Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

Never to return to Scotland. Does this not please you?”

The other knowing Edward Plantagenet, did not commit himself.

“One or two other small matters. We have, as it were, exchanged our allies! Problems, as they were. I relinquish all interest in Flanders and the Flemings—a small loss! And Philip le Bel relinquishes all interest in Scotland and the Scots. As is only proper. So an ages-old stumbling block is removed. Is it not satisfactory?”

Hoarsely Bruce spoke.

“And the Pope?”

“Why, Pope Boniface also joins in this goodwill. He declares Scotland and Flanders, both, in wicked rebellion. And all who bear arms against me, or Philip, their lawful sovereigns, in danger of hellfire! Were you not wise, my good Robert, to submit to my peace when you did?”

Wordless, Elizabeth moved over, to put her arm in Bruce’s, a simple but eloquent gesture which drew a quick frown from the King.

“You seem less joyful than you should, my lord,” he grated, suddenly harsh, accusing.

“Should I rejoice, Sire, to see my country utterly betrayed and abandoned? By all. By its most ancient ally. Even by Holy Church?”

“Betrayed, sirrah! You to say that? Robert Bruce speaks of betrayal!”

When the younger man answered nothing but looked steadily, directly into the other’s choleric eyes, the King thrust out a jabbing, pointing hand.

”We shall see. None betrays Edward, and does not suffer. And Edward

is Scotland. Now. Forget it at your peril—you, or any.

You will leave at once. Tonight. Ride with Sir John. For Ayr.

See you to it.” Without any other leave-taking, he turned abruptly and strode from the tent, de Botetourt silent at his heels.

Husband and wife turned to gaze at each other. After a moment, Elizabeth flung herself into the man’s arms.

It was many months before Bruce saw his wife again, appalling months for Scotland and grievous for Robert Bruce; months in which Edward stormed his brutally determined way northwards, by Perth and Coupar and Arbroath and Brechin, over the mouth to Aberdeen, and onwards to Banff and Elgin and Kinloss, within sight of the blue mountains of Ross; further than he or any other invader had ever gone, leaving utter desolation behind him in a blackened swathe from the sea to the Highland hills. One by one the Comyn’s northern strongholds had fallen until the last remote strength of Lochindorb, on its island in deepest Strathspey, was brought low, and no major strength in all the land, save only Stirling Castle, remained opposed to the conqueror. That is, except for the eyries of Highland chiefs who were interested in neither the one side nor the other.

During those months Bruce in fact sent no thousands of West countrymen to increase the King’s mighty northern host. It had not been easy to avoid doing so—but after long battling with Edward personally, he found his bastard son de Botetourt rather less hard to get round. Not Sir John was a lenient guard or mild of temperament—quite the reverse; but he lacked his sire’s shrewdness and experience, and Bruce was able to deceive him where he could not have done the King. He managed time and again to put off the required transfer of men, mainly on the grounds that they were more urgently needed there in the West than by the so victorious monarch. He ensured that this was so by secretly fomenting strategically-sited and timed revolts and uprisings in various parts of his domains and sheriffdoms—not too difficult to do here in his own earldom. His newly-mustered vassals and levies were kept busy dashing hither and thither in Galloway and Carrick, ostensibly keeping King Edward’s peace.

Edward himself would have seen through it and clamped down sternly. De Botetourt may have suspected, but he could prove nothing, and was somewhat beyond his depth in dealing with Bruce. Moreover he could not deny the need to put down all armed rising in the rear of the Prince of Wales’ army, and was much aware of the threat of a link-up with Wallace, who was still active in the central forests and marshes between Clyde and Forth—a danger which Bruce never failed to stress. The Prince, too, was unhappy in his Galloway adventure, finding that vast province a most awkward place to campaign in, as others had done before him. He sent conflicting demands to Botetourt and the Sheriff of Ayr—and Bruce was glad on more than one occasion to despatch south to him parties of men who should have gone north to Edward.

But it was a dire and sorry business, for all however great a relief it was to be quit of the monarch’s personal presence. His bastard made a sullen and unattractive companion, and Bruce had also to put up with quite a lot of his old foe Clifford, whom the Prince had installed as a sort of governor of Annandale and keeper of Lochmaben. Oddly enough, Clifford had as lieutenants two men who Bruce had thought to be dead—the Lord Segrave, demoted and disgraced but still alive; and Sir Robert Neville, also alleged to have been slain at Roslin. Apparently Master Benstead had not been entirely to be trusted as informant and courier.

It was with mixed feelings, men, that in early October, Bruce received a peremptory summons from Edward, sent from the castle of his own nephew and ward, at Kildrummy in Aberdeenshire, to come north forthwith, still in de Botetourt’s care. Presumably the King had come to accept the fact the West experiment had failed, and that Bruce would be of more value in the North where, for his own interests, he might be expected to desire to keep down any resurgence of the Comyn power. Edward had cancelled his appointments as Sheriff or Ayr and Lanark, making him instead Sheriff of Moray, Nairn and Inverness, and reminding him that he was keeper of the royal forests of Kintore, Darnaway and Longmorn, as well as controller of the earldom of Mar. In name, at any rate. Edward himself was returning south, to winter at Dunfermline in life; Bruce was to hold the North, in his name, against any attempt of Comyn. But he would not be left to hold it alone; he would have ample help. Which meant that he still would be a well-guarded prisoner.

So, with the shortening days, Bruce and de Botetourt rode northwards

through a ravaged, shattered land. Only the hope that he might find

Elizabeth at the end of his journey gave the former any satisfaction.

In this, at least, he was not disappointed. Edward had left behind at Kildrummy, as well as some few thousand Englishmen, both Elizabeth and her father, Richard de Burgh, to ensure Bruce’s good behaviour and cooperation in the Norm.

Kildrummy was good for Robert Bruce. As on the previous visit, he was able partly to relax, here amongst the skirts of the great Highland mountains. The air, the people, the entire tempo and tenor of life was different, easier, more genial. The stresses and strains of war and dynastic manoeuvre seemed far away, and even Edward’s heavy hand had made but little impression on this mighty land of vast horizons. He had burned a few towns in Aberdeenshire and Moray, yes; but the people hereabouts did not live in towns and villages, being a pastoral folk wide-scattered over a thousand hills and valleys. It was strange that this should be the fierce Comyn’s land, for it seemed out of sympathy with all he stood for. Or so mused Bruce that Yuletide, as 1303 gave way to 1304.

He had not, in fact, come to blows with John Comyn as yet, that man having kept his distance. Word of him came intermittently from places wide apart, mainly in the West—Galloway, the Lennox, Argyll, and as near as Lochaber He was still free, still resisting after a. fashion, still sole Guardian of Scotland; but he could effect little, fugitive rather than commander or ruler, and for some reason he avoided the North-East, where Bruce, in name at least, now governed—and where he and Buchan and the other Comyns might between them have raised many thousands more men. Bruce often wondered why—but he was thankful.