Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

The English, in fuming rage, sought other adversary than fire and smoke, and found none—save odd and pathetic hiders in woods and deans and caves, whom they outraged, tortured and hanged. Day after day they marched south, a blackened snarling host, the fine colourful display of their chivalry dimmed and soiled now, angry, ravenous men; and each day their march grew longer, as their empty bellies forced them on, hoping, hoping for some area undestroyed, some green oasis in the black desert overlooked.

But there was none, save in the high fastnesses of the flanking hills, Scotland’s ultimate refuge, where Edward dared not let his mutinous men stray—for such as did seldom returned.

A great deal of food is necessary to feed over 100,000 men. The leadership was losing control. Great bodies of troops were running amok, fighting with each other, falling sick by the thousand, doing unmentionable things in their terrible hunger. Shaking his fist at the gaunt ruins of the burned-out castle of Ayr, reached on the 27th day of August, Edward, in impotent fury, after giving orders Bruce must be pursued deep into his Carrick hills, right to the Mull of Galloway if need be, countermanded it all, and ordained the swiftest possible withdrawal to the Border, to English soil. It was as near flight as anything the Plantagenet had ever faced. He left a woeful trail of the weak, the sick and the weary behind him, of men and horses and equipment. And out from the wilderness lairs the folk of the charred land crept by night, knives in hand.

The King, with the view of fair England at last, on 6th September, and

much in sight reeking, as black as what lay behind them, turned in

terrible, savage wrath on Annandale, the last of the Scottish dales,

which the younger Bruces had largely spared, after all their

building-up from Clifford’s raid. Now even that expert, in Edward’s

train, had to confess himself mastered. If a land can be crucified,

the lordship of Annandale was, that September of 1298. When, in the remote tower of Loch Doon, amongst the great heather hills where Carrick and Galloway meet, Nigel brought word of it, Robert Bruce would have wept if he could. Tears were a luxury few Scots could rise to that autumn.

Edward himself was near to tears, at Carlisle, where he halted at last, too tough a nut for the Bruce brothers to have cracked.

But they were tears of sheerest choler. For not only had he to bear the humiliations of his undignified scramble back to his own soil, and the frustrations of a campaign abandoned in midcourse, with the benefits of a great victory squandered, and the outrage of mutinous soldiery—now his own lords turned mutineer. And not merely a few disgruntled nonentities, but the greatest of all-Norfolk, the Constable; Hereford; Lincoln; Northumberland.

These, and lesser barons, when they heard that Edward was intent only on garnering vast food supplies, re-equipping and disciplining his army, and then marching back into Scotland to complete his task, refused flatly to co-operate. They claimed that this was not only profitless but contrary to the promises that the King had made on his return from France, he would rule henceforth with the acceptance of his nobility and parliament. In fury the monarch named them treasonable, seditious dogs—and though, on second thoughts, he hastily convened a council, there at Carlisle, and named it a parliament, it was too late. Norfolk, Hereford, and those like minded marched off with their followings for the south, leaving an angry sovereign and a make-believe parliament to pass edicts for further ambitious mobilisation, the large-scale provisioning necessary, and the equipping of a great fleet of vessels which would proceed round the Scottish coastline, keeping pace with the armies, and supplying them without fail.

This, and the wholesale forfeiture of the lands of all Scots nobles, not only those who had supported Wallace but those who had failed actively to support Edward; and the apportioning of these immense properties to the English lords and knights who remained with the King at Carlisle—though the new owners were faced with the problem of how to take possession. The greatest of these, Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, got the Bruce lands, and others, to retain his support.

Then, after a fortnight, Edward marched his somewhat refreshed if still grumbling host north into Scotland once more, but only as a token thrust this time, an indication of what would happen in the spring when campaigning was once again feasible.

He moved up Liddesdale, spreading desolation, to Jedburgh, which he sacked and levelled with the ground, wreaking especial vengeance on its great abbey. Contenting himself with this gesture and foretaste, he turned south for Newcastle, Durham, and his winter quarters at York.

Scotland’s sigh of relief was grim as it was faint.

Another sort of relief it was to ride through the green-golden valleys and quiet glades of Ettrick Forest, and see hamlets unburned, churches and shrines intact and cattle grazing peacefully in clearings and water-meadows. To eyes become accustomed to the charred wilderness that was most of Southern Scotland that autumn, this was a bitter-sweet solace. Bruce and his brothers trotted through it all in the mellow October sunshine, in answer to the Guardian’s summons, allegedly the last such that would come from Sir William Wallace.

They found Selkirk and its ruined abbey in an even greater stir than on the previous occasion, when Wallace had been knighted and proclaimed Guardian; for this time, more of the nobility and clergy had come, aware of the drama and importance of the proceedings.

Their encampments, pavilions and banners were everywhere in the spreading haugh lands of the Ettrick, their men-at arms too many and truculent for peace and comfort. Churchmen were almost as numerous as barons, with their retinues, with no fewer than ten bishops, and abbots, priors and other clerics unnumbered.

Lamberton was making his authority felt.

The Bruces found Wallace installed in the old royal castle of Selkirk,

a ramshackle, sprawling place built as a hunting lodge for David the

First. With him was the Steward, his son Walter, Crawford, Menteith,

Lennox and the old Earl of life; also, of course, Lamberton and his

galaxy of prelates. The Primate was undoubtedly something of a

showman, stern though he appeared to be, and there was considerable

attempts at dignity and display, including a throne-like chair at the

head of the great hall table, for the Guardian, with a huge tressured

Rampant Lion standard hung on the wall behind it. The herald King of

Arms was present with his minions, and busy establishing precedences

and places, superintending the setting up of banners, fussing over

details. In view of the appalling devastation that surrounded this

green sanctuary of Ettrick Forest, the unburied multitudes, the famine

and want and despair, it all seemed as pointless as it was unreal,

even ridiculous.

Wallace himself certainly gave the impression that he thought it so, standing about ill at ease and unhappy. Seldom can a man have looked less at one with the surroundings of which he was the central figure. He had changed not a little since Falkirk. He was thinner, more gaunt, older-seeming altogether, and though of course still enormous, of less commanding presence than heretofore, despite the finery which seemed to sit so uncomfortably on his huge frame. His great hands were seldom still, groping about him as though seeking the sword, the dirk, the battle-axe, which were almost extensions of himself, but today were absent.

He looked a man at odds with his fate.

He came great-strided to greet Bruce, at least, with an access of animation.

“My lord, my lord—you have come! I thank God for it.” He gripped the younger man’s hand and shoulder.