Black Douglas (Coronet Books)

by Nigel Tranter

  That at least the boys knew sufficiently well. James the Gross, formerly first Earl of Avondale, for the past three years 7th Earl of Douglas, had been for almost as long as any of his sons could remember little more than a mountain of flesh, a man so hugely fat, heavy and lethargic as scarcely to merit the description of man — and fantastically, ludicrously to represent the greatest house in all Scotland. No one in the kingdom was ignorant of that. But that he should be ill enough to die of his grossness had never so much as occurred to any of them.

  No single tear came to any of the boys’ eyes. Their father had meant nothing to any of them save a distant authority in whose name they were occasionally inconvenienced — that, and a burning and constant humiliation, the bearer of the proud name at which all the land pointed the finger of scorn, the man who could have split the kingdom in two, yet who had been too lazy, too inert, or perhaps too involved, to attempt to avenge the shameful murder of his two grand-nephews, the 6th Earl and his brother, by the Chancellor Crichton and the King’s guardian, Livingstone — by which deed, in fact, he himself became Douglas. How could they, or any, weep for James the Gross, second son of the mighty Archibald the Grim, 3rd Earl, descendant of the warrior race that had upheld the Crown in their hands so often and been custodians of the hero-king Bruce’s heart that now emblazoned their coat-of-arms and glowed on their men-at-arms’ breastplates?

  “Our mother? . . .” Will asked.

  “Your Lady Mother sent me here. She bids you all to attend her at Douglas Castle tomorrow. By noonday. She brings my lord’s body there. For burial.”

  “Tomorrow? So soon?”

  “Aye. She leaves Abercorn this day, early as may be. She thinks to sleep at Carnwath tonight. Winning to Douglas tomorrow by noon, it may be. She would have you there, my lord — all of you — to greet your Sire’s corse.”

  “Is this not something hasty, man?”

  The other shrugged his shoulders. “It is my lady’s command.”

  “It were better that we had gone to her at Abercorn. To escort her . . . and the body. To Douglas. Than that she should do this alone. A woman.

  “She . . . the Countess will have sufficient escort, my lord. Her commands are that you attend her at Douglas.”

  Will considered the man levelly for seconds, before nodding his head. “Very well. This means that we must ride tonight.”

  “That is so.” The steward sounded as though he did not relish the prospect — but greater men than he were careful not to question orders from the Countess of Douglas. He remounted his tired horse.

  They rode on to Newark, the brothers quiet, subdued for so essentially lively a band. Without any deep and probing contemplation of the situation, all were aware that a chapter had abruptly ended in their lives, a fairly carefree and comparatively independent chapter. Whatever the future held for them, it would not be the same, they recognised; possibly life would never be the same again.

  At the castle they were greeted anxiously, in kindly if misplaced sympathy, by old Abbot George Douglas, the ineffectual and distinctly woolly-headed far-out relative who had once been abbot of the Douglas abbey of Holywood, in Nithsdale, and now was in theory the youths’ tutor and governor at Newark — but in fact a mere cipher in the hands of his masterful charges, with Jamie the only satisfactory and approximately obedient one.

  “My sorrow, Sir Will — these are sore tidings,” he quavered, wringing his hands. “An ill thing. Very grievous. Your poor father, my good cousin. But . . . God’s will be done. My heart is wae for you laddies . . .”

  “Aye. To be sure, Master George. But we will manage well enough, I have no doubt,” Will said, briskly. “There is much to be done. It seems that we must ride for Douglas tonight Johnnie and our sisters also. They must make themselves ready. And quickly. If we leave in an hour or so, riding by Megget and Tweedsmuir, we should win as far as Sim Tweedie’s house of Oliver, where we may bed. Then cross the high hills to the west, over Clydesmuir into Douglasdale, in the morning light.”

  “It is a long, rough road, lad. No’ for lassies, in such haste . . .”

  “They will do very well. They are Douglas queans, not bower-ladies! Margaret will see to them. Where is she? Tell her to come to me.”

  “Aye, Sir William.” Abbot George, no less than the brothers, knew better than to argue with Will Douglas when he used such voice. His insistence on calling the young man Sir William was something of a joke in the family — although it was, in fact, an accurate appellation, even though few others ever used it. Will, along with sundry other eldest sons of great nobles, had been knighted by King James, first of that name, of puissant memory, at the tender age of five, on the occasion of the baptism of the monarch’s twin sons. That was nearly fourteen years before, and much blood had flowed in unhappy Scotland since that extravagant day, the King’s amongst it.

