It took them five days to reach Stirling - only to discover that Alexander had gone to Invergowrie, on the verge of Angus. When he had been Earl of Gowrie this had been his favourite house; and it remained so even though he made Stirling, with its mighty fortress above the first bridgeable reach of Forth, his capital.
Reluctant to make a further lengthy journey with the corpse, and then to have to take it back to Dunfermline - he had a notion that the remains were indeed beginning to smell - David sent Cospatrick on, at his fastest, to Invergowrie, whilst he and the others next day proceeded on eastwards, at a slower pace, along the north side of the Forth estuary, through Fothrif, to his father's capital and his old home at Dunfermline. He thankfully deposited his strange burden before the high altar of the great minster on the hilltop there.
They had less long wait than he had feared. Alexander was no laggard when his interest was aroused. He arrived, with a weary Cospatrick, the very next evening, having been ferried over Tay and ridden hard across Fife.
"Davie - you have done it!" he cried, coming to embrace his brother, a deal more warmly than the last time. "You have the body upraised and here, man? This 'fore God, I had never expected. It is a wonder! I looked only for a paper, a written warrant to exhume. How did you achieve it? Cospatrick has told me some of it, but . . ."
David explained as they walked to the minster from the little palace on the rock, informing that he had pledged the Colding-ham revenues.
They stood beside their father's body, still in its cloth-of-gold shroud, silent. David had advised his brother not to look beneath. Nearby was a slab of Iona marble in the flagstones of the floor, just in front of the altar, beneath which lay the body of Queen Margaret, with on her right that of her eldest son, Edward, and on her left the late Edgar.
"Together again, at last," Alexander said, at length. "I shall have a leaden coffin wrought." He paused. "There is but one difficulty. As you see, the building is scarce finished. I had thought that it could be months yet before we obtained the body. I planned that there would be a great celebration, to mark the completion of our mother's dream, the first great stone minster in Scotland. And to inter her husband at her side. Many present. It is a dream I have had. But now . . . ? This, this cannot be delayed. Burial . . ."
"No. But it need not be spoiled. Your dream, Alex. A temporary burial here, now. Simple. Just a priest and ourselves. Then, when you have the coffin made and the building finished, your great ceremony. One more uplifting will make no difference. Then the final committal. Until, until Resurrection Day!"
"Yes. Yes - that is it. The best way. We shall do as you say
So the next forenoon, before the two brothers and a handful of others, Malcolm's remains were placed by the Prior of Dunfermline in a space scooped out beneath the flagstones near the others, in the briefest of services. When it was over, Alexander announced that he would in fact build a stone-lined crypt under the chancel here, instead of these graves, where all the family, their dynasty, could be buried.
For so young a man - he was only twenty-eight years - his mind seemed to be greatly concerned with death and burial.
Before David and his friends left for Caer-luel, the King announced that he confirmed Fergus of Carrick as Lord of Galloway. Not only that, but that David should hereafter be entitled to exercise rule and sway, subject to the King's control, over Strathclyde and the parts of Scotland south of Forth and the Scotwater. He was not making him Prince of Strathclyde, nor yet governor - which would be unsuitable in a joint-subject of the King of England. But he could act in vice-regal fashion, with the title of an earl of Scotland.
It was curiously vague and not entirely satisfactory position - but clearly it represented a considerable gesture on Alexander's part. David, uncertain what might be implied, decided to take it meantime as a compliment of sorts.
9
DAVID HAD NO call to act for his brother, vice-regally or otherwise, before, unexpectedly, he saw him again. The following May, two messengers reached Caer-luel, each from a king. Henry announced that his patience with the Welsh princes and their revolts was finally exhausted and that he was going to lead a great army against them. David was commanded to muster and bring as many men as he could, to join the Marcher Earl of Chester, to threaten the Welsh north flank. This by the Feast of St. Barnabas at the latest. The word from Alexander was in the same vein, that Henry had besought him, for kin and friendship's sake, to send a Scots force to aid against the rebellious Welsh, so that their incessant risings might be put down once and for all. Alexander would have thought twice of acceding. But he was having difficulty with his new Bishop Turgot of St. Andrews, who was inclined to look to his old master, the Archbishop of York, as his ecclesiastical superior - which the King of Scots would nowise admit. He wanted Henry's sympathetic aid in this matter, to bring pressure to bear on York, through Canterbury, to relinquish ideas of hegemony over Scotland. He therefore felt that some such gesture as this might be valuable — and at the same time, any warlike adventure, especially one which would not involve his own realm, suited his temperament. So he would comply, and come south, leading his own army. He thought it likely that his brother would also be involved. They could march together.
