Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

“Aye, Sire. With news. Grave news. Yet-perhaps none so ill.

For us. For Your Grace. Concerning … concerning His Grace of England.” The Abbot glanced down at the small boys, warningly.

“Edward, heh? I have never heard good news from that quarter, alack!

Rob-take Davie. Go with the girls, there.”

“I would rather stay with you, Sire,” the Lord High Steward of Scotland objected.

“The girls care only for that sheep leader Seumas Colquhoun!”

“Tush, man-you will not be outdone by a Colquhoun! Away with you both. And do not let the bold Seumas blood your nose again!”

The Chancellor looked after the small and reluctantly departing

backs.

“King Edward is dead, Sire. And … evilly!”

Bruce caught and held his breath, his eyes narrowing. He did not speak.

“Dead, Abbot Bernard? The King?” Elizabeth whispered.

“Edward of Carnarvon dead! You are sure?”

“Yes, Madam-dead. Slain. And beyond all evilly. And the Despensers, father and son, likewise. All dead. England has a new king-Edward the Third. And a new ruler-the man Roger Mortimer!”

“Mortimer? That puppy! The Frenchwoman’s paramour!”

Bruce frowned.

“Edward Plantagenet was a fool, and grievous thorn in my flesh. I

cannot weep for him. But … may he rest in God peace, now. Like his

dire father. How came he to die, Bernard?”

It was the Queen’s turn to be glanced at by the hesitant Chancellor.

“I think perhaps, Sire-alone?” he suggested.

“It makes ill telling …”

“I am no blushing maid, my lord Abbot. And Ulster’s daughter!”

Elizabeth reminded.

“Say on.”

De Linton inclined his head.

“Queen Isabella returned from France. Where she has dwelt these last years, away from the King.

She brought a French force, under the man Mortimer. And the Count of Hainault. Henry, the new Earl of Lancaster, and the Earl of Norfolk, the Marshal, and others, joined her. The standard of revolt was raised against the King. And swiftly all was over. He did not fight any better against his wife and Mortimer than against ourselves, Sire! He fled to Wales, making for Ireland. He surrendered to their army, and was immediately deposed. And Edward the Third, aged fourteen years, declared in his stead.”

“But was not killed? Deposed? Yet you say he is dead?”

“Aye. Murdered. Thereafter. Most terribly. By Mortimer’s creatures.

They … they thrust a red-hot iron up into his vitals. By the back

passage. That he should die without evident wound. Secretly.

But one boasted of it. And then confessed …” The Abbot’s voice tailed away.

“Sweet Christ Jesu!” Shaken indeed, Bruce looked at his wife.

“That men … should be … so vile!

“Fore God-Edward! Their King! To die so! He was young, yet…?”

“But forty-three, Sire. But old in folly and misadventure …”

There was an interruption. Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, an elderly man now, put in an appearance. He came over from nearby Dumbarton almost every day to see his friend and liege. Always a hater of violence, told the grim tidings, he was greatly upset.

“What is it that is in these English?” he demanded.

“This savagery, butchery? That they break into. To speak with, they are like ourselves. More careful, indeed. But scratch their fine skins, and they are thus beneath!” Pure Celt himself, he paused, a little alarmed at what he had said, remembering that Bruce, at least on his father’s side, was of the same basic stock as most of the English nobility; and Elizabeth was wholly so.

“Mortimer is from the Welsh marches, is he not?” The King shrugged.

“I know not, Malcolm, what makes them so. We Scott have sins enough.

But…”

“It is conviction, straight from God, that they are superior!” the

Queen said quietly.

“Always, they are assured that they are superior, right. There is no question. Therefore others must be wrong. And if wrong, inferior. All men are inferior to the English.

They do not require to say it, even think it-they know it! And inferior creatures are lesser men, scarcely men at all! They cannot conceive themselves in place of such-and so can inflict these terrible savageries on others. For they cannot feel it in themselves, being otherwise. Being a different creation, superior, English!”

The men looked somewhat askance at the sudden unexpected vehemence of that outpouring. It was not often that Elizabeth de Burgh revealed something of the hurt and battened-down hatred which long years of imprisonment and scorning had bred in her.

Her husband changed the subject.

“So what now?” he asked.

“How shall these tidings affect us in Scotland? The new King is little more than a child. He will not refuse to sit at a peace-table with me, I think! But those who control him? His mother is a vixen, an evil woman. And this Mortimer an insolent popinjay.

There will be a regency. Is there word of its members, Bernard?”

“Only that Henry, Earl of Lancaster, is chief est Sire.”

“A weak man. Weaker than his brother Thomas, whom God rest. I’ faith they could have done with Harcla, now! So much the better for us. The old Lancaster was always of a mind to talk with us. He was kin to me, far out. His brother may think the same.

We may yet win our peace treaty.”

“Pray that it is better kept than the thirteen-year truce, then!”

Lennox exclaimed.

“I swear that meant little enough to Edward.

First he brought young Edward Baliol to his Court, to set up as a puppet-king for Scotland! Within months of signing the truce! He seized our ships on the sea. Commanded the warding in prison of all Scots in England …”

“Aye-it has been a travesty of peace,” the King agreed.

“Two years of pin-pricks …”

“Yet it has given you breathing-space,” Elizabeth insisted.

“Time to think of other things than war. Trade, see you-and shipbuilding! There has been no invasion, no major raiding. I say that it was worth the signing. As says Thomas-my lord of Moray.

And he has the wisest head in this land, I think.”

“It may be so,” Bruce allowed.

“But what now? The truce was made with Edward the Second. It does not bind his successor. It is now at an end. I want no more truces, but a true peace. An embassage to the new regents …?”

“I think not, Sire-not first,” the Chancellor advised.

“It would smack of too great eagerness, perhaps. On the part of

rebels! Bettersome less open move first, lest we be rejected, to our

hurt. Do as Your Grace did with the Frenchman, de Sully. Send an embassage travelling to France. Or to the Pope. If to the Pope then such cannot be denied a safe-conduct by the English. Then, in passage, it could sound out Lancaster and the others privily…”

“Aye-that would be wiser, Bernard. You are right. Moreover, a treaty with France would be easier to forge than with England!

But since the King of France’s sister now controls the King of England, the one could well aid the other! Since the Pope now recognises me as king-since our great letter, and Moray’s visit to him-if he could be prevailed upon to urge on the King of France, and the new King of England, to recognise my kingship, the thing might be achieved. An embassage therefore, first to the Pope, and then to France. Moray again?”

“Assuredly, Sire. Send my lord of Moray-since it seems the Pope liked him well. But we require more than this peace treaty.

We require that his offence against the Church in Scotland be lifted by His Holiness. It still remains, and is a grave inconvenience, if naught else! For it means, as you know, that new appointments within the Church, new bishops and abbots and the like, cannot be approved from Rome. And so do not carry full weight. Send a churchman also, therefore, to convince His Holiness of our true obedience and duty.”