The Three Edwards

by Thomas B. Costain

  The Scottish army lay hidden back of the lines, but two corps were out in front, one covering St. Ninian’s Church and village in the center, the other at the point where the burn turned sharply northward to empty into the Forth. Even the camp followers had been thought of; they had a place of concealment on Gillies Hill from which they could make their escape if the battle went ill; a thoughtful move, for an army in the exultation of victory will wipe out the fleeing camp followers as a playful gesture.

  Had he left anything undone? He did not think so.

  The English arrived at Bannockburn late in the afternoon following a twenty-mile tramp over heavy roads. They were tired and hungry, but Edward, basing his course on the precepts of his father, who always struck early and hard, decided to attack the two Scottish divisions which were in sight. A regiment of cavalry was sent forward to advance by the Carse Road. At first Scot commander Randolph did not see the approaching army, earning the reproof from his king, “a rose from your chaplet has fallen,” but he started briskly to work then and routed the Englishmen.

  The English vanguard, commanded by the earls of Gloucester and Hereford, made an urgent advance in the hope of seizing the entry to the flat lands of the Carse, a strategic necessity. They found themselves opposed by a strong corps commanded by a knight on a gray pony and with a high crown fitted over his helmet.

  “The king!” ran the word through the English ranks.

  Perceiving that what they had thought was no more than a scouting party was in reality a formidable force led by the great Bruce himself, the English hesitated. Before they could retire, however, there happened one of the incidents which are told and retold in the annals of chivalry. One of the English knights, Sir Henry de Bohun, rode out into the open with his lance at rest and shouted a challenge to the Scottish king. Robert the Bruce lacked a lance but he seemed content with the battle-ax he was carrying, and so accepted the challenge by advancing from his own ranks. Bohun charged furiously, but almost at the point of contact the king’s knee drew the pony to one side and the iron-clad challenger thundered past. Rising in his stirrups, Bruce had a second’s time in which to deal a blow with his battle-ax. It landed squarely on the head of the charging knight and almost split his skull in two.

  Returning to his party, the Scottish king was upbraided for having risked his life in this way. Bruce made no direct response but looked ruefully at the shaft of his ax.

  “I have broken it,” he said.

  The shadows of night were falling by the time the English vanguard, very much chagrined by the defeat and death of their champion, had galloped back in a disorderly retreat.

  3

  At the break of dawn, in the far-distant region where the great spirits reside, St. Magnus must have been at work burnishing his spiritual armor; for, according to the word that later spread over all of Scotland, he had work to do that day.

  The Scots had spent the night in prayer. The Abbot of Inchaffray had said mass and the foot soldiers were still on their knees when King Edward, arrayed in shining chain mail and jeweled tabard, and full of confidence in an easy victory, rode along his lines.

  “They kneel,” he remarked to those about him.

  “Ay, Sir King,” said Sir Reginald de Umfraville, who had been fighting Scots for ten grim years, “but to God. Not to us.”

  The English attack had been badly conceived. Because of the narrow front on which they must operate, the army had been divided into three main “battles,” each of three lines. The first, made up of cavalry in the lead and foot soldiers behind, went across the Carse and up the sloping ground, behind the crest of which the Scots had been assembled in a dense adaptation of Wallace’s schiltrons. The existence of the pits had not been suspected, and a toll of the horsemen was taken before the first of the attack came into contact with the hedge of Scottish spears. Their efforts to break through the clustering pike points was of no avail. In the meantime the second “battle” had followed up the hill. They could not get close enough to take a hand in the fighting and could do no more than halt and wait, conscious of the fact that the third “battle” had been ordered forward on their heels and would soon be on the hillside also. The attack, in fact, had been so clumsily contrived that the arrows of the English archers, massed on their right, were falling as thick on the attacking lines as among the Scots.

  There was worse to follow. The lesson of Falkirk had been so faultily remembered that the archery division had not been provided with any form of protection. Robert Bruce, who was in personal command of the reserves behind the lines, saw at once the great opportunity which had thus been thrown his way. He ordered Keith to take his handful of cavalry around the left of the line and attack the English bowmen.

