Robert the Bruce--A Tale of the Guardians

by Jack Whyte

  “These past two months I have been the length and breadth of Scotland, while my people laboured here in Berwick and elsewhere. We have established new sheriffdoms throughout the Scots realm and have been at pains to collect written and sealed instruments of homage and fealty from everyone in Scotland—and I do not mean from the Scots alone. There are landholders and churchmen aplenty here who are of English, Italian, German, French, and other blood, and they, too, have signed such instruments. The folk are calling the collection process the Ragman Roll, I am told. I care not what they term it, but I must have the thing complete within this month of August—a complete written record of the sworn acknowledgment of every man with holdings in the realm of Scotland. It will be the greatest single volume of its kind since the Domesday Book.

  “I need your name on that list, signed and sealed. You may do it here, while you are with us, and it will be added to the others. Your father has already signed. The documents were sent to him in Carlisle and executed there. It is a formality, but a legal one, to gather the sworn attestations of loyalty to us in person from all men of note in Scotland. We have been clement in Scotland, where we could have exacted greater vengeance had we wished, but these new articles and instruments require a personal commitment to me, not as lord paramount but as Edward, King of England, Wales, and Ireland.”

  Bruce kept his face blank as he nodded. “Very well, my liege, I’ll do that before I do anything else.” He glanced around. “Should I speak to Sir Robert FitzHugh?”

  “FitzHugh’s not here. I thought the journey might be too harsh for him. See Cressingham instead. He’ll take care of it. You know Cressingham?”

  “No, my liege.”

  “Hmm. An able man. You’ll find him—he’s big and fat and hard to miss, but he knows how to organize things the way I like them. He’ll be my new treasurer for Scotland.” He paused then, and tilted his head to one side. “I’m glad you’re here, and now that you are here, I’ll need you to stay a while.” He raised a hand. “Aye, I know. Your wife has need of you. But not for two months, eh? What did you do for her from day to day before you left?”

  Bruce floundered. “I … I tried to see to her needs, as a dutiful spouse.”

  “And were you successful?” There was humour in Edward’s tone now, and Bruce grinned shyly.

  “Not always, my liege.”

  “That’s because you are a man. Earl you may be, but a mere male in the scheme of things and therefore useless in every woman’s eyes during a pregnancy. They have no need of us once the beginning is achieved. But we have need of you, my lord of Carrick, as your liege lord. You have responsibility here, too, as a dutiful vassal.” He did not wait for Bruce to respond. “The lady Isabella will do well enough without you for a while. You can do my bidding and return in plenty of time to pace the floor and fret about the coming of your child.

  “Now. I need men I can trust today in Scotland, and you are one I can trust further than most. Your earldom of Carrick is restored to you, as of this moment, and your father’s lands of Annandale to him. But he cannot yet go home. He still has work to do in Carlisle. And so I require you to go at once into your home lands and repossess them formally as forfeited by the House of Comyn. You will assure the loyalty of your own people there—both to yourself and to us. And when you have done there in Carrick, you will do the same in Annandale, on your father’s behalf. You can be back in Writtle within six weeks of leaving, so be you waste no time.”

  “Thank you, sire.” He hesitated. “Am I permitted to ask what you intend to do with the Comyns, my liege?”

  “You are, my lord of Carrick.” Edward spoke quietly, scanning the crowd as he did so but acknowledging none of the looks directed back at him. “I intend to forgive them their transgressions, on condition that they supply their full support to my endeavours in France. We hold four earls in London and several more elsewhere, and their manpower and contributions will be most useful. Once they have all agreed to my terms, I will issue a general amnesty and release all prisoners. The King of Scotland himself will remain in custody for the time being, until I decide how best to deal with him for the good of all. I cannot simply turn him loose to be used as a rallying symbol, though I doubt that would be likely to occur. In the meantime, I have a campaign in France to prepare and I will need strong men to back my administrative officers here in Scotland. There are taxes to be levied and collected and such things are seldom popular, and the men who would normally see to such things are all in England now.” He stopped again, head tilted. “You brought men with you, did you not?”

