After Bannockburn

by H A CULLEY

  Randolph and his knights were in full armour and even the hobelars wore gambesons and helmets, so that there was little the lightly armed archers could do to protect themselves unless they could unhorse their attackers. A few of the braver ones tried to hamstring a horse or plunge a dagger into its belly but most of these were trampled to death before they could do any damage.

  Thomas swung his favourite weapon, a war hammer, down on the heads of archer after archer. This weapon consisted of two long spikes, one at the top in line with the shaft and one at right angles to it; the hammer part was opposite the second of the spikes. Thomas used the hammer to crack the skulls of those who wore no more head protection than a felt cap and the spike to piece the helmets of those lucky enough to possess one. The top spike was used to pierce the backs of those fleeing from the Scots horsemen.

  Edward watched the destruction of Mortimer’s archers with some satisfaction, then he saw the danger that Randolph was in as the Anglo-Irish horse closed in on the Scots, having picked their way through soft ground to the right flank. It was only when Thomas saw the enemy cavalry start to charge through the fleeing archers that he realised his predicament.

  Frantically he yelled at his men to retreat and most heard him but there were fifty or so who were so crazed by blood lust that they remained oblivious to everything except their desire to slaughter the archers before they escaped. Mortimer’s knights, followed by his serjeants, crashed into the heavily outnumbered hobelars and within minutes they were all dead. Unfortunately even more archers died, crushed under the hooves of the heavy warhorses.

  Mortimer’s cavalry reformed and set of in pursuit of Thomas Randolph’s retreating horsemen. However, by the time that they neared the place where Randolph’s men were reforming, the division commanded by O’Neill had moved across to block their way. Although heavy cavalry are feared by foot soldiers, and rightly so, when the numbers are three thousand against four hundred, a prudent man would realise that the cavalry would be overwhelmed, once the momentum of the initial charge had been dissipated.

  Unfortunately for Mortimer, his deputy and commander of the cavalry, Sir Walter Cussack, was not a prudent man and he led his men at a gallop into the mass of Irish galloglasses and kerns. O’Neill had placed his more fanatical kerns in the first few rows and they took the brunt of the charge. Perhaps two hundred were killed or badly wounded but then the galloglasses, the Irish professional heavy infantry, who were stationed in the middle rows of the division, began to swing their halberds and axes at the now stationary knights. When he had lost some fifty knights and twice that number of serjeants, Cussak panicked and yelled at his men to retreat. The problem was that they were now surrounded by thousands of yelling, bloodthirsty Irishmen.

  Cussak was protected by his own mesnie and eventually managed to organise a wedge which forced its way out of the melee. He succeeded in saving his own life and that of forty other knights and a few serjeants but the remaining men were either killed or captured. It was a humiliating defeat for the flower of Anglo-Irish chivalry.

  Now Edward seized his moment and his two other divisions started to advance around the bog towards the enemy’s left flank. Even before the Irish reached them, the Anglo-Irish foot started to melt away. Soon the trickle became a flood and, by the time that Edward reached their position, there was no-one left to fight. Mortimer had joined the flight soon after it had begun, leaving behind his baggage train as a present for Edward Bruce. The latter sent his hobelars in pursuit of the routed enemy and many more of Mortimer’s army died before they eventually reached the safety of Dublin.

  With the main Anglo-Irish army defeated, Irishmen everywhere now recognised Edward Bruce as High King of Ireland. He would never have admitted it but Edward was jealous of the fact that his brother was King of Scots. Now he could regard Robert as an equal and not as his sovereign.

  Chapter Three – A Tale of Two Squires

  1316-17

  When the king had told Simon that he was to become James Douglas’ squire the boy had experienced conflicting emotions. He was devastated at his demotion from being a royal squire, as he saw it, and the loss of royal patronage worried him. King Robert had promised to knight him when he reached twenty-one but now that he would be out of sight and out of mind, it would be easy for him to forget his promise. On the other hand, with the king’s time and energies mainly devoted to administering his diverse realm, life was unexciting, if not downright boring.

  Against this, James Douglas was continually raiding deep into northern England and, furthermore, he would be his only squire, instead of just being the junior. An added bonus was that his brother, Edgar, served Sir William Keith, a member of the Douglas mesnie.

  However, the reunion between the two brothers proved to be somewhat muted. Edgar didn’t seem as pleased to see him again as he had expected. Simon pondered the reason for this for a couple of days before the probable cause struck him: Simon was squire to the Good Sir James, a man who was almost as much a Scottish hero as William Wallace or the Bruce himself; whereas Edgar was squire to a man who was just a member of the great man’s household.

  Simon had indeed hit on part of the reason for his brother’s coolness towards him. Edgar was jealous of his elder brother but there was another. Edgar had coped with the initial resentment shown towards him well. Not only was he English, and a Northumbrian at that, but he had been born a peasant. The other squires, and even some of the knights, bullied him until, gradually, they had come to respect his dedication, hard work and competence. Now he was accepted by the other squires as their equal.

  However, the arrival of his brother to serve Lord Douglas had not gone down well with the others. They were jealous that an outsider had become their leader’s squire and it had reminded them of the two brothers’ humble English origins. Edgar feared that he would have to cope with ostracism and the mental cruelty that boys were so adept at all over again.