  It was not an easy task, but Keith and his gallant five hundred accomplished it. They made their way around Milton Bog and came out against the flank of the archery corps. Great battles have often been won by a charge of cavalry in small numbers, delivered at exactly the right time and the right place. This was one, for in a matter of minutes Keith’s horsemen, shouting a keening battle cry of “On them!” had thrown the bowmen into utter confusion and had slain large numbers.

  Bruce, seeing victory in his grasp, led his reserves, who had been chafing for a share in the fighting, through the gaps between the schiltrons and fell on the fatigued first “battle” with claymore and pike. The first English line fell back on the second and forced a retreat into the laboring ranks of the third. It was utter confusion then on the slopes, which were already slippery with blood. Nothing much was left now of the bowmen who might have won the day for the English if the knights had been assigned to protect them up the slope to the point where they could riddle the Scottish ranks with steel-tipped death. Perhaps the gallant knights had refused to play pap-nurse to greasy varlets; this had been known to happen. Whatever the reason, the bowmen had no chance to display their worth on this tragic field.

  The whole English line began to waver. Thousands of men who had not yet struck a blow fell into a panic and tried to break through the ranks of fresh troops coming to their aid.

  And then the miracle happened which might be termed the Coup of the Camp Followers. The men and women of menial role who had been relegated to a place of safety back of Gillies Hill had been able to watch the course of the battle below them. It was clear to them now that the day was going very well indeed. Some unidentified and mute but not inglorious Wallace conceived a way to have a part in victory. The command was given and all of them—drivers, cooks, nurses, knaves—began to strip the leaves from branches. They used broken pike handles and broomsticks and even crutches and attached to them old clouts and the petticoats of the women and the tails of their plaid cloaks. Waving these improvised flags, they went charging through the underbrush, shouting at the tops of their voices.

  To the panic-stricken English this could mean only one thing: that reinforcements had arrived for the Scots who were so eager to take a hand in the fighting that they had not chosen the slower course around the foot of the hill but had come charging over the crest. The faltering English line broke at this. Gilbert of Gloucester tried to rally the troops but was killed. Clifford fell into one of the pits and was killed before he could extricate himself. Twenty-seven other barons fell in the pandemonium.

  Edward and his closest advisers had watched the confusion into which the army had fallen with bitter wonder and dismay. When the retreat from the hillside turned into a rout, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who knew a defeat when he saw one, having figured in many in his time, seized the reins of the king’s horse. It was time for Edward to leave. Surrounded by the five hundred picked horsemen who served as the royal guard, they rode at a furious gallop around the left of the Scottish lines and cut north in the direction of Stirling Castle. One of the knights with the king was a Gascon named Giles de Argentine, who stayed with the beaten monarch until they shook off a fierce attack by Edward Bruce. “It is not my custom to fly,” he said then. Wheeling about,
he rode straight for the Scottish lines, crying, “An Argentine! An Argentine!” In a very few minutes he had begun a flight to wherever it is that brave soldiers are transported.

  On other occasions Edward had not shown much courage in battle, but now, perhaps in desperation, he showed some of the Plantagenet mettle. They encountered more pursuers and an effort was made to drag him from his horse. He beat the enemy off. With a mace, which became a lethal weapon in his strong hands, he cut his way through to safety.

  At Stirling Castle the royal party was refused admittance. It was pointed out that, inasmuch as the effort to relieve the fortress had failed, the castle must now capitulate. They did not want the king stepping into that kind of trap. Accordingly Edward and his morose followers rode sixty miles to Dunbar, where they made their escape by sea.

  What part did St. Magnus play in the victory? All Scotland was thrilled with a story that late in the morning he appeared from the clouds above Aberdeen in a coat of shining mail and on a great white horse. He rode down the streets of the granite city, crying out in a mighty voice that Robert the Bruce had that day defeated Edward of England on the field of Bannockburn.

  4

  The pursuit of the English was conducted briskly but not to the exclusion of looting. The equipment of the beaten army had not only been ample but luxurious. An estimate places the loot taken from the field at two hundred thousand pounds, but this seems as exaggerated as the figures given of the size of the armies. It was considerable enough, however, to compensate the people of Scotland for the losses they had sustained in the twenty years of warfare. In addition to what had been left on the field there were many hundred knights captured, and the Scots saw that each of them paid a heavy ransom.