  “I did, my liege. The same fifty I took with me when you sent me to tour the heartland. They did well on that occasion and the experience was good for them, so I thought to repeat it.”

  “Good. You’ll be able to strengthen them with men from your own lands in Carrick. Dine with us tonight, my lord. Tomorrow you can meet with Cressingham, sign those articles, and then spend the remainder of the day preparing what you’ll need to take with you. No need for you to stay here for the duration of the parliament. It will be dull, hammering out the rules of government. You’ll leave the following day…”

  He turned casually, sweeping his eye over the crowded floor.

  “You are aware, I suppose,” he said from the corner of his mouth, “that every man in this chamber now hates you for keeping me occupied with you for so long and not with them. Were I you at this moment I would bow and take my leave and walk out of here in the glow of the King’s evident affection. We will speak again at dinner tonight.”

  Bruce bowed and did as he had been bidden, but as he left, looking straight ahead and avoiding all eyes, he had difficulty swallowing his resentment at having been so abruptly deprived of weeks spent in the company of his wife as her time approached. But that, he thought, was manipulation, and Edward of England was the master of it.

  * * *

  The Earl of Carrick’s return to his earldom was hardly triumphal, but it was satisfying none the less, and along the route, his first sight of the grim old fortress of Lochmaben brought a lump into his throat with a startlingly vivid recollection of his grandfather. Bruce and his party had seen very few local inhabitants along the road, but that was hardly surprising. Fifty armoured marching men in the aftermath of a lost war offered little hope of goodwill towards locals, and wise men took care to stay well out of sight.

  There was an English garrison at Lochmaben, commanded by a Yorkshire knight called Humphreys, and Bruce made himself known to the man but made no effort to assert his own or his father’s restored ownership of the place. He was merely passing through on his way to his own earldom of Carrick, he informed Humphreys, and showed him the King’s writ of repossession. He would return after his visit to Carrick, once order was re-established there, at which time he would wish to meet with his father’s vassals here, the knights of Annandale. Humphreys raised no objection. The lord of Annandale’s loyalty to King Edward was well known and respected, and the Earl of Carrick’s activities on his father’s behalf were accepted as normal filial duty.

  Two days later, Bruce rode into Carrick by way of the small town of Maybole, where he stopped to gather what news he could from the townsfolk. His unexpected arrival caused quite a stir, and he was soon surrounded by a growing crowd of well-wishers eager to know what the future would hold in store for them. None of them knew that he himself was as anxious for such information as they were.

  The town’s provost owned the only house in the entire town with an enclosed yard big enough to hold the crowd that quickly gathered and kept growing, and Bruce quickly commandeered it, then arranged with the two innkeepers to have food brought in to feed the townspeople and thronging visitors who were still arriving. He also had some men set up a small dais against the wall of the provost’s house and place a large chair on it, so that he could sit and overlook the entire yard.

  The town meeting that followed was the liveliest that had been held there in years, since before the time of Bruce�
��s replacement by the new Comyn landlord, and Bruce set the tone by calling everyone to order and then showing them the King’s writ.

  “Here’s a thing you’ve never seen before,” he began, holding the writ up so everyone could see it. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but none of us has ever seen its like. Look at the official seals and ribbons.” He held the scroll horizontally, allowing the brightly coloured fabric strips to dangle. “They look important, do they not? But they’re nowhere near as important as the words on the scroll itself.” He held the scroll higher and pulled it open it with his other hand, spreading it for them to witness. “This is a king’s writ, signed by Edward of England himself, as overlord of Scotland, and it returns to the House of Bruce—to my father and myself and our Bruce heirs—all the rights and possessions that were taken from us by King John Balliol and his Comyn supporters. I am now, once more, the rightful Earl of Carrick.”