  Instead he was surprised that Simon proved to be a popular addition to the mesnie. His reputation and his standing as the king’s former squire stood him in good stead and, instead of suffering, Edgar found his own status increased because of his association with Simon. He felt guilty about his initial attitude towards his brother and tried to mend fences with him.

  However, Simon had been hurt by Edgar’s reception of him and resolved to have as little to do with his brother as possible. So when Edgar tried to apologise Simon rebuffed him and walked away before Edgar could explain. This, in turn, hurt Edgar’s pride and this festered in his mind, gradually turning to hate. Instead of benefitting from Simon’s standing, his poisonous remarks about Simon to anyone who would listen alienated him from his previous friends and he found himself ostracised in just the way he had had so dreaded when Simon first arrived.

  It didn’t help that he knew that he was the architect of his own misfortune. He had never felt so miserable in his whole life, not even when his father used to beat him with his belt, and he began to wish himself back in Powburn.

  He got his wish sooner than he was expecting.

  ~#~

  Edgar wasn’t the only one who was hurting. Simon hated being estranged from Edgar but at least the other six squires in the mesnie had become his friends, so he didn’t feel as isolated as Edgar.

  In the early summer of 1316 James Douglas launched yet another major raid into northern England which both brothers took part in. During the previous raids of 1314 and 1315 various towns and cities, including Durham, had been allowed to purchase immunity from attack by agreeing to pay a ransom. This was largely to be paid in instalments. However the great famine, which had hit the east coast of Ireland so badly the previous year, had now started to affect England and Scotland as well. Consequently, many of those who had agreed to pay their instalments via livestock and grain were unable to keep to the arrangement. James’ raid was in retaliation but Robert Bruce knew that it was necessary in any case to gather food to make good the shortages being experienced north of the bo
rder.

  The raiding party numbered a thousand men, most hobelars and borderers mounted on garrons. Some of these were as young as fourteen. Normally squires were regarded as non-combatants; their job in battle being to bring forward fresh horses, lances and other weapons, when required, to the knights they served. They also sometimes acted as messengers. As Lord James wasn’t expecting a pitched battle on this occasion, the squires were expected to take their turn on guard duty and to help herd the captured livestock until it was collected by drovers for moving back over the border.

  The raiders crossed into England at Carter Bar and rode south along Redesdale. Before the war between England and Scotland this had been a prosperous valley, lush with green pastureland and populated by numerous flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. There were half a dozen villages as well as the town of Otterburn with its castle. As Simon and Edgar looked about them they were surprised at the desolation. The villages had been burned to the ground and were now deserted. The only animals to be seen were wild ones that scuttled out of sight as soon as they spotted the cavalcade of heavily armed Scots.

  They passed Otterburn Castle out of arrow range and continued over the moors to Rothbury. Here there were a few people at least, though they looked half starved. The bailiff claimed that they had no livestock and precious little grain or vegetables. Douglas knew that he wasn’t likely to get much out of them and so he pressed on, dividing his force into two. He and Sir William Keith would make their way north up Glendale whilst Malcolm Douglas would travel south, meeting up with James and William outside Alnwick in three days’ time.

  Both Simon and Edgar were pleased to see that the village of Powburn looked much as it had the last time they had seen it, except there seemed to be less livestock in evidence and the inhabitants looked gaunt. The brothers expected their father still to be the bailiff but it was a different man, and one they didn’t recognise, who stepped forward to represent the villagers. Spotting his eldest sister in the crowd, Edgar dismounted and moved towards her. As she saw him approach, she looked at the ground and wouldn’t meet his eye. Her husband standing beside her looked uncomfortable too.

  ‘Where’s father?’ Edgar asked without preamble.

  ‘Oh Edgar, I know you loathed him but he’s dead, you mustn’t bear him ill will any longer.’

  ‘Dead? When? How?’ Edgar was dumfounded. He might have hated how his father had treated him and Simon but he had always thought of him as indestructible.’

  ‘He fell ill at the start of the winter and there wasn’t enough food so he just seemed to fade away. He died in early January.’

  Edgar brooded over the news and reflected that few villagers lived much into their forties but he hadn’t expected his father to die in his mid-thirties.

  ‘And mother and the girls? Where are they?’

  Again his sister looked uncomfortable. ‘She married again; a widower from Wooler who wanted someone to look after him and run his house. She took our sisters with her.’

  ‘I see. When was this?’

  ‘Last March.’

  ‘God in Heaven, she didn’t mourn our father for long, did she?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she replied with some vehemence. ‘The poor harvest and your plundering friends, the Scots, have left us more or less destitute. She didn’t have much option if she and the girls wanted to survive.’

  ‘I see; I’m sorry.’

  Edgar suddenly became aware that Lord Douglas was leaving and he gave his sister a quick kiss before running back to his horse.

  ‘Where was father?’ Simon asked as they rode south away from Powburn, taking a few scrawny sheep with them.

  Edgar was more upset about the death of his father than he had expected. His mother moving away had also troubled him so he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to consider his reply carefully. It was, of course, an opportunity for the two to put their differences aside but, instead, Edgar rounded on him.