By now David could raise fully five thousand armed and trained men, given a week or so of notice; so that, when the Scots force of some eight thousand arrived in due course, they made quite a major army. Alexander had most of his Scots earls with him - Fife, Angus, Strathearn, Atholl and the Mearns. Mar and the North remained hostile. Eth, or Ethelred of Moray was left in charge in Scotland.
Headed by this resounding company the combined legion moved down through Cumbria.
They debated why Henry, no warrior, should have decided to go to war against the Welsh at this stage. In Cumbria they had not heard that Wales was any more restless than usual. A proud small people, the Welsh were perpetually up in arms, somewhere, against their Norman overlords - and the so-called Marcher Earls especially were apt to oppress them grievously. David felt considerable sympathy for them, in fact, and knew some discomfort at proceeding against them in arms. But he was in no position to reject Henry's command — and the first time that the King had sought the use of the new Cumbrian command. Alexander evidently felt no such qualms. It took the joint force nine days to reach Chester, only one day short of the given date, going by Kentdale and Lunedale and crossing out of Cumbria at Ribchester in Amounderness. Hugh d'Avranches, Earl of Chester, Richard the Viscount's uncle, son of Emma, the Conqueror's half-sister, was an old campaigner and clearly not prepared to put himself in any subordinate position to the royal Scots brothers. This suited David well enough; but Alexander, of course, as a monarch, could not place himself under the command of any man. So it had to be a joint command, never a satisfactory arrangement; although in fact, the veteran Norman earl would make most of the decisions. His own force of some seven thousand brought the total up almost to twenty thousand, a mighty army.
Chester told them of the strategy worked out. They would close in on the Welsh from three sides. Henry himself, with two large hosts, would approach the Welsh marches centrally, from Gloucester and Hereford, making directly for Powys, where Gruftydd ap Cynan, Prince of Gwynedd, had his headquarters, in the Upper Severn valley. They themselves would move down on a wide front on Gwynedd, the northern province of Wales. While Richard de Clare, Earl of Cornwall, would lead another mixed force, of Cornishmen and South Country Saxons, up through South Wales, where little opposition was expected -indeed it was likely that many of the southern Welsh would join him, for they were at odds with the rest of their barbarous countrymen. The aim was to compress Gruffydd and his chieftains into an ever contracting area between Powys and the sea. Large numbers were necessary for such a manoeuvre, that the Welsh forces would find no gaps or weak points to break out through - hence this great concentration of men. The tribesmen would move back into their central mountain fastnesses, of course - they always did - but very large numbers could not
subsist in those barren heights for long. Henry hoped either to root them out or starve them out.
When David asked why Henry, a peaceable monarch in most respects, should elect to make this great effort, and choose this time to do so, he was told that there was more to this than Gruflfydd ap Cynan, who was more or less always in a state of rebellion. It was another move to limit the power and ambitions of the Montgomery brothers, the dangerously mighty Earls of Shrewsbury, Pembroke and Lancaster, who were the most intractable of Henry's nobles. Although Norman's themselves, they would sometimes take part in the Welsh revolts, use them for their own ends. There was even talk that Robert de Belleme, Earl of Shrewsbury, the most arrogant of the trio, saw himself as a possible King of an independent Wales. This show of strength was Henry's answer.
