Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

“I do deny it, Sire. Since returning to your peace I have kept your peace. What more would you have me to do? By coming to you, I have forfeited any sway mat I had in Scotland …”

“I will tell you what I would have you do. What you will do, Robert.

You will end this soft and idle living which I have allowed you here. You will come back to Scotland with me. And aid me in what I should have done long ere this. Aid me in the destruction of that evil land! Hitherto I have been merciful. I will be merciful no longer. And you will be as my right hand, Robert Bruce! You hear?”

The other bowed stiffly, wordless.

Edward sat back.

“Here then is my decision. From this day, the armies will assemble. The greatest force that England has fielded. No excuse for service will be accepted from any lord, baron, knight or prelate in all my realms. This Shrove-tide carnival, and all such fancies, are cancelled. The whole nation will march with me. And with the Earl of Carrick I And when we return, Scotland will be but an ill memory. This is my command.

My lords—see you to it.” The King heaved himself to his feet.

Speechless, men rose, to bow.

As an afterthought, Edward jerked.

“The Earl of Carrick to be escorted to his quarters, forthwith. And there guarded. Well guarded.”

The assembly, set for York, took months. It was not only the gathering in of hundreds of thousands of men and horses and equipment from all over England and Wales, even from the English provinces of France; it was the collection of a fleet of ships, in the Tyne and Tees estuaries, and the loading of supplies sufficient to maintain such vast numbers of men in a devastated land for many months. It was early May before the mighty host began to move northwards.

Inevitably it moved slowly. But there was no hurry. Nothing could possibly withstand so enormous a concourse of armed men, nothing even delay it—save only its own ponderous size and weight. Some said that there were 250,000 men; but who could tell, or try to count so many? By its very size and complexity there was little of the atmosphere of war and fighting about the expedition—the more so in that Edward had brought along his Queen and she her ladies. Many of the great lords did the same.

Elizabeth de Burgh, although no longer the Queen’s principal

lady-in-waiting, was still one of her entourage, and as such

accompanied her husband. Bruce was not exactly a prisoner, as had

almost been his position in the South; indeed superficially he might

have seemed an honoured member of Edward’s Court—save that other men

now were chary indeed of any association with nun. But he was well

aware how closely the King watched him, now iron-firm was the hand

which gripped as well as sometimes patted his shoulder. For Edward,

after his first rage, had behaved with a bewildering inconsistency towards the younger man, affectionate one moment, mocking and spiteful the next, but ever keeping him close as a son-closer indeed man he kept Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of Wales, a young man for whom his father appeared to have little regard. This inconsistency was, however, a surface thing. Bruce, like Scotland, was to be humbled, all men knew.

After a final inspection of shipping at Newcastle, the expeditionary force moving only a few miles a day, came to Morpeth on the 9th of May, there to split up. The Prince of Wales, with Lancaster and Surrey to aid and advise him, was given 100,000 men and sent to chastise Scotland’s West. He took, more or less as hostages, Nigel, Edward and Alexander Bruce—the latter two having been for most of the last year at Cambridge University with him, where King Edward, in his gracious period, had sent them at his own expense, ostensibly out of kindness but more practically to keep them out of Scotland. Edward Bruce and the Prince had become friendly at university—but few believed that the association would have scope to ripen.

The monarch, with the main body, held to the east side of the country, crossing the Border and reaching Roxburgh in early June.

As was to be expected, there was no fighting. In fact, they saw Scotland smoking long before they reached it. Wallace’s guerillas had had plenty of notice. Methodically they destroyed before the advancing English. There was little for Edward to do-although his outriders ranged far and wide, seeking any unburned territory, any un ravaged land or village, savaging, hanging, crucifying any refugees or wretched hiders that they came across. Only the abbeys, monasteries and churches had been left intact—a pointless scruple, since they were more worth harrying than almost any other property. The destruction of arable land was difficult—but river-banks could be broken down, for flooding;

dykes, ditches and mill-lades levelled; cornfields systematically trampled; orchards hacked down; wells poisoned. All that would burn was burned. Again there was no hurry; all could be done thoroughly.

At this rate it took the force a full fortnight to reach Edinburgh.

Here the fortress had never been relinquished by the English, and the townsfolk, under its shadow, had perforce remained quiet, never rising in revolt. But if they expected therefore to escape Edward’s heavy hand, they were much mistaken. With judicial impartiality he hanged one-tenth of the magis tracy and leading citizenry, slew one-tenth of the populace by speedier methods, and burned one-tenth of the town—although, owing to the uprising of a summer wind, rather more than the due proportion of the mainly timber buildings happened to catch fire. All this he forced Bruce to watch, even to seem to preside over, with himself, making jocular remarks about John Baliol, or any who thought to be his heirs, scarcely being likely to consider that there was any kingdom left to plot over.

The Plantagenet’s treatment of Scotland’s notoriously non rebellious city might give the others something to think about.

While this went on, the majority of the invasion forces were carefully laying waste Lothian and the plain of Forth, again despite its record of acquiescence, driving Wallace’s men ever westwards but never actually coming to grips with them. There were signs of Comyn’s chivalry being reported, now, but no battles developed. The Guardian was undoubtedly retiring on Stirling Bridge, there to contest the crossing of Forth in the classic fashion.

But Edward had thought of this. He had his shipwrights build three mighty pontoon bridges, at King’s Lynn, and these had been towed up by sea. Now he had them placed across the river at a narrowing, five miles downstream from Stirling, and had his light horse swarming across before the Scots knew what was happening. Comyn had hastily to abandon his prepared positions, before he was cut off from the rear, and retired at speed northwards.

Wallace and his people were trapped on the wrong side of Forth, and had to take refuge in the far recesses of the Tor Wood where it stretched into the lonely morasses of the Flanders Moss.

And now, as it were on virgin territory, Edward could demonstrate that he had meant what he had sworn in his throne-room at Westminster. Nobody had had time to scorch the good earth of life and Fothrif, nor had most of the folk opportunity to flee.

The King’s peace, therefore, fell to be established in fullest measure.

It was on a late June evening, at Clackmannan, a few miles north of

Forth, at the foot of the steep Ochil Hills, that Robert Bruce lay on

his couch in the glowing light of his handsome tented pavilion,

sprawled but not relaxed. Elizabeth was pressing wine on him, seeking

to soothe and ease the tension that now almost permanently had him in

its thrall, and that was etching hard lines deep in his rugged features. They were alone, as they so seldom were on this ghastly, endless, death-filled progress, no watchful lords, guards, esquires or servants actually in the tent with them. It had been a long and harrowing day.