  ‘Oh, so you have decided to talk to me at long last have you? Well, I’m not sure I want to speak to you.’

  ‘Don’t be more of an idiot than you already are, Edgar. Tell me what’s happened to father; and where were mother and the girls?’

  ‘Father’s dead and mother’s remarried an old man in Wooler. Now you know as much as I do so stop asking me questions.’

  With that he kicked his horse into a canter to get away from Simon. The latter was dumfounded; not just by the tidings about his family but by the totally insensitive way that Edgar had told him. If Simon had disliked Edgar before, he now actively detested him.

  James Douglas and his raiders burnt Corbridge to the ground before crossing the Tyne and pushing on towards Durham. After the example of Corbridge, other towns hastened to pay the Scots what they could afford to avoid a similar fate. Simon and Edgar had been left to guard the growing herd of cattle and flock of sheep during the sacking of Corbridge but they couldn’t help but know that many of the inhabitants had been killed. Neither of them was comfortable with that, though they were still not speaking and so didn’t discuss what they felt with each other. It would have been better if they could have done so; instead they just brooded on the barbarity and unfairness of life.

  After collecting the back instalments due from the Bishop of Durham, they pressed on to cross the Tees into Yorkshire at Barnard. Both boys were relieved that the townspeople chose to pay a ransom to avoid the fate of Corbridge.

  At Richmond they found that all the local lords had taken refuge in the castle but indicated that they wanted to parley. After three days of negotiations, Douglas agreed to spare the town and the surrounding countryside upon payment of a thousand marks. Well pleased with the success of his foray much further south than he had ventured before, he decided to cross the country to Cockermouth in West Cumbria, looting and demanding ransoms as they went. After collecting more coin and livestock from that town, they moved up the coast making for the border near Gretna. They had cut a vast swathe across northern England but had run into no opposition. That changed as they neared Carlisle.

  James had hoped to skirt Carlisle and expected the garrison to hide behind the walls, as they had done at every other town, city and castle to date. However, the Governor of Carlisle was made of sterner stuff and had called for a muster throughout Cumbria and Lancashire so that he could intercept the Scots raiders.

  Although James Douglas had set out with a thousand men, he had suffered the usual desertions as men made their way home after they had acquired enough loot and others acted a drovers and escorts to take livestock north once the size of the herd became too large. Few of these returned once they had completed their task. When he encountered the English force he only had six hundred and fifty men left. Against this the English had fifty knights, over a hundred serjeants and twelve hundred foot soldiers of various types, including professional men-at-arms, town armed bands and peasants armed with farm implements.

  James decided to abandon his baggage train and the few head he had collected since the last herd had been dispatched northwards and quickly organised his men into two large wedges, each headed by half of the few knights he had with him. Simon found the Douglas banner thrust into his hands so that the knight who normally carried it could fight and he took station directly behind Lord Douglas. Edgar was told to stay behind Sir William Keith, who was riding beside James Douglas at the point of the first wedge, so the two brothers found themselves riding side by side with their legs touching. This was the way that knights charged, knee to knee, so that they presented a solid mass.

  Simon glanced at his brother, who was looking as apprehensive as Simon felt.

  ‘Good luck, Edgar,’ he whispered to his brother, who looked startled at being addressed after weeks of not speaking to each other.

  ‘You too,’ Edgar replied, even venturing an uncertain smile. Simon nodded back to acknowledge it and then they started to move forward.

  The wedges started at a walk, then moved up to a canter. Simon and Edgar were
too busy trying to keep station and their knees in contact with each other, and with those of the knights riding on their other sides, to look at the enemy. Had they done so, they would have seen that the Governor of Carlisle had drawn his knights up in a long line with two ranks of serjeants behind them. The foot were standing around casually in six ranks a hundred yards behind the cavalry. They didn’t think for one moment that the Scots would get past the horsemen and were merely waiting for their chance to loot the dead after the killing was over.

  What the Governor of Carlisle had failed to recognise was that a tight wedge of over three hundred horsemen took some stopping. They certainly weren’t going to be halted by a long thin line of knights and serjeants, many of whom wouldn’t even be involved.

  Simon gripped the Douglas banner tightly as his rouncey pounded along eating James Douglas’ dust. Suddenly he saw the English line of cavalry not twenty yards in front of him. James’ lance pitched one English knight over the cantle of his saddle and William Keith did the same before both men dropped the shattered lances and drew their swords. By this time their heavy destriers had pushed the lighter horses ridden by the serjeants aside. Edgar felt his horse treading on one of the serjeants who had been knocked off his horse. Unlike trained warhorses, rounceys didn’t like stepping on anyone and it reared up. The horse behind cannoned into the prancing steed and Edgar felt himself falling out of his saddle. He knew that if he was unhorsed he would be trampled to death in seconds.

  Suddenly he felt an arm go round his waist, holding him up, then he was pushed none too gently back into the saddle and he regained control of his horse just as the wedge burst through the rear rank of enemy serjeants. Edgar glanced to his left to see who his saviour was, only to see his brother grinning from ear to ear.