Nigel Tranter - The Path of the Hero King

from the disastrous battle of Methven nearly three weeks previously,

the King’s small host was not slow about moving off. They had a

sufficiency of practice. Campbell, with an advance party of four

score, went first Half an hour after the arrival of Boyd’s courier, the haugh land of the Fillan was empty save for the two Dewars and some of the local folk. With the enemy only about six miles behind, this was not too soon.

They rode up Strathfillan, the upper portion of Glendochart, making for Tyndrum, where the routes forked, one to go west by south, by Glen Lochy and Glen Orchy to the foot of Loch Awe; the other north over the mouth of Mamlom and across the desert wastes of the vast Moor of Rannoch, to Lochaber and North Atholl. There was no other choice. The great mountain bar rien hemmed them in.

The Queen and Marjory rode beside Bruce. It was nothing new for Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of English King Edward’s greatest friend, the Earl of Ulster, to be hunted, a fugitive. Since she threw in her lot with Bruce four years before, she had known little of peace and security in a savaged and war-torn land. But for young Marjory this was her first taste of campaigning. She had been reared in care and seclusion at her dead mother’s old home, the remote, strong castle of Kildrummy in Mar, seat of that earldom, by her aunt and uncle twice over-for the late Earl of Mar had married Bruce’s sister Christian, now Lady Seton, and Bruce’s first wife had been the Lady Isabel of Mar. She had been brought south only to attend her father’s hurried coronation. Marjory saw all as adventure and pleasurable excitement.

They had gone a bare two miles, and reached a stretch where the valley narrowed in and its floor was scored by quite a deep gorge through which the river rushed and spilled in foaming rapids, when an uproar in front halted them. The lie of the land and a thrusting shoulder of the brae side hid what went on-but there was most evidently a clash of arms.

Swiftly Bruce reacted. He pointed Sir James, the Lord of Douglas, forward.

“Find me what’s to do, Jamie,” he commanded.

“Campbell sounds to have run into trouble. Discover how much.”

He turned to Hay.

“Gibbie -back, to halt and alert all the column.”

Nigel spurred close.

“If Campbell is beset, let us to his aid,” he exclaimed, his sword already in hand.

“Wait, you,” his brother said. He looked about him keenly.

“An ill place for fighting.”

It was. A steep bank of heather and scree rose directly on their right, to the north, curving back out of sight. Only a dozen yards’ or so to the other side what amounted to a cliff dropped to the river in its gorge. A place with less scope for manoeuvre would be hard to imagine.

Even as they looked, clamour and tumult broke out well to the rear, more violent than that in front.

“By the Rude-it is a trap!” the King cried.

“An ambush! They have us.” Quick as thought he jerked his horse’s head round to face the steep slope, signing to his wife and daughter and the other women to do likewise.

All down the strung-out line there was confusion.

“Nigel-forward, and tell Douglas. And Campbell. We must up. Break out of this trap, this valley.” He pointed higher.

“Edward-back. To Hay. Get our people up out of this kennel.

Then word back to Boyd and the rearward. Off with you.” The rest, those near him, he waved onwards, upwards.

It was a steep climb for the horses, nearly 200 feet of rough going, demanding a zigzag ascent. They were perhaps halfway up this, in a long ragged line, perhaps 300 men, with the King and his immediate group, including the women-, well in front, when the long ululant winding of a horn sounded from above, echoing amongst the enclosing hills. This was succeeded by a wild and savage shouting from hundreds, thousands of hoarse throats. And over the skyline appeared wave after wave of yelling, gesticulating men.

Bruce reined up in momentary indecision-although, in almost automatic reaction, he was tugging free the long two-handed sword sheathed at his back. He had suffered a grievous surprise at Methven, but never had he been so unready for battle as this.

The women, of course, were his first anxiety. Urgently he turned in the saddle.

“Back!” he shouted to Elizabeth.

“Down again. Get them back.”

The Queen, daughter of a long line of warriors, neither panicked nor hesitated. Grabbing her step-daughter’s bridle, she dragged both horses round, calling to the other ladies to follow her downhill.

Bruce blessed her, even as he commanded his trumpeter to sound the rally.

There was no time for any positioning, any marshalling. The attackers had not much more than 200 yards to cover from their hidden waiting-place behind the rise. They were afoot, bare shanked Highlanders to a man, but leaping, bounding in their charge almost as fast as cavalry, brandishing their Lochaber-axes and claymores, and yelling their slogans, a terrifying sight. Few wore more than the short kilt, to fight in, and many had cast away even these and were completely naked save for their rawhide brogans. On the face of it, mounted men in armour should have been vastly superior as fighting-men to these unprotected howling savages. But Bruce knew better than that.

For one thing they had an enormous advantage in numbers; and they were

on their own ground Also they had the benefit of surprise, with the

horsemen scattered. But most serious of all, the Highlanders were charging and the mounted men were not only stationary but were so on a steep and slippery downwards slope.

The Earl of Atholl, the Bishop, Sir Alexander Lindsay, Sir Robert Fleming and one or two others had spurred forward to the King’s side, past the hurrying women. All along the hillside the knights and men-at-arms were seeking to draw together, to consolidate for mutual aid and protection.

There was insufficient time for this. Like an angry flood the Highlanders were upon them. Bruce, still in front, found half a dozen attackers leaping at him, each with a claymore in one hand and a dirk in the other.

His damaged shoulder, relic of the Methven fight, was a grievous handicap in wielding the great five-foot-long two-handed sword.

Nevertheless, standing in his stirrups and aided by this elevation he cut down three of his assailants with his first tremendous right and-left slashes, before the residual wrench of his swing so tore his shoulder as to leave him gasping and it numb and useless. Hit efforts thereafter to lay about him with the one hand were less than successful. When only his chain-mail saved him from two crippling thrusts, he tossed his sword at one of the bounding men, and drew his battle-axe instead.

All around was chaos, complete and desperate. There was no line, no certainty-save that the mounted chivalry was getting the worst of it Each horseman was an island in a sea of milling, smiting clansmen. And the island were steadily growing fewer. For the Highlanders were attacking in especial the horses, darting in and ducking beneath them, to slash open the bellies with their dirks.

Everywhere the screaming, rearing brutes were falling, their armoured riders crashing.

Bruce, with a swift glance around, perceived that there was only one end to this, and that would not be long delayed unless something was done at once. Bending low over his mount’s neck, he slashed furiously with his axe in a figure-of-eight motion, to drive back the two men who were at the moment assailing him, at the same time seeking to knee the horse round. It was the rearing beast’s pawing hooves rather than the battle-axe which knocked over one of the men; but the other, a gigantic figure, claymore gone, hurled himself bodily upwards, hands clawing, in a crazy attempt to clutch the King and drag him from the saddle. Bruce managed to twist aside, kicking spurs into his horse’s flanks. The giant failed to grasp the monarch’s person, but one hand closed on the fine cloth-of-gold heraldic cloak that Bruce wore instead of the usual surcoat, embroidered with the red Lion Rampant of Scotland worked with the Queen’s own hands. Tearing it away at the magnificent jewelled brooch that clasped it in place, the Highlander fell back clutching not the King but this trophy.