So they carried on southwards, in mighty strength but at a direly slow pace inevitably, Normans, Scots, Cumbrians and Saxons, to cross into Gwynedd at Trevalyn, push through Denbigh and cross Dee at Llangollen. Here they reformed, to change order of march, spreading out as it were in line abreast, to advance across country in a swathe twenty miles and more in width, using every road and track and valley through the ever-rising hill-country.
Word had awaited them at Llangollen that Henry had in fact reached the Severn at Powys and had commenced his advance towards the sea, so far without any major clash. The Cornish force was coming up fast from the south. So that they now had Gruffydd's people squeezed into an area perhaps forty miles by thirty. It but remained to tighten and tighten the ring of steel until they had them helpless. There must be no break-outs. Nothing was mentioned about the Montgomery Marcher Earls.
David for one was thankful to be separated from the main northern army. The treatment of the local populace by much of the soldiery, since they crossed into Gwynedd, sickened him, the Norman leadership showing little concern to check it, looting, assault, rape and arson. He had protested, but achieved little improvement. The Scots were not a great deal better, Alexander fairly heedless. It appeared to be accepted that this was how armies behaved on the march, and that good fighting could not be expected without its due rewards. Keeping his own Cumbrian levies under control was not easy, in the circumstances. Away from the others it was less difficult.
The Cumbrian contingent's position in the long line of the advance was left of centre, with Alexander on the left again and most of Chester's force stretching away westwards towards the sea. They were now climbing steadily through the Berwyn Mountains, south by east, difficult country in which to maintain any sort of line. They saw little of any enemy, only the occasional distant glimpse of a scouting party, evidence that they were being kept under observation. There was not any large population in these hills, and such small villages and townships as there were, in every case were abandoned before the invaders reached them, sad scenes in a peaceful upland region.
When, in time, they reached the long twisting and major valley of the River Dovey without real incident, word came back from Chester to say that Gruffydds's forces were drawing back on the Plynlimon area of lofty mountains, about a dozen miles to the south of David's position. This was one of the principal Welsh redoubts or mountain strongpoints. The entire northern line-abreast was to swing more to the south-eastwards, in consequence, out of the Dovey valley which ran north-east and south-west.
This new direction, as it were against the grain of the land, brought David's contingent into a welter of hills, wooded on the lower slopes, sheep-strewn above. Soon they came upon signs of quite a large force having passed this way recently, carcases of sheep and cattle, blackened embers of fires, discarded rawhide brogans, human excrement. This sight stirred the weary marchers into hope of action at last - although it affected David otherwise.
This trail led him, presently, into another quite broad and very lonely valley, that of the River Twymyn, clearly a major tributory of the Dovey. It seemed to probe ahead into the still higher hills for a long way, due southwards. With detachments stretching out for miles up and down the slopes on each flank, David followed the axis of this well-defined vale, in the wake of what could only be a retiring Welsh force heading for the Plynlimon redoubt.
He was less than eager to catch up, however keen most of his force. He had no quarrel with the Welsh, another Celtic people, certainly no ambition to be the first of the northern army to come to blows with them.
It was on the second day in that long and sylvan valley of the Twymyn that David's attitude suffered a change. After a pleasant widening of the vale, two tall, steep hills to north and south thrust forward shoulders, abruptly to narrow all to a deep trough, with almost cliff-like rocky sides instead of the grassy, tree-grown slopes, the river itself becoming a foaming white torrent after a great right-angled bend to the west. And just before the mouth of this chasm, still in the green heart of the valley, sheltered as in the lap of the wild mountains, they came upon the new monastery of Pennant-Bachwy, a remote, challenging and yet peaceful spot indeed - but at present in no peaceful state. The retreating Welsh had passed this way the previous evening - but failed to pass. And they had left their mark. Inside and out was devastation, church and monastic buildings desecrated and damaged, the well filled with slaughtered farm-stock, new-planted orchards and growing crops destroyed, even the hives for honey and wax burned. None of the score or so of monks and lay-brothers was actually injured^ but all had been roughly handled, mocked and their habits slashed and torn.
