Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

Bruce had his trumpeter sound the halt, and sitting his horse, beckoned the young man forward.

“Who are you, my friend?” he asked.

“And would you ride with me to Scone, this day?”

The other bowed deeply.

“I would ride with you farther than to Scone, my lord King,” he said impulsively, clear-voiced.

“I am James Douglas. Whom once you took out of Douglas Castle. To Irvine, and my father.”

“Ha! James Douglas? Sir William’s son. To be sure. I mind you now.

Save us—you make me feel old I A boy then, a man now.”

“Your man, Sire.” He took the outstretched hand between his own.

“Four days ago, only, I was of age. For long years I have waited for this. To come to you. Even when you were not King.

With my strength. As Lord of Douglas. Before, I could not. Others held me back. Now they can do so no more. And now I am come.

In time for your Grace’s crowning! God be praised!” All this was jerked out with a breathless urgency.

Bruce looked down into the eager dark eyes, and found an unaccountable lump in his throat.

“Aye, lad,” he said.

“And I am glad. But … why? What did I ever do for you? Save escort you and your step-mother to your father? Whose soul rest in peace.

All those years ago.”

“Nine years, Sire. I have well counted them. Five of them in France. Think you I could forget what you did that day? Outside the walls of Douglas. How you saved the children from hanging.

By Segrave. How you defied King Edward’s commands. How you came to us in courtesy, offered us rescue, conducted us to safety.

Then threw in your lot with the rebels. You, who were named Edward’s chief commander in the SouthWest! I vowed then that when I was a man, I would seek to be a man like the Earl of Carrick!” James Douglas paused, and swallowed.

“Your Grace’s pardon. I… I forgot myself!”

“Would God more in this realm would forget themselves, my lord of Douglas!” Suddenly Bruce rose in his stirrups, and dismounted. Hastily everywhere men jumped down, not to remain seated when the monarch stood.

“Give me that sword, lad,” he said.

Wonderingly the younger man drew, and handed over the handsome weapon.

“Now, kneel.” He tapped each bent shoulder with the flat of the blade.

“I dub thee knight. Be thou a good and faithful knight until thy life’s end. Arise, Sir James!”

Quite stunned with the suddenness and proportions of the honour done him, Douglas stood at a loss.

Leaning a little in her saddle, Elizabeth, who had watched and listened interestedly, held out her hand, well aware of what this all meant to her husband.

“My felicities, Sir James. For the first knight of my lord’s creating.”

“Not the first,” Bruce said sombrely.

“I knighted Wallace. May you, sir, be more fortunate than he!”

“That is in God’s hands, Sire. But if I can strive to be one half so true a knight, I shall rejoice. I thank you, with all my heart, Your Grace.” Douglas took the Queen’s hand.

“Highness, I am yours, and the King’s, to command. Always. To the death.”

“This is too joyous a day to talk of death,” she told him.

”Live us.” And she smiled down on the lively, eager, almost

worshipping face.

“That too, Madam …”

“Aye, my friend-so be it,” Bruce said.

“This day we ride my realm without swords and lances and armour. For once! So take you mese fine Douglas blades of yours, and find Sir Christopher Seton. He rides some way to the west, holding our flank secure.

Leave them with him. He will use them well. Then come back to our side, my lord of Douglas. You shall be our good augury and fortune, on the way to Scone …”

The Abbey of Scone, a few miles North of Perth, above the cattle-dotted meadows of the silver Tay, was a fair place in a lovely setting. Admittedly it was not so fair as once it had been, for Edward had been here in 1296, and part-destroyed the Abbey when he took away its precious Stone, the symbol of Scotland’s sovereignty. And sent another punitive raid two years later. But there had been considerable rebuilding since then, much renewing of burned woodlands and a ravaged countryside in this the ancient Pictish capital and most hallowed spot in Scotland, where rose the Moot-hill that had been the centre of rule and the coronation-place of the most ancient kingdom of all Christendom.

For this day, at least, all traces of ruin and devastation were covered up and hidden. All was colour, flourish and acclaim.

A tented city had been set up, on the flats by the river, below the twelve acres of abbey buildings and the Moot-hill, furnished with the gorgeous silken pavilions of lords and bishops, the bowers of ladies, the lodges of lesser men, the canopied shrines of religious orders and holy relics, the booths of merchants and craftsmen, the enclosures for entertainers, tumblers, musicians and the like, the tourney-grounds, race-courses and playing-fields, stretching to the vast horse-lines and cattle-pens. Every sort of standard, flag, banner and pennon flew, ecclesiastical, heraldic, burg hal guild and purely decorative. Late March, it was scarcely the time of the year for such outdoor activities; but the weather was kind, and though a stiff breeze blew, the sun shone.

Robert Bruce had reason for some satisfaction. It was no feeble or humiliating affair, such as might have been. None could point the finger of scorn and claim that this was only a shameful pretence at a coronation. There were three earls present—four if young Donald of Mar was counted; John de Strathbogie, of Atholl; Malcolm of Lennox; and Alan of Menteeth—although be had been more or less dragooned, and his uncle, Sir John Stewart of Menteith not only was not present but had refused to yield up Dumbarton Castle to Bruce. There were three bishops-the Primate, Glasgow and Moray—with a number of mitred abbots and priors. Of lords, apart from Douglas, there were Hay of Erroll and his brother; Lindsay of Crawford; Somerville of Carnwath; Campbell of Lochawe; and Fleming of Cumberoauld.

James the Steward, aged and sick, had sent his surviving son Walter. And there were a great many barons, knights and lairds, the most prominent of whom were Sir Hugh, brother of the heroic Sir Simon Fraser of Oliver; Sir John Lindsay; Sir Robert Boyd, who had just captured Rothesay and Dunaverty Castles for Bruce; Sir David de Inchmartin and Sir Alexander Menzies. Alexander Scrymgeour, Wallace’s lieutenant, the Standard-Bearer, was there. The Bruce family itself made an impressive phalanx, with Seton and Sir Thomas Randolph, a nephew.

But, though all this was well enough, it was scarcely possible not to reflect on who was not present. Two-thirds of the earls and bishops and three-quarters of the lords had found it necessary or expedient to be elsewhere—although all had been summoned.

There was no overlooking this fact. Most significant, perhaps, for a coronation, was the absence of the young Mac Duff Earl of life, whose duty and privilege it was to place the new monarch on the fabled Stone of Destiny and to crown him thereafter. Some whispered indeed, with head-shakings, that without the magic symbol of the Stone, and lacking the Mac Duff presence, it could be no true crowning.

William Lamberton arrived at Scone within hours of the royal party’s coming, and it was Bruce who quickly thereafter sought the Bishop, in the Abbot’s quarters, not vice versa.

“My lord King!” the older man protested, as the other was shown into his chamber.

“This should not be! You should have let me seek audience. I was but preparing myself first, after my journeying …”

“Tush, man! Seek audience—you?” Bruce interrupted.

“Has it come to this, between us?”

“Conditions have changed, Sire,” the Primate said.

“Notably.”