  Scotland had been a poor country to begin with; and the continual burning of the countryside and the destruction of their herds and flocks had brought the people close to starvation. Bannockburn paid most of it back.

  There were exchanges, of course. The Earl of Hereford had been taken prisoner on the field and the Scots demanded for him fifteen prisoners held by the English. These included the wife and daughter of Robert the Bruce and the venerable Bishop of Glasgow.

  When Robert Burns sat himself down to write his famous war song, Scots wha hae, he intended to set it to the air of the Bruce marching song, Hey, Tuttie Taitie. His publishers did not approve the idea, thinking the air lacking in distinction and grandeur. It was for a time sung to that measure, nonetheless, with great success. A new setting has been used ever since for this famous epic.

  5

  The Scottish victory at Bannockburn did not bring peace. The Scots, having driven the last of the Sassenachs across the border, save for the city of Berwick, were willing and anxious to discuss terms. The English, humiliated and angered beyond measure, were not so disposed; they proceeded to take the military command out of the feeble hands of Edward and entrusted the army to Cousin Lancaster, who, as it soon developed, was no better. Realizing that the end to the long struggle was not yet in sight, Robert strove to make the English realize the cost of war by striking fiercely at the border counties. As a further measure he sent troops into Ireland in an effort to divert the attention of the foe. Edward Bruce was put in command, and it was announced that the King of Scotland intended to raise his resourceful and ever daring younger brother to the Irish throne. Roger de Mortimer, who has been mentioned as one of the young knights who won his spurs during the wholesale knighting of adolescent Englishmen by Edward I, was in command in Dublin at the time.

  The resourcefulness and daring of Edward Bruce were not equal to the task. He established his rule over Ulster and remained there until 1318, when he sallied out to attack a large English force in a particularly foolhardy mood and was defeated and killed. In the meantime the mercenary Mortimer had also departed, leaving behind him personal debts contracted during his term of office amounting to one thousand pounds, “whereof he payde not one smulkin.” A smulkin was a pleasantly characteristic Irish word for a brass farthing. This act of high-handed unconcern for everything but his own interests was the first in a career which would be marked by an insolence greater even than the open mockery of Gaveston and an avarice beyond all measure.

  Bruce became doubly anxious for peace when he realized that a touch of leprosy which he had acquired in his wanderings was beginning to tighten its grip on his system and to rob him of power in his limbs. The mickle ail, it was called in Scotland, where it was widely prevalent. Every town had been obliged to provide some kind of leper hospital, which had its own churchyard, chapel, and ecclesiastics, even though the building itself might be no more than a frame shack on the edge of a wind-swept moor. It was highly ironic that the great fighting king, after struggling so long and enduring so much hardship, should thus be barred from the peace and comfort for which he had longed.

  Realizing that his days were numbered, King Robert appealed to the Pope to bring about peace between the two countries. In 1320 he directed a message in the name of the barons of Scotland to Pope John XXII. It was a well-reasoned presentation and contained one clause which tells in a heartfelt way the plight of the northern kingdom.

  Admonish and entreat the king of the English, for whom that which he possesses ought to suffice, seeing that of old England used to be ample for seven kings or more, to leave in peace us Scots dwelling in this little Scotland, beyond which there is no human abode, and desiring nothing but our own.

  It was unfortunate for Scotland that John XXII was Pope at this period. He was an appointee of Philip the Unfair and had been elevated to the papacy at Avignon through the efforts of that monarch; after, it may be added, a stalemate of two years. He proved to be a heavy-handed pontiff, as witness his course when a second pope was raised to the Vatican in Rome through German influence. This was a Minorite friar named Pietro Rainalducci de Corbara, who was given the title of Nicholas V. When the German influence declined, leaving Nicholas alone, he sought to make his peace with Avignon and was brought into the presence of John with a halter around his neck. A sentence of perpetual imprisonment was passed on him and he died in a prison cell in Avignon.

  John disregarded the Scottish appeal. In fact, he went to the other extreme and in 1323 laid all Scotland under an interdict.