  When the storm of applause and conversation caused by that began to abate—and by then Bruce estimated that there must have been close to a hundred people in attendance—he moved on quickly, telling them about the parliament currently under way in Berwick and outlining the plans that were being put in place for the ongoing governance of the realm. The matter of the kingship was being held in abeyance, he explained, but Edward had no intention of taking the Crown for himself. There would be an interim period—an interregnum of sorts—until the lord paramount should decide how to proceed.

  He was aware that everyone in the crowd was listening avidly. These were the ordinary folk of Scotland—farmers, fishermen, herders, and small merchants—and they were unaccustomed to hearing such matters being laid out for their understanding.

  There were three options open to the English monarch, he told them, and all were governed by feudal law. The first was the possible restoration of John Balliol to his throne, after a suitable period of penance and expiation for his rebellion against his feudal overlord. That possibility did not come without difficulties, Bruce pointed out. He explained that King John, a prisoner and convicted rebel as he was, could not simply be forgiven and reinstated. His former supporters, the magnates and mormaers who had driven the revolt, were still in custody in England, too dangerous to be released until they had given public and irrevocable declarations of their own guilt and undertaken to honour the King’s peace in future. Once that had been achieved, Edward could decide what he would do about his vassal Balliol and the Scots Crown.

  The second option, he continued, involved the folk of Carrick directly, by mere association. If Balliol’s loss of the Crown was confirmed, then another claimant might be put in place, and the only suitable claimant was Robert Bruce of Annandale. He waited out the lacklustre reaction to that. Robert Bruce of Annandale was Edward’s man, every bit as Balliol had seemed to be, and it was clear in the faces around him that these people were seeing the exchange of one weak leader for another. Bruce was neither surprised nor upset. He had his own doubts about his father’s fitness to be king when that position entailed, as it inevitably must, unending eye-to-eye confrontation with England’s intractable and domineering monarch. His father had never been, and would never be, a match for Edward Plantagenet.

  As the buzz of speculation began to fade, the town miller, Gibby Rankin, raised his hand. “That canna happen afore the Balliol question’s settled, can it? So is there any more o’ these options ye’re talkin’ about?”

  “Aye, Gibby, there is another one.” Bruce glanced around the assembly, aware of the silence. “A third option is for Edward to name himself the King of Scots.” He held up a hand quickly, to dispel the growing storm before it could become overwhelming. “But he won’t,” he shouted, and rose to his feet. The increase in height he gained by standing up forced men to look up at him, and they quickly fell silent.

  “He won’t do that,” he said into the stillness. “If that was what Edward wanted, it would be done already.”

  The silence stretched as they considered that, and he sat down again, deliberately, knowing he had regained their full attention. When he resumed, he pitched his voice to carry and spoke slowly. “The King of England has had the ability to seize our throne ever since the fight at Dunbar. But he is content to be feudal overlord, lord paramount of Scotland. For him that is enough, and I believed him when he told me so. Edward Plantagenet has no wish to be King here in Scotland.

  “And so a compromise is in place and the rules are being worked out at the parliament in Berwick as we speak. Government of the realm must go on, and so it will, though with some changes. For the most part, little will change in your lives here. Your rents and taxes will still be collected as before, and by the same folk who have always seen to that. The folk who make Scotland run from day to day will keep on doing what they do. But above them, working on King Edward’s behalf, will be a new layer of government—ministers and officers appointed by the Crown in England for the governance of Scotland.

  “The Earl of Surrey, John of Warrenne, is named Lieutenant of Scotland and will act as Edward’s military viceroy in charge of the royal castles. A man called Hugh Cressingham is named Treasurer of Scotland, charged with the fiscal welfare of the realm. Another, William Ormesby, has been made justiciar, the Chief Justice of Scotland. His main task for the next few months will be to track down and arrest those who are still in revolt against Edward. So that should keep the Comyns busy and out of our hair.”

