic.

Suddenly the contestants therein seemed to become the merest puppets, toys that abruptly ceased to be manipulated. As with one accord, friend and foe left off be labouring each other to pause, to stare upwards.

Douglas and his Scots recovered first, since they were the less surprised. Raising a tremendous, spontaneous shout of triumph, they renewed their efforts with redoubled vigour and entire confidence.

Their tight-pressed ranks surged outwards. There was little

corresponding renewal of the conflict on the English side.

Their fate was writ altogether too clear.

In fact, the battle ended there and then. So obvious was it that they were trapped between the upper and nether millstones that, whatever Richmond himself might decide, his people unanimously recognised complete and ineluctable defeat. Escape was the only recourse now, all perceived.

But that corrie was a difficult place to escape from, hemmed in steeply on all sides save the west and lowermost. On either flank the mass of the enemy, as with one accord, sought to stream away westwards, around the Scots. Douglas saw it, and ordered his men to press still further right and left, well up the enclosing brae sides to stop the escape routes. And Bruce despatched contingents slantwise down both shoulders of hill, to aid in the business. Men still got past, but only individually and in small groups.

Otherwise everything was over, to all intents and purposes.

Fighting died away, save for isolated incidents. At the head of the corrie, the Lord John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond, sourly yielded his sword to James Douglas, his lieutenants with him. Or such as remained on their feet.

Not a few had died, and died bravely, with their men. Fully a score of knights lay amongst the slain, there in the gut of the hanging valley, for it had been a fierce and prolonged struggle.

Douglas’s own casualties were not light.

He and Moray, the latter slightly wounded, his sword-arm roughly

supported in a sling made by his golden earl’s belt, brought their

prisoners slowly up the steep slope, to present to their monarch, who had sat motionless in the saddle from the time of his arrival at the escarpment edge.

“A notable victory, Sire!” Douglas cried.

“Hard smiting-until you came. As stark a tulzie as I have known since Bannockburn.

But-it all fell out as you judged. I have here the swords of sundry lords, for Your Grace.”

“Aye, Jamie-a notable victory. And all yours. You have borne the brunt-as I said you would, lad. And you, Thomas. Myself, I have not struck a single blow! Has it cost you dear, Jamie?”

“Dear enough, Sire. For this fight. But, if all is won elsewhere, a great victory-then the cost is light indeed. Our fallen are not yet counted-but I would say 500 perhaps. With many more but lightly wounded. As my good lord here.”

Moray grimaced.

“A pike-thrust meant for another! Nothing more honourable. What of King Edward, Sire?”

Bruce shrugged.

“Walter went seeking him. In haste. But, I fear that he would be warned, in time to flee. He did not come to aid his cousin, at least!” And he looked at Richmond at last where that thin and tall individual, dressed all in black armour, stood in sullen and depressed silence, with sundry other notables.

“I cannot congratulate you on your liege, my lord!”

The other inclined his long, grey head stiffly, and said nothing.

He looked an old man, although in fact only a couple of years senior to Bruce.

“It is many years since we met,” the King went on.

“That day you gave us the tidings, at Stirling, of what your then King did to his prisoners! Sir William Wallace in especial. You considered it well done, then, I mind.”

“A rebel, he died a rebel’s death,” John of Brittany said, almost

primly.

“And do you, sir, expect better treatment?”

“I am no rebel, my lord of Carrick.”

“So! You still hold to that folly, man!” Bruce shook his head.

“Are you wise, think you? If I am but Earl of Carrick, and a rebel to your English King-then may not you, and these, expect the treatment a rebel would mete out? To hang you all from the nearest trees! Whereas, were you prisoner of the King of Scots, you might look to receive more courtly treatment! How say you?”

Richmond, in fact, did not say anything to that.

The King turned from him.

“And these others, Jamie?”

“This is the Sieur Henri de Sully, Grand Butler of France, Your Grace.

And these behind him are French knights also.”

“Indeed. And what do Frenchmen fighting for a monarch who will not fight for himself? In a strange land?”

De Sully, a florid, powerfully-built man in splendid armour gold

inlaid, bowed low.

“We but visit, on our liege lord’s command his sister, the Queen Isabella, Sire. The King of England being our host, we must needs fight for him when he is beset.”

Bruce nodded.

“True, sir. That is our knightly code. Your master, the King of France, is I hope my good friend. I accept therefore, that you are present in this battle not from enmity to myself. I think that I can serve him, and you, better than does His Grace of England! Remain you with my Court awhile, my friends.

Come back with me to Scotland. Not as prisoners but as honoured guests. And I will send you home to France, in due course, wiser men! How say you?”