  “I am here, Will,” a girl’s voice said, behind and above him. The Great Hall of Newark Castle contained a minstrels’-gallery-cum-oratory skied halfway up one stone wall towards its high vaulted ceiling, reached by a narrow mural stair and provided with its own window, aumbries, garderobe and little fireplace — a favourite haunt of the girls. She who called down from there now was more than just a girl, a striking and well-made young woman of high colouring, raven hair and great dark eyes, bearing a marked resemblance to Will himself. They were good friends, these two, only eleven months separating their ages, with the twins a further year behind.

  “Good, Meg,” Will called, raising a hand. “You have heard? All?”

  “Yes. All. It is . . . God’s will. We have said prayers. For . . . for his soul.”

  “M’mm. Aye. That was right. I had not thought of it, I fear.”

  “No. We could do no less. Do you come up now, also? Here? To pray? . . .”

  Archie snorted eloquently.

  “I say we should,” James declared.

  “It would be meet. Suitable. Dutiful,” Abbot George said. “Pleasing in God’s eyes.”

  “No.” Will shook his head. “Time enough for that. At Douglas. There will be prayers in plenty, I warrant! If we are to reach there by noonday tomorrow we have more to do than pray today! It is fifty miles, across the roof of the land. Mostly lacking any road . . .”

  “Must we go so soon?” That was Beatrix, the second daughter, aged fifteen but ever a rebel. She leaned over the gallery parapet, less good-looking as yet than Margaret, but the pale colouring denoted no pale nature and the strong features and flashing eyes might well presage a fierce and dramatic beauty, one day, similar to their mother’s own. ‘Why such haste?” she called down.

  “It is our mother’s command, Pate Pringle says. To be there by noonday. To meet . . . him. As he comes to Douglas for burial.”

  “He will wait, well enough. My lord was good at waiting!” Beatrix cried.

  “Lassie! Lassie!” Their tutor raised a protesting hand. “Here’s no way to speak . . .”

  “When Douglas comes back to Douglas, we should be there to meet him,” Will cut through the old man’s quaverings. “It is seemly. And our mother has commanded it.”

  “But you are Douglas now, Will! Are you not? It is you who commands, is it not? You are the Earl of Douglas. You are the Black Douglas, I say!”

  The sudden stillness which the girl’s high-pitched words produced, in that lofty stone hall, was notable. It was as though all held their breaths for a moment or two, at the sound of that potent name. All eyes turned on Will, as though suddenly seeing him in a different light. For centuries, until these last years, those had been the most effective, dreaded, terrible three words in all Scotland — The Black Douglas. Undoubtedly the full implications of their father’s death had not really reached any of them until that moment; certainly the thing had not truly formed itself in Will’s own mind. He was the Earl of Douglas.

  He stared up at his sister for long seconds, mind plunging deep into the meaning of what she had said. Then, as almost with a physical effort, he roused hims
elf, throwing up his head in typical and distinctive fashion.

  “We ride for Douglas within the hour, nevertheless,” he said. “Be ready, all of you. Margaret — where is Johnnie? He is not up there?’

  “He is at the stables, I think Will . . .”

  “Hughie — get him. See that you are dressed your best, all of you. It is necessary. I will attend to the horses. Master George — food and drink for us all. But for Pate and these others first. Now go . . .”

  Riding down the shadowy glen of the Talla Water towards the infant Tweed, in the strange half-light of the gloaming, the long cavalcade was strung out for hundreds of yards — for the cattle and sheep track it followed was insufficiently wide to ride more than two abreast, and not always that. Besides the nine Douglases — five brothers and four sisters — there were the Abbot George; the Newark captain, Dod Scott; the Chief Forester of Ettrick, Wattie’s Tam; Pate Pringle and the two Abercorn men; and perhaps half a dozen other servants. Archie, as usual, rode well ahead, claiming to be on the watch for robbers and outlaws — but though outlaws there were in plenty amongst these empty, forested uplands, none would in fact dare to attack any company wearing the colours of Douglas.