David, deeply outraged, demanded why, why? Prior Ralph, a youngish man of fine features and stalwart build, shook his head sorrowfully. It was hard, hard, he admitted - when the establishment was beginning to take the shape that they had worked for. Perhaps it was God's way of testing their sincerity? These unfortunate Welshmen had done it out of a mistaken hatred he said. They were not really to blame. They thought that he and his monks were Normans, the hated Normans who oppressed them. They were not. They were Frenchmen, yes — from Tiron, near Chartres in the Forest of Perche. But not Normans. No enemies of the Welsh but their friends. They grieved at what the Normans did to the Welsh. But . . .
"Tiron?" David said. "The famous Tiron, in Eure-et-loir? Where the noble Bernard of St. Cyprian rules?"
"The same, my lord. Bernard, our beloved master-under-God, sent us here. Two years ago. At the request of Prince Gruffydd. And now, now ..."
"Gruffydd asked for you to come? From Tiron? Yet his people do this?"
"They were not Gwynedd or Powys men, lord. They had marched north from Ceredigion, and now were turning back. They knew us not, did not believe us when we said that we were not Normans. To them all French are Normans. But - God teach us, help us not to blame them. Their error was unintentional . . ."
"You are generous, Sir Prior. And forgiving. I think that I could not aspire to such nobility. In the face of ill-usage such as this. It is noble indeed."
"It is but our faith, my friend. The teaching of the blessed Bernard. We so strive to carry out the precepts of our Lord Christ, however feebly. We should not name it forgiveness, for that implies sin, offence, on the part of the other, of judgment. Who are we to judge? Only God can do that. Our part is surely acceptance, understanding, concern."
"I am greatly admiring, Brother Ralph. I have heard much good of the Tironensian Order. This is the first I have seen of it
They camped for the night at the ravaged monastery, and David set his men to work to help the monks repair what they could. But nothing would undo most of the damage.
The Prior told them that the Welsh force responsible, perhaps six hundred strong, was heading south into the great mountain fastness of Clywedog, between Pennant and Llanidloes, under mighty Plynlimon, where the River Severn rose amongst a cluster of small lakes. This was Gruffydd's stronghold area and all but impregnable, so difficult were the approaches, it was said.
David was in doubt as to what to do. His instructions were to press on, to confine the enemy ever more closely, and bring them to battle if possible. But he could see the mass of Plynlim
on and its neighbours towering ahead, half-right. It could not be more than ten or twelve miles further. Therefore he could well be catching up with the main enemy defensive strength in half-a-day's march. It was no part of his duty, any more than his desire, to make a single-handed assault on Gruffydd's redoubt. Yet, as far as he could gauge, his was the command nearest to the enemy, so far. Probably Chester himself would mount an assault on Plynlimon from the west, from the River Rheidol side; but that would not be likely for some time yet. And where was Henry?
He sent couriers east and west to inform Chester and Alexander of his situation - but did not ask for instructions.
That night, before taking his rest, he had a long talk with Prior Ralph about the Tironensian creed and rules, so much admired by the discerning. Bernard, former Cluniac Abbot of St. Cyprian of Poitiers, of a noble Burgundian family, was a reformer of the reformed. The Cluniac reforms had been a great step forward, forty to fifty years ago, in countering the laxity which had crept into the monastic orders - David's mother had been a great admirer. But abuses and faults and weaknesses had come even therein, with the years, and Bernard had set up his new Order at Tiron-in-the-Forest, in 1109. And in only these four years had made a remarkable impact - enmity as well as praise and emulation, to be sure. David had not heard that there was any Tironensian house established in England; to find one in deepest Wales was the greater surprise—and shed a new light on Prince Gruffydd, the inveterate rebel. The Tironensian teaching was, according to Prior Ralph, a return to the basic virtues of humility, austerity, discipline, forgiveness and acceptance of chastening. In addition there were doctrinal reforms. The theory of the Immaculate Conception was rejected; the persecution of the Jews - popular in these crusading days - condemned; the subtleties and dialectics of much advanced Christian scholarship refuted. And so on. David was much impressed, most of it coinciding with his own ideas — and of course his mother's teachings.
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