Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

So Wallace was making a bid to control the Church, as well as the state. One of his own band Primate and Galloway Chancellor.

And Pope Boniface was a Benedictine also, it was said.

There were murmurs, growls, alarmed looks, amongst the nobility and some of the churchmen, but no vocal or affirmed opposition. That this was not the place, nor the time, any man of discernment would understand. This was Wallace’s day, and any who openly opposed him would go down.

Grimly the giant considered them all, waiting. Waiting for the outcry that did not materialise. Then he nodded, and turned.

“My lord Steward,” he said, “it is enough. I thank you for your patience, your courtesy. I thank all. Let a feast, a great feeding, be prepared. For many are hungry. There is much food here in the Forest—the famine has not touched it. Many wild cattle, many deer. Sufficient beasts are already slain. All shall eat and drink tonight.” And, the King’s representative having given his orders to the King’s Steward, he bowed briefly and, waving to his own close group to follow, strode by the vestry door out of the ruined chancel.

Later, with the camp-fires lighting up the March evening, and the rich smells of roasting beef and venison filling the night air, a very thoughtful Bruce, in company with the Earl of Mar, pacing the shadowy, broken cloisters of the abbey, was startled by a deep voice speaking close behind them. They swung round, to find Wallace there, with the man Lamberton. Like so many big men, he seemed to have the ability to tread very softly.

“So, my lords,” he said, “you commune closely I As well you might I For in this Scotland, I think, the very stones listen and whisper. And there will be much whispering tonight. How long, think you, before word of this days doings reaches Surrey? And Edward?”

The two earls, who had indeed been discussing Wallace, looked a little uncomfortable.

“What mean you, Sir William? By that!” Bruce asked tensely.

“That wise men do well to look over their shoulders—that is all,” the other answered lightly.

“This is a notable realm for traitors, is it not?”

Was this, could it possibly be, some sort of warning?

“I do not take you, sir,” Bruce said.

“Then you are less shrewd than I esteemed you, my lord I The House of Comyn may not love Edward Plantagenet. But they may prefer him to William Wallace! Or even Robert Bruce!”

“So-0-0 I You fear the Comyns will not accept what is done?”

“Only if they must, I think. And they are very strong. I ask you, my lords, as men of the same noble rank and station as these -should I feel secure, when Edward strikes, with the Comyns in arms at my back?”

Bruce glanced at Mar, and cleared his throat.

“I do not know!”

“Nor do I! Master Lamberton, here, believes that I should not.”

The tall priest spoke in a crisp voice smacked of the field rather than the chancel.

“I do not name them traitors,” he declared.

“But I hold they believe themselves better suited to rule Scotland than is Sir William Wallace I And will not hesitate to stab him in the back, if by so doing they may take over that rule. And esteem themselves to have done Scotland service I To do so, they must be most fully assembled in arms. As they can, in answer to the Guardian’s summons to the nation. The Comyns could raise ten thousand men. A sore host to have at your back, in battle!”

“True. But how may this be countered?” Mar demanded.

“You cannot keep the Comyns from mustering their men. Nor deny them the right to fight for the realm.”

The cleric lowered his voice.

“My lord-you control the vast earldom of Mar, a mighty heritage in the North. My lord of Carrick, yours is the Lordship of the Garioch, nearby in Aberdeenshire—half a province. Moreover, Sir Andrew Moray is dead, woe is me—but his brothers are sound for Wallace, and hold the great Moray lordships of Petty, Innes and Duffus. All these abut the Comyn lands. If you, my lords, were to go north and, with the Morays, muster the men of these lordships—as all will be called upon to do by the Guardian—then you have a force assembled on the Comyns’ doorstep, do you not? Men so mustered in arms are ever … restless.

However firm you hold them in, there will be some small spulzie and

pillage. Reiving, as we say in the East March of the Border, whence I

come. On neighbours’ lands. Comyn lands. I swear, so long as they

are there, no Comyn host will come south!”

Bruce almost whistled beneath his breath. Here was a crafty, nimble-witted clerk. Could it be that this was where the advice came that was turning Wallace from mere warrior into statesman?

“You would play the realm’s nobles one against the other, Sir Priest?” he challenged.

“They need but little encouragement in that, my lord! I but urge that, since all the land must be mustered in arms, it is only wise that sound men muster alongside those who might be led otherwise. I wish for no bloodshed, no fighting. But a due balancing of forces.”

“And Bruce is sound, in our cause, to be sure!” Wallace put in, smiling into his curling auburn beard.

“Since he it was who made me Guardian! With my lord of Mar’s aid.”

If there was derision in that, it was fairly well covered over.

Bruce saw very well that Wallace trusted none of the lords, himself included. He was for sending him north, away from his own great reservoirs of manpower, Carrick and Annandale, to far Garioch, his sister’s portion when she married Mar. There to distract Comyn, the Red Comyn in especial, who was his rival in so much.

“How do you know that I will not make common cause with the Comyns?” he demanded.

Wallace actually laughed, apparently having followed the younger man’s train of thought accurately.

“Because John Comyn is Baliol’s man,” he said simply.

“And you are… yourself!”

The acuteness of that silenced Bruce for the moment. Mar spoke.

“If our hosts are up in Moray and Mar, facing Comyn, then we cannot be aiding you here against the English.”

“A commander needs more hosts than one, my lord. It is wise not to pit all at one throw. He needs a reserve. Your combined hosts, in the north, will well serve as that.”

In other words, Wallace was well content to fight Edward with his own common folk, the masses assembled direct from the nation, holding the great lords’ levies at a distance. Bruce saw it, if Mar did not.

“Beware, sir, that you do not estimate Edward Plantagenet too lightly!” he said.

“That I do not,” the big man assured.

“By God, I do not! But all shall not be won, or lost, in one battle.”

There was a mutual silence for a little, as the four men considered each other. Then Bruce shrugged.

“You are Guardian of Scotland,” he said.

“Aye. Thanks to you, as I say.”

“I wonder!”

“You doubt my thanks, my lord? That is foolish. You did for me, then, what no other could, or would, have done. The knighting.

I will not forget it. For that, at least, I do most surely thank you. Your reasons for doing it I do not know. But the deed was good. Of much value. For this, I am in your debt.”

“It was merited,” Bruce said shortly.

“Never was knighthood more so.”

“Not all would agree with you! But … that is no matter.

What matters now is the future. How long do you give Scotland?

You who know Edward. Before he comes hammering at our gates?”

“Three months. A month to return from France. A month to set his own house in order—to bring the English nobles to heel.

A month to raise the men to march north. I give Scotland until June.”

“Aye. You have the rights of it, I think. Three months—and so much to be done! So much!”

“You can do it,” Lamberton said, in his crisp voice.