  That earned a laugh, and he allowed it to die away naturally before concluding. “That is as much as I can tell you for now. There are changes ahead for all of us, but they should not be threatening. Life will go on as it always does, and though this is but a short visit to show my face here again, I will be returning soon for good, bringing my new wife and child to live in Turnberry thereafter.

  “In the meantime, though, I have been too long away and now I need to hear what you have to tell me, about how life has been here in Carrick these past few years. So let everyone now take their ease and talk. I have ordered food and drink from the inns and those will be brought here as soon as they are ready. I will join you throughout, and you may tell me anything you think I ought to know … And here comes the food now.”

  He rose to his feet as the people closest to the gate began to move aside, making way for a group of newcomers who entered in pairs, carefully carrying vast amounts of food laid out on portable breadboards slung between each pair. Others stepped forward to help roll two barrels of ale to where they could be set up and broached, and for a time everything appeared festive as the assembly turned its collective attention to satisfying hunger and thirst.

  As Bruce moved among them afterwards, his people spoke to him as he had asked them to, telling him the things they thought he ought to know, and though he was gratified by this sign of their trust in him, he nevertheless heard much that caused him more concern than he had anticipated. He heard stories of outright abuse by English soldiery that surpassed anything he had expected to hear; stories of ordinary folk being mistreated and humiliated for no reason other than the malicious and vindictive pleasure of Edward’s men-at-arms. He heard reports of robbery and battery, assaults and thefts, evictions and lootings, and of the hanging of an entire family who had lived together on a smallholding less than two miles from Maybole itself. They had been an unlovable crew, he was told, fifteen in number including several half-grown children, and they were well known as thieves, subsisting on the very edges of the law, but they had done nothing that anyone in Maybole knew of to justify their being taken out and hanged.

  At first he believed these reports to be exaggerated and told himself that they were born of simple discontent and self-interest, but as the afternoon wore on and these tales were repeated and multiplied, he was forced to acknowledge that what he was hearing must be true. Too many honest folk were involved in the telling to permit any kind of collusion or conspiracy. And besides, he had to ask himself, to what end would they lie to him? They spoke of deeds done, some of them long since, knowing he
could do nothing to redress any of their wrongs.

  Not everything he heard during that afternoon was unwelcome or depressing, but the overwhelming impression that he was left with by the end of the meeting was one of serious wrongness within his earldom.

  * * *

  Later that same day he discussed all of what he had heard with Nicol MacDuncan, whom he had been delighted to find in residence at Turnberry, surrounded by a number of familiar, well-remembered retainers, many of whom had been in service here during the time of his mother. The two men dined together alone that night and they had much to talk about, reviewing the status of the Turnberry estate as well as the earldom in general.

  Nicol reassured Bruce that the Comyn tenancy had been a relatively lenient one, under the supervision of a cousin of the Earl of Buchan, and the affairs of the earldom had suffered little, save that the rents and revenues for the upkeep of Carrick had gone north to Buchan. Some of the household staff had inevitably been displaced to make room for Comyn counterparts, but Nicol had restored those as soon as the Comyns moved out and he himself had moved back in. Faced with the need since then to replenish the workforce in the absence of the fighting men who had been marched away by the Comyns to the war, he said, he had brought in people from the Isles, men and women of his own and Bruce’s mother’s clan; hard-working, hard-dirt farmers and fisherfolk who cared little for the wars of distant kings and to whom the mainland’s bounty seemed like Eden. These new men were all fighting men, of course, he pointed out, well able to protect and hold their own, and since their fathers had all stood behind their countess while she lived, so, too, would their sons be loyal to her son. Carrick was in good hands.

  They talked late into that first night, and once they had dealt with everything pertaining to the earldom, they moved on to discuss the war itself and the effect it had had, and was still having, on Scots life in general, with particular regard to what Bruce had heard said earlier in Maybole.