  CHAPTER VI

  After Bannockburn

  1

  IN 1315, the year after Bannockburn, England experienced heavy and continuous rains. There was something strange and fearsome about them. They were not of the steady, mizzling variety nor the pleasant rains which blew up suddenly and as suddenly passed, leaving the air cool and the earth sweet. Instead they came in the wake of sullen gray-black clouds from the northeast which closed off all view of the sky and of the sun by day and the moon and the stars by night. The lashing downpour turned the ground into quagmires, and the continuous drip from the trees and underbrush and from the eaves of the houses drove people finally into a state of despair.

  Everything was going wrong since the old king died and this foolish, feckless son had taken his place. The national pride had been humbled at Bannockburn and now a divine hand was showing its disapproval: so ran the story throughout the country.

  The crops rotted in the fields and the fruit on the trees did not ripen. Lucky the husbandman who had cut and stored his hay early, for his stock at least would have something to eat. The inevitable sequel followed: the rivers grew swollen and overflowed their banks. Even the smallest brooks and becks became angry and vehement. Whole villages were inundated. The toftman whose home had been destroyed or carried away found small comfort in the wreckage deposited by the hostile waters on his land.

  Finally the rain stopped and the waters receded, becoming gentle again. Somehow the people of England lived through the dismal winter that followed. But in the spring it was the same again, and the untilled and unplanted fields became soggy and rank. There was a serious famine in 1315. A plague carried off the cattle, and it became commonplace to find on the highways and under the trees the
bodies of the homeless who had died of starvation. None of this could be laid at Edward’s door, and there may have been some slight consolation for the unhappy and hungry people in the lack of bread at times on the royal table. In their minds, however, there were bitterness and a sense of dissatisfaction. Would not a good king, an energetic king, have been able to do something for his people?

  During the Whitsuntide festival the king and queen kept court at Westminster. One evening they were dining in public in the great banqueting hall; a foolish thing to do, for the sight of ladies and gentlemen in fine silks and furs regaling themselves with meat and wine is certain to rouse resentment among people who are gaunt and ill from hunger. In the midst of the meal a woman on horseback and wearing a mask guided her mount in through the wide-open door and rode up to the head table. Without a word she delivered a sealed letter into the hands of the king.

  Edward, suspecting nothing, had it opened and read aloud, discovering to his anger that it contained an indictment of his conduct as king. The woman, who had tarried outside the hall, was unmasked and brought in again to the royal presence. She had no hesitation in naming the knight who had entrusted the missive to her: the scion of a good house and known for his bravery and sobriety. When apprehended, the knight said “he had taken this method of apprizing the king of the complaints of his subjects.”

  In the meantime things seemed to be going wrong in every way. The Scottish raiders ranged as far south as Furness, a part of Lancashire which includes the Lake District. They came close to getting their hands on the wealth of Furness Abbey, one of the richest in England. Whatever the rains and the floods had left, the Scots burned behind them. Philip the Fair lived long enough to learn of his son-in-law’s failure at Bannockburn and then turned away from life, perhaps to answer the summons issued from the flames by the dying Grand Master of the Templars. Llewelyn Bren, dispossessed by the heirs of the Earl of Gloucester and brushed aside scornfully when he complained to Edward, rose in rebellion with his six sons and seized all of Glamorganshire. The son of a tanner named John Drydras, although sometimes spoken of as John of Powderham, took advantage of the general discontent to announce himself as the real son of Edward I and to declare the ruling king a changeling. The man was an impostor, for he had no kind of proof whatever, save long legs and blond hair, but for a time people listened to him and wondered. In the end, of course, they took Master Drydras and hanged him with the usual extremes of cruelty. The queen bore another son at the royal castle of Eltham, a healthy specimen who was given the name of John and who would live a rather uneventful and not long life as a bachelor. Edward was so pleased that he gave one hundred pounds (an absurd extravagance at such a time) to Sir Eubulo de Montibus, the bearer of the good tidings. The queen increased her popularity with the people by pleading for the life of one Robert de Messager, who had been convicted of speaking “irreverent and indecent words” about the king.