Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

To a man the Frenchmen expressed entire satisfaction with this sudden turn in their fortunes.

James Douglas presented the other prominent captives.

“This is Sir Ralph Cobham, Sire-called by some the best knight in England. He led the English van down upon us. And fought bravely.”

“Then we welcome him to our company. I have known of Sir Ralph. Make his stay with us comfortable, Sir James. And this?”

“Sir Thomas de Uhtred, Keeper of the Castle of Pickering. He cost us dear, but fought nobly.”

“Such knights are an honour to encounter. My lord of Moray-see well to Sir Thomas’s relief, I pray you. Like yourself, he has taken some hurt. But-hold my lord of Richmond close I charge you-since he esteems himself in rebel hands! The rest I will speak with anon. Nowto see to our own hurts …”

The Scots set up camp down where the corrie joined the woodland, where was shelter, fuel and water. And there, hours later, Walter the High Steward came to the King, riding out of the darkness into the firelight. Save for his Steward esquires, he was alone.

“Too late, Walter?” the King said.

“I feared it. Edward of Carnarvon has as long legs as his father, but uses them a deal differently!”

“He was not long gone, Sire. From Rievaulx. Departed in much haste. His meal left on the Abbot’s table! All his guard not yet gone. These we cut down-but got out of one that the King had fled for Bridlington. To take a ship to London. Fifty miles.

We took that road after him, by Helmsley and Nunnington, ten miles and

more. Near to Malton. But he had fresh horses and we had not. And in the darkness, not knowing the land, we took the wrong road at Slingsby. So, in obedience to your royal command I turned back. I am sorry, Sire. I know that your heart was set on this. That all was planned to this end …”

“With any other King but Edward, you would have been successful,

Walter, I swear! Never heed-none would have done better against this

fleet-foot monarch, who yet calls himself Lord Paramount of

“At least I have brought Your Grace something,” the younger man said. He drew from within his steel breastplate a golden casket, shaped like a double saucer, richly jewelled and engraved.

“A

token, Sire. The Privy Seal of England, no less! Left behind, in its keeper’s, Sir Hugh Despenser’s haste!”

“Dear God! Their Privy Seal of the realm! Abandoned in craven haste? What shame is here! Humiliation. Save us-this day Edward Longshanks must. be birling in his grave at Westminster!”

“More than that, Sire. We captured great treasure in gold, silver and jewels. Rich raiment, the King’s own clothing. His tabard, with the Leopards of England. Horse-trappings and harness. We have a hundred horse-loads of rich spoil.”

“Aye.” That, strangely, was almost a sigh, as Bruce looked round in the firelight at all his lords and knights and captains, the Frenchmen also, and other knightly prisoners-although not Richmond himself, who was being kept rigorously apart, out of the King’s circle.

“You hear, my friends? This day a great and proud realm eats dust! This day is sorer in proud England’s story than was Bannockburn. The day of Byland Ridge-as they tell me is the name of this hill-will go down in a people’s annals as the very depth of shame. Because of the unreasoning hate, the stubborn pride and the craven hearts of those who led her. Bannockburn was grievous defeat followed by shameful flight, but all honour was not lost. Today, beaten deep in the heart of his own country, by lesser numbers of those he elects to call rebels, yet without himself raising a hand to strike back, or aid his fighting subjects, the King of England flees in abject fear, leaving even his Privy Seal behind.

From this, his name and repute can never recover, I say. But I grieve not for this craven fool, Edward. I grieve for England, the greatest realm in Christendom, laid low for its lord’s dastard fault.

Mind it, my friends-mind it. The Battle of Byland, that was indeed no true battle, is not England’s shame, but Edward’s. Mind it, lest you come to craw overloud! And mind, too, how ill served may be even the greatest realm by its leaders-lest Scotland be ever likewise! Mind this day, I say.”

There was silence around the great fire, as men heeded those words, and the stern tones in which they were spoken.

Then Fraser spoke up.

“So? Do we drive on to London then, Sire? There will be little to halt us, I vow!”

“No, Sandy, we do not! Have you not learned yet? The conquest of another’s realm is a hateful thing, a shame on the conqueror as on the vanquished. I am not here for conquest. I am here for one purpose only-to force a peace treaty, lasting peace, between the realms of Scotland and England. That only. What we have achieved today may serve. Pray God it will. But setting all the English South afire and in arms, in largest war, as it would be, would breed only hate, bitterness, needless bloodshed. And probably defeat-for be it never forgotten that they are ten times more numerous than are we. No, friends-I turn face for Scotland tomorrow. Although some of you may remain here in Yorkshire a little longer. To recoup the cost of burned Edinburgh, Lothian and the Merse! From these rich, undamaged towns. As is but fair. Tax gatherers, my friends-that is your role, now, not conquerors!

And, who knows-you may teach the proud English a sharper lesson thereby …!”

Chapter Twenty-One

It was long since Bruce had visited his castle of Lochmaben, in

Annandale. Nor would he have chosen to visit it now, in early January

1323for this was no time to be travelling across Scotland, with snow on

the hills and the passes choked. Moreover, the Yuletide celebrations

were not yet over. Again, Lochmaben was still largely in ruins, and

inadequate shelter for a winter visit-for the King, holding to his

policy of having as few castles as possible for invaders and traitors

to occupy against him, had never repaired it after its last battering

by the English. However, Sir Andrew Harcla, Earl of Carlisle, had sent

most urgent word, via Bishop Lamberton whom he had known, requesting a

secret meeting with the King of Scots, and so soon as might be, at some

spot which the Englishman could reach from Carlisle in a day’s riding;

and Bruce, intrigued, preferred to have the meeting sooner rather than

later, for Elizabeth was, beyond all expectation, pregnant again, with

delivery expected in only six or seven weeks. He was not going to

risk being absent from his wife’s side in the event of any premature birth. So he had settled for this early date of the new year, and at Lochmaben, remote and ruinous, as a suitably secure venue. There were not many men the King would have travelled so far to meet-but Andrew Harcla of Carlisle, in present circumstances, was one.

The new Earl was already waiting, in the castle’s former brewhouse, the only building still intact, when Bruce, with Moray and Douglas and a small escort, clattered into the grass-grown courtyard on the green peninsula of the loch. Beating their arms against their sides, to warm their frozen fingers, they stamped into the brewhouse, where Lochmaben’s keeper, Bruce’s own illegitimate son by his second cousin, Christian of Carrick, entertained the Englishman with meats and wine before a roaring fire of logs.

The King embraced this other Robert Bruce briefly, a young man of whom he was not particularly fond, and who seemed to take after his late Uncle Edward rather than his father, fruit of the enthusiastic and comprehensive hospitality shown to the fugitive monarch at Newton-of-Ayr eighteen years before, but whom he dutifully cherished, as it were from a distance.

“Ha, Rob-so you are growing a beard already! On my soul, they start younger each year! To make me feel the older, I’ faith!”