Nigel Tranter: The Path of the Hero King

Bruce racked his tired, benumbed brain for what was to be done.

He was still the commander, the only man in all this tortured plain who could still influence other men, by his decision, to any effective action-since the English leadership seemed to be completely at a discount. He had long since given up looking for King Edward, or Pembroke, or Ulster his own father-in-law. He was just one man struggling painfully on, in all-enveloping mud, amongst other weary men. What could he do?

If he halted the entire forward movement, however sluggish now, by trumpet call? What then? Exhausted men would sink, practically into torpor. He would never get them started again.

The English would be given time to rally. At the very least, they would see opportunity to cut their way through, to escape. And on firm land again, those untouched thousands would recover.

What else? For once, Robert Bruce’s mind, so fertile for stratagem, produced no alternative to this treadmill of horror.

Then, strangely, the matter was taken out of his drooping hands.

Distant trumpets and thin high cheering, from far behind, turned some heavy heads, the King’s included. There, coming rushing down the escarpment from the New Park, was a new host, horse and foot, banners flying. From nearly a mile away it could not be seen that its leader was a gaunt stooping bishop, William Lamberton, on a palfrey; that its cavalry were priests and grooms on packhorses; that its infantry were porters and cooks and old men, even women, with staves and meat-choppers and carving-knives;

its banners blankets and plaids tied to tent-poles. On it came, out of hiding amongst the knowes, a new and vociferous host, with no hint of exhaustion about it.

In that moment the Battle of Bannockburn was finally won. Appalled, the English commanders saw their enemy reinforced, and accepted it as the last straw. King Edward had esteemed the battle lost long before. He was no coward, however poor a monarch, and had been agitating, not how to save himself but how to extricate any large number of his people from this trap. But now even the veterans Pembroke and Ulster urged immediate flight-and when the King would have turned his horse instinctively southwards, towards their entry to that place of disaster, Pembroke it was who grabbed the royal arm and practically pulled his monarch off his massive destrier. Unseating squires and heralds from lighter, faster horses, the two Earls got the King mounted again, and were off with him, northwards. They had learned from Clifford of the north-about route to Stirling by the Pelstream ford, and rightly guessed that it was unlikely to be guarded now. A score or so of determined, cruelly-spurring men, they left that stricken field while yet most men stared unbelieving at the baggagetrain army.

Quickly, of course, the English command’s flight was perceived, and

swiftly men reacted. The Scots, suddenly reinvigorated, yelled their triumph and surged forward. The English decided that it was every man for himself, and acted accordingly.

Abruptly, then, the battle was over, although the fighting was not. That was to go on for hours yet, as men tried to hack or race or swim their way to freedom, and died in the process, thousands upon thousands of men, so that the very River Forth was choked with bodies. Not all died, of course, but a great many did, singly, in groups and in large companies that stood and sold their lives dearly-for there was a mighty backlog of old scores to pay off, and ordinary soldiers and men-at-arms were not worth taking prisoner.

Lords and knights and gentry, of course, were different; their ransoms would set up many for life.

It was not much past noon, in fact, when King Edward fled the field; but King Robert was still there when the sun was sinking, still seeking to command, to control, to bring order if not mercy out of utter shambles and chaos. He had, indeed, exerted some major control from the beginning, detaching Douglas and sending him and Keith, with some part of the cavalry, in hot pursuit of King Edward and his fleeing nobility, round Stirling Rock. Then he set up some sort of headquarters on the green mound from which the archers had been dislodged, and from there endeavoured to bring order out of bedlam, fatigued as he was. And there, presently, William Lamberton came to him, and they gripped hands in silent, eloquent thankfulness, hearts too full for words, tears in their eyes for all to see, neither ashamed.

They were there still, as the sun sank, the Bishop superintending the treatment of wounded, Bruce, swaying on his feet, directing, directing, with all his commanders out supervising the clearance of that desperate field, halting massacres, shepherding prisoners, receiving belated surrenders, collecting and separating the dead, garnering and protecting booty-all this, when a party approached under Gilbert Hay. He brought a number of bodies borne on shields and hurdles, and beside one of these limped a tall, smooth faced man in middle years whose magnificence was only partly hidden by the universal mud and dried slime.

“Here is one, Sire, who claims you owe him much,” Hay said. It may be that he speaks false-for also he claims to be Earl of Gloucester. Whereas here is the true Gloucester!” And he gestured to one of the corpses.

“Robert Bruce knows who I am,” the prisoner declared, with dignity.

“And if I know him, he will not forget.”

“Aye-Monthermer! My lord-it is a long time. Twelve years, no less,” Bruce said, and held out his hand.

“I have not forgot Here are changed days-but had it not been for you, I would not have lived, I believe, to fight this day. My lord High Constable-this is the Earl Ralph de Monthermer, who held the earldom of Gloucester during his stepson’s minority. He once served me more than well.”

This was, indeed, the man who had sent Bruce the spurs and the shilling, that night in London in 1302, as hint to flee, when the Comyn had betrayed him to King Edward and he was to be arrested the next morning; the man who was Edward Longshanks’s son-in-law, having married Edward’s daughter, after her widowing from the de Clare Earl of Gloucester, Bruce’s cousin, and so had been given the earldom until the child heir should reach man’s estate. And that child heir it was who now lay, pierced by a score of Scots pikes, there beside his stepfather.

Bruce went to look down at the dead, once-handsome young man, his second cousin whom he had never met in the flesh, and shook his head.

“Gilbert,” he said, sighing.

“Gilbert de Clare. At least you died nobly.”

“Aye. He leaves this sorry field in better state than do most of us!” the older man said.

“God knows, I could wish myself in Gilbert’s place. Here, for the rest of us, was shame on shame.”

“The fortunes of war, friend. Do not blame yourself. At least you did not run! With your brother-in-law!”

“I was not with him, the King, at the end. I took command of Gilbert’s men, when he fell. But … Edward, the King-he is a fool! And has shamed us all this day. Yet, he could not stay to be captured, Robert. The King. You must see it. His ransom-his ransom would have bought all Scotland’s freedom!”

Strangely, levelly, the tired Bruce looked at Monthermer, and then nodded.

“Scotland’s freedom is bought, I think!” he said softly.

“Not by a king’s ransom, but by the courage and blood and sacrifice of her people. Remember it!” Then he smiled, however slightly.

“But you, Ralph-you are now my guest. You shall be treated as such. No ransom is required of you. I pay my debts-all of them! My lord Constable-have the Earl Ralph conducted to the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, to the Abbot’s good keeping. And bestow the body of Earl Gilbert, my cousin, in his chapel. I will come there anon …”

But Hay had another body to show his monarch, covered by a cloak. Wordlessly twitching back the cloth, he revealed the dead but still arrogant face of Robert, Lord Clifford.