  Will rode beside Margaret, Beatrix rode alone, then James came with the younger sisters, Janet and Elizabeth, while the two younger boys, Hugh and John, kept their distance from such female company — but equally eschewed the vicinity of their tutor. They had already covered over twenty rough miles, from Newark. Five more should see them at Oliver Castle, on upper Tweed, where Simon Tweedie, a Douglas supporter, would give them shelter. It had been considering how Big Sim would look when he saw so many descending upon him, to bait and bed, and wondering if he would have to remind the laird that he was his father’s vassal, which brought up Will’s mind, with a jerk, to the recognition that Tweedie was no longer his father’s vassal, but his own. From now on such recognitions must become a constant feature of his life. As the night settled over the great heather hills and the velvet gloom deepened in the valley, Will Douglas, lost in a brown study, made his sister but indifferent company.

  To be the Earl of Douglas! What did it mean? What did it actually make of him? To perceive that his whole life would be utterly altered was the least of it. His mind reeled at the prospect, at the vastness and complexity of the implications. Admittedly the earldom was in poor shape, neglected, shorn of some proportion of its power and greatness and glory, by political manoeuvres, the spleen and envy of the Crown and of other nobles, as well as by James the Gross’s years of inertia. The mighty Lordship of Galloway, with the Earldom of Wigtown, had been divorced from it on their cousins’ murder, and was now held by a mere girl, sister of the murdered Earl; as was the Lordship of Bothwell and much of Clydesdale. Annandale had been forfeited to the Crown at the same time, by a piece of Privy Council chicanery. But despite these, and lesser losses, the main Douglas earldom was still an impressive heritage, the greatest in Scotland. It was not one earldom, indeed, but two, for Will was now Earl of Avondale as well as of Douglas. Moreover, he was feudal Lord of Balveny, in Moray, and baron of Boharm, Avoch, Brackly, Edderdour, Kilmalaman, Petty, Strathderne and part of Duffus, in that same province; of Oberdour and Rattray, in Aberdeenshire; of Ardmannoch and the old earldom of Ormond in Ross; of Abercorn and Inveravon and Strathbrock in Lothian; of Petinain and Strathavon in Lanarkshire; of Stewarton in Ayrshire — and many another which he scarcely knew of. All this in addition to the vast entailed properties of Douglas itself, of Douglasdale and Lid-desdale and most of the West March of the Border, of this Ettrick Forest and the adjacent Forest of Selkirk. Moreover he was titular Duke of Touraine and Comte de Longueville, in France — although the French king had seized the opportunity to resume the valuable lands of these for himself, of recent years. Douglas held the superiority over literally hundreds of lairdships, such as this Tweedie of Oliver’s, scattered over all the kingdom. And as well as all these territorial possessions and titles, there were certain offices of state which were more or less hereditary in the family — although Will knew little of these. But the Earl of Douglas, he did know, was always Warden of the West March — and often the Middle also — even though he frequently appointed a Deputy to carry out the duties.

  Will could not really contemplate or comprehend the magnitude of all this. He had not been brought up as the heir to it should have been. His father had only been Earl of Douglas for three years, previously having had no expectation of succeeding to the major title, a second son with brother, nephew and two grand-nephews to carry on the main line. But the death in battle, in France, of his brother, the 4th Earl, in 1424; of his nephew the 5th Earl, Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, unexpectedly of natural causes, in 1439; and the judicial murder of the sixteen-year-old 6th Earl and his brother the following year — these had thrust the representation of the almost princely house upon a man who was already too old, bloated and obese to bestir himself. Too late then to take in hand the family abandoned to run wild in the Ettrick Forest — just as it was too late to make the effort to avenge the name of Douglas. James, the 7th Earl, had done nothing, nothing at all, for three years. And now William, 8th Earl, at eighteen years of age, was face to face with overwhelming destiny, all unprepared.

  But Will Douglas was a young man of spirit, vigour and initiative, even though these might be marred at times by impulsiveness and violent temper. There was more to contemplate than unwieldy possessions and overwhelming responsibility. There was opportunity. Power to be wielded, men to be led, deeds to be done. Above all, there was the name of Douglas to be redeemed, and vengeance to be taken. Vengance . . .

