Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

Every Scots stone castle would be garrisoned by English soldiers, and every wooden one burned, without exception. All Scots official records were to be sent to London. Heavy taxation was necessary to pay for the recent campaign, the administration, and the army of occupation; this would be enforced on all classes, and the Church in especial, with the utmost rigour. And so on.

In the quite prominent position to which he had been conducted, Robert Bruce listened to all this, features controlled, and wondering why he had been required to attend. It was not until late in the proceedings that he learned. The clerk at Beck’s left hand, reading out a list of minor enactments and edicts, found another paper passed to him. He read it out in the same monotonous gabble.

“It is hereby commanded that the Lord Robert Bruce, sometime Earl of Carrick, shall forthwith proceed to the lands of Annandale formerly held by his father, and there receive into the King’s peace, with all necessary persuasion, all occupiers of land, all arms-bearing men, and all lieges fit of body and mind. These he shall cause to take oath of allegiance to King Edward, all under the supervision of Master John Benstead, clerk of the King’s pantry. Thereafter the said Lord Robert shall muster these said men of Annandale in arms and proceed to the contiguous lands of the traitor William, Lord of Douglas, formerly keeper of this castle, where the wife of the same, who has already incurred the King’s displeasure, is wickedly and treason ably holding out against the King’s peace in the Castle of Douglas. There he shall destroy the said castle, waste the said lands, and bring captive the said Lady of Douglas to the King’s appointed officers here at Berwick for due trial and punishment. All this the said Lord Robert shall perform, and such else as may be directed by the said Master Benstead of His Majesty’s pantry, it being expressly forbidden that he proceed into the lands and territory of Galloway. By the King’s royal command.”

As the clerk continued with the next edict, Bruce sat as though turned

to stone, though the knuckles of his clenched fists gleamed white. A

man, he knew, could accept only so much and remain a man. Edward was

testing him, but beyond acceptance. On Edward Plantagenet’s head be

it, then … Chapter Three

Another Great Hall in another castle, another oath-taking and roll-signing—though few here could do more than make their rude marks against their names and holdings, and fewer still knew what they were signing for before their lord’s son and the Englishmen. The farmers, shepherds, drovers, horse-dealers, millers, smiths, pack men and the like, of Annandale, one hundred and fifty square miles of the best land on the West March of the Border, were not knowledgeable or greatly interested in the political situation or in who occupied thrones or made laws. They followed their lord, paid their rents, gave of their service-and hoped, this done, to be left in approximate peace to lead their own lives. If their lord-or, at least, their lord’s son, young Robert-summoned them to the Castle of Lochmaben in their hundreds, and required them to utter some rigmarole of words, and scratch crosses and marks on papers, they were perfectly willing to humour him, however much of a waste of time it might be. If, thereafter, they were to go riding, armed, in the tail of the same Lord Robert, as was rumoured, then few would find this any great trial, since such ploys usually resulted in sundry pleasurable excitements and sports, cattle and plenishings cheaply won, new women to be sampled. The Annandale men had had little enough of this sort of thing these last years, with the Bruces dispossessed temporarily, and the absentee Comyn Earl of Buchan getting the rents; and latterly the English captain and small garrison established in the castle, though arrogant and objectionable, had not greatly troubled the local folk. Some little friction there had been earlier on, mainly over their attitude to the women, but the independent, hard-riding Border moss trooping population was not one to offend lightly, and the Englishmen numbered no more than four score, a mere token garrison. So a sort of mutual live and-let-live had developed. But now, with the Bruces back, more than this could be looked for.

Robert Bruce lounged in a high chair at the dais end of the Hall, looking bored and restless; but at least he did not turn his back on the queue of oath-takers, nor eat and drink while they made their patient way through the prescribed procedure.

Indeed, sometimes he nodded, raised a hand, or called a greeting to this man or that, whom he recognised, and even occasionally came down to speak with old acquaintances amongst the tenantry-for here it was that he had spent much of his childhood, although Turnberry, up in Ayrshire, was the principal seat of the Carrick earldom.

Nearby, also on the dais, another man sat throughout the prolonged business, though he gave no appearance of boredom or restlessness; he was in fact sound asleep—Sir Nicholas Segrave, captain of the castle’s garrison, a grizzled veteran of the wars, grey-headed, inclining to stoutness, still a good man in a fight but grown appreciative also of the benefits of quiet inaction.

But if these two on the dais seemed to lack interest in the proceedings, there was one who could not be so accused. The man who sat behind the signing table, with the Lochmaben steward and his minions, watched all with a keen and careful glance. He was a small, misshapen man, almost an incipient hunchback, discreetly dressed all in black, thin, with a darting beady eye, and lank black hair that fell over his chalk-white face. Efficient, industrious, shrewd, Master John Benstead, clerk to the royal pantry, was a man of swift wits, sarcastic tongue and some learning-indeed an unfrocked priest it was said, and always knew just what he was doing. In these last winter months he had lived closer to Robert Bruce than any of his brothers—and that young man had come to loathe the very sight of him. He was now snapping questions of Dod Johnstone, the steward, about almost every man who came up to the table, and taking quick notes of his own on a sheaf of papers—for what reason, none could tell. But if none liked it, since it made all uncomfortable, none questioned it either—even Bruce himself, who had not been long in recognising that though he was the earl and men took this oath of allegiance to Edward through him as feudal superior, it was this deformed clerk who was, in all that counted, the master. One was the all-powerful King of England’s trusted servant, with unspecified but comprehensive authority; and the other, whatever else, was not. Even Sir Nicholas, up there on the dais, though he got on passing well with the young lord, now took his orders from this base-born clerk, however reluctantly.

The interminable process at the table-which was clearly much more concerned with the new and damnable notion of tax assessment than with the ostensible allegiance-giving—was nearing an end for this grey March day, and Benstead was closely cross-questioning an impassive upland farmer as to his stocks of wool-for by a new edict all Scots wool was to be confiscated and sent to the nearest port for shipment to London for the King’s use-when there was an interruption. A booted and spurred courier came hurrying in. It was noticeable that though the man bowed perfunctorily towards the pair on the dais, it was to Master Benstead that he made his way, to speak low-voiced, urgently.

Sir Nicholas, with an old campaigner’s ability to waken at need and completely, bestirred himself and stumped down to see what was to do. After a moment or two, Bruce swallowed his pride and did the same.

The messenger, an Englishman, had come from Lanark, from Edward’s newly-created Earl of Clydesdale and Sheriff of Lanark and Ayr, William de Hazelrig. His tidings were dramatic. Sir William Douglas had escaped from his bonds in the south, and was believed to be heading for Scotland again, if he was not already over the Border. Moreover, open revolt had broken out in Galloway, where James Stewart, the High Steward of Scotland, and Bishop Robert Wishart of Glasgow, had risen in arms against the English garrisons. It was thought that Douglas would make for Galloway to join these traitors, since he had married the Steward’s sister. But before that he might well seek to collect a force of men on his own estates in Douglasdale. The Earl of Carrick, at Lochmaben, had been charged with the duty of dealing suitably with the Douglas lands. He must see to it without delay that this renegade gained no men there, that he was apprehended if he came thither, and that the territory of Douglasdale was left in no condition ever again to be a danger to the King’s Peace.