Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

Normally it would be one of the great nobles, who should also be a military leader, with powerful forces at his back—since he had to wield the sword of state. The Steward would have been suitable, as to rank and position, but he was no military leader, no leader of any sort, in fact, and his slobbering speech no aid to high dignity. The Earl of Buchan, High Constable, as an earl, could claim seniority in rank, and was indeed a veteran soldier, with large following; but he had played an equivocal part in this rising, had indeed, at Surrey’s command, taken the field against Moray’s rebels in the north, though half-heartedly and ineffectually. His reputation had suffered, and the common folk of Stirling booed him in the streets, the more so as Moray himself lay dying.

There was another candidate for Guardian, however, Buchan’s cousin, the same Sir John Comyn the Red, Lord of Badenoch, who with Bruce had formed part of that unhappy queue to sign the Ragman’s Roll at Berwick a year before. He was ambitious, vigorous and an effective soldier—and the Comyns were undoubtedly the most powerful family in the land. Moreover, his mother was John Baliol’s sister.

Bruce might have claimed the Guardianship for himself—and undoubtedly would have done had he been less of a realist. For he recognised that he was little more popular with the Scots people than was Buchan. Everyone knew that he had been Edward’s man. The Red Comyn even referred to him as Bruce the Englishman.

He had taken no actual part in the recent fighting; alt had been over when he arrived at Stirling with his little host. His youth was no insuperable difficulty—but he could not claim to be a military leader; though he had been knighted, he had won his spurs at joustings in the tilt-yard. He could not command the confidence necessary for a Guardian, he knew.

But of one thing he was determined—the Red Comyn should not be Guardian. It was not only that he hated the man’s arrogant mocking style. John Comyn said openly that if John Baliol had indeed vacated the throne by leaving the country, and taking his young son Edward with him, then he, as his nephew, was next in line to be King.

A more immediate and practical problem than the Guardianship and civil administration, however, quickly made itself evident to the assembled lords-simply that of food. Food for man and beast. The harvest had not been in gathered over much of the land-indeed, because of the English occupation and its harshness, and the removal of wool and grain to England, there had been but little sown, little to reap. Everywhere barns, stack yards and storehouses were empty, and the grim shadow of famine began to grow in war-torn Scotland. No doubt in the more remote parts there was still a sufficiency; but in the areas over which the armies had operated, hunger was growing as the days shortened.

By the nature of things, Stirling district was worst hit. The lords could no longer feed their men-at-arms. A general break-up became inevitable.

Bruce’s fifteen hundred was the largest single contingent there, and consequently required most food and forage. He was faced with the choice of sending them home to Annandale, to disband;

leading them south to join Wallace, who had taken Berwick and was now besieging Roxburgh Castle; or going over to the West with them, to his own area of Carrick, where there was no famine as yet. This last appealed most strongly. A body of fifteen hundred men-in-arms was too useful an asset in the present state of Scotland to disband and throw away, however much of a problem it presented logistically. Wallace was still talking about invading England—now, not only for military and vengeance reasons, but for food; and Bruce had no desire to be involved in any such ill-advised adventure which would only expedite reprisals.

In mid-October, then, the Bruces left Stirling for Ayrshire, glad to be away. Already there had been clashes with the Comyns in the streets of the town. Andrew Moray had died two days earlier, a good man gone.

It was strange to ride through the countryside, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, and find the English gone—for here in especial their rule had been most complete, all-embracing, with every town and castle garrisoned. Now, like snow in the smile of the sun, they had quietly withdrawn, disappeared—and in their place many of the tollbooths had small portions of Cressingham’s skin nailed to the English gibbets. Bruce was now able to ride, for the first time for years, to his own birthplace, the principal seat of his earldom, Turnberry-in-Carrick, home of his Celtic ancestors for generations.

Typically, the English had left it in good order, not burned or

destroyed-for they would soon be back, they declared.

But the Bruce brothers had barely disposed themselves in Turnberry Castle, and commenced the process of stocking up with winter fodder for man and beast, than they were rudely jolted. An exhausted messenger came from Annan, via Stirling, from Thomas and Alex Bruce. Annandale was in smoking ruin, sacked, devastated. Sir Robert Clifford had come north, with a great host of Cumberland men, and laid all the Bruce lands waste.

Ten townships were destroyed, hundreds slain, Annan itself sacked—though the castle had held out—the harvest all burned and the cattle driven off or slaughtered. Clifford had left again, with his booty—but the lordship was in dire distress.

So Turnberry was abandoned again, and the Bruces spurred southwards in wrath. But some of the wrath, the brothers well knew, was now directed against themselves, as their men contemplated broken homes, ravished women, and widespread ruin to return to—done while they had been held by their young lords kicking their heels in the north. Defiant gestures were all very well for lord lings but Annandale had ever been too vulnerable to English attack to hazard. The old lord had known that well. But the old lord was gone, apparently, none knew where. And his sons had failed Annandale … Bruce himself was not unaffected by a sense of guilt. He would be the seventh Bruce lord of Annandale, and the first to allow it to be cruelly ravaged. As he rode furiously through the devastated land and saw the burned homesteads, desecrated churches, the corpses of men, women and children choking wells and ditches, hanging from trees, crucified on gates, a great weight of responsibility settled upon him—allied to a cold hatred. It was on his account that these people had suffered. But woe to those who had caused the suffering.

At the douce red-stone town of Annan, blackened and charred now, below the castle that still stood intact on its mote, they learned the full grim details from Thomas, Alex and Mary. Clifford had come raging from Carlisle with thousands, mainly foot—although they had returned to England mounted. It had not been any military campaign but purely a savage punitive onslaught.

Indeed Clifford’s orders to his men had been every man for himself, no quarter to be given, no prisoners taken, all booty and plunder to remain the property of whoever could take it. The Bishop-Governor of Carlisle had lent him troops for the outrage, offended by Bruce the Elder having bargained Annandale men for his own freedom and then seen them change sides. As a consequence, hell had been let loose on Annandale.

Robert Bruce had now more than enough to keep him busy, without concerning himself overmuch with affairs of state. It was a notably hard winter, setting in early with snow and ice and gales, and folk in no state to cope. The needs of his own people took up all his wrathful energies. He set himself to organise the transfer of grain and cattle from Carrick to Annandale, re housing and rehabilitation of refugees and homeless, rebuilding and repairing whole townships and villages. He had never applied himself like this in his lire, and was glad enough to tire himself out day after day. This he could do, must do. The rest could wait.