  The youth’s dark good looks were sombre as he splashed his mount across Tweed’s dark shallows — and only belatedly remembered to turn back to ensure his sisters’ safe crossing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE Church of St. Bride, at Douglas, rebuilt and enlarged by Archibald the Grim — like his founding of Holywood Abbey, no doubt, as counter-balance for some of his other activities — was large and stately; but it was packed so full of people that they were even sitting on the recumbent effigies of sundry previous notables of the house of Douglas. Such perchers were perhaps fortunate, however cold and knobbly the seating, for everybody else had to stand — save the Countess, who sat in the great chair usually reserved for the Bishop, today brought down to the chancel steps for her use. The Bishop himself did not require it meantime, for he was conducting the funeral obsequies — a circumstance which surprised Will Douglas, as it did many another; for although St. Bride’s was a prebend of Glasgow Cathedral, and Douglas town probably the most important place in the diocese, this haughty and ambitious prelate, former Chancellor of the realm and the late King’s secretary, was not the man who could be summoned at short notice to officiate at services, however illustrious the summoner. Presumably Bishop Cameron’s presence there that day was one more tribute to the Countess Beatrix’s position and influence at Court — for he was a courtier and political churchman, was John Cameron, rather than any kind of pastor.

  Moreover, the Bishop had not come alone. He had brought what amounted to a court of his own, officials of the diocese bearing the renowned relics, purchased at enormous cost it was said, from all over Christendom, the pride of Glasgow and the envy of the metropolitan see of St. Andrews itself — the image of our Saviour, in solid gold; the silver crucifix encrusted in rubies and diamonds and inserted with a fragment of the True Cross of Calvary; the silver casket containing some hairs of the Blessed Virgin; the phial of crystal, holding a small quantity of the Virgin’s milk; another phial containing saffron liquid said to have leaked out of the tomb of Glasgow’s own Kentigern, of St. Mungo; two lined bags with mixed bones of Mungo and his mother, St. Thenew; a square silver coffer containing the scourges of Mungo and St. Thomas of Canterbury; and hides displaying parts of sundry other saints. Never had the like been seen assembled together outside Glasgow Cathedral — and only John Cameron could have occasioned it. These, with t
he magnificent jewelled copes and vestments of the Bishop and his subordinate dignitaries, added to the forest of pastoral staffs, croziers, maces and the like, all gold and precious stones, created such a blaze of scintillating brilliance and colour in the light of hundreds of candles, as to be almost overwhelming; while the smoke of the said candles, and that of the dozen and more swinging censers, added to the exhalations of the tight-packed and excited concourse, produced an atmosphere which was almost suffocating. James the Gross had never managed to produce in life one tithe of all the resplendence which now surrounded his final exodus — however overshadowed in consequence was the vast and rather oddly-shaped lead container which enclosed his substantial remains.

  There was a great deal of coughing in the church, what with the clouds of incense, the candle smoke, the varied smells and the general lack of air, so that the Bishop’s rich intonings, and the choir of singing boys’ responses, were apt to be drowned at times; but there was at least no sniffing and weeping. Not a damp eye glistened in all the candlelight — except perhaps for Abbot George’s, which tended to run anyway. If any expected the widow to be prostrated, they were unaware of the quality of Beatrix St. Clair. Certainly Will did not look for such emotion, nor any of her children.

  The woman who sat in the Bishop’s chair was of a great and striking beauty — despite the nine children who stood near by, and the youngest, Henry, elsewhere. Still under forty, she had kept an excellent figure; she had suckled none of her offspring herself. Unlike her dark Douglas progeny, she was very fair, thanks perhaps to the Norse in her ancestry, with great grey eyes, a noble brow, proud chiselled features and a firm chin. She sat now, richly but fairly simply dressed, her fine eyes slightly averted from the leaden coffin just in front of her at the chancel steps, with the still but pregnant calm for which she was famous. She had moved hardly so much as a muscle in all the forty minutes of the ceremonial, since she had sat down, however much of a stir there was around her. Not everyone, by any means, looks the part which birth calls on them to play. The Countess Beatrix did so. She appeared every inch the daughter of high St. Clair, of the Earls and Princes of Orkney, and great-granddaughter of a king. Eyeing her, at her right hand, her eldest son knew afresh the accustomed sensations she ever inspired in him; the strange mixture of pride, respect and something that was almost repellent.