The Steps to the Empty Throne bt-1

by Nigel Tranter

  The Steps to the Empty Throne

  ( Bruce Trilogy - 1 )

  Nigel Tranter

  The heroic story of Robert the Bruce and his passionate struggle for

  Scotland’s freedom

  THE STEPS TO THE EMPTY THRONE

  THE PATH OF THE HERO KING

  THE PRICE OF THE KING’S PEACE

  In a world of treachery and violence, Scotland’s most famous hero unites his people in a deadly fight for national survival.

  In 1296 Edward Plantagenet, King of England, was determined to bludgeon the freedom-loving Scots into submission. Despite internal clashes and his fierce love for his antagonist’s goddaughter, Robert the Bruce, both Norman lord and Celtic earl, took up the challenge of leading his people against the invaders from the South.

  After a desperate struggle, Bruce rose finally to face the English at the memorable battle of Bannockburn. But far from bringing peace, his mighty victory was to herald fourteen years of infighting, savagery, heroism and treachery before the English could be brought to sit at a peace-table and to acknowledge Bruce as a sovereign king.

  In this best selling trilogy, Nigel Tranter charts these turbulent years, revealing the flowering of Bruce’s character; how, tutored and encouraged by the heroic William Wallace, he determined to continue the fight for an independent Scotland, sustained by a passionate love for his land and devotion to his people.

  “Absorbing a notable achievement’ ― The Scotsman

  THE BRUCE TRILOGY

  Book 1

  The Steps to the Empty Throne

  NIGEL TRANTER

  Book One

  THE STEPS TO THE EMPTY THRONE

  Foreword

  When, in 1286, the well-beloved Alexander the Third, King of Scots, fell over a life cliff to his untimely death, he left utter disaster behind him for his country. His only surviving heir was an infant grandchild, a girl—and a foreign girl at that, and sickly, Margaret the Maid of Norway, daughter of his own daughter who had married the King of Norway and died leaving only this baby. There could have been no less suitable monarch for turbulent Scotland—and almost immediately the dynastic feuding and designing began.

  There were innumerable far-out claimants to the throne, mainly descendants of the three daughters of David, Earl of Huntingdon, younger brother of King William the Lion. Of all these, the two with undoubtedly the most valid claims to be next in line to the little Maid of Norway were Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale, and John Baliol. The former was the son of Earl David’s daughter Isabel; the latter the grandson of her elder sister Margaret. Baliol’s father was an English lord, his mother the famous Devorgilla, Lady of Galloway, founder of Baliol College, Oxford.

  Robert Bruce lost no time in making his position clear. With his son, the sixth Robert, who had married the Celtic Countess of Carrick in her own right, another Galloway heiress, he invaded that wild and beautiful province of SouthWest Scotland against the Baliol interests now established there. And with success. In the civil war old Bruce—he was then seventy-six—won most of the province, including the royal castles of Wigtown and Dumfries (then considered part of Galloway) and the Baliol seat of Buittle, former headquarters of the ancient Lords of Galloway.

  He,was now well placed to exert suitable influence on the child monarch when she should appear; and meantime to dominate Scotland.

  Two events conspired to confound his plans. Edward the First, puissant

  warrior King of England, perceived a notable opportunity to take over

  Scotland as a vassal kingdom, by marrying his young son to the infant

  Maid—who was indeed his own grand niece—and moved to that effect, at

  the Treaty of Birgham. Then, the same year, 1290, the said Maid died

  at Orkney, on her pathetic way to her new kingdom.

  All was changed. Edward had placed himself in a position of political and military power, on the Border. Scotland was leaderless and disunited, the competitors for the empty throne balanced between civil war and invasion.

  Edward acted shrewdly. Dissimulating his own ambitions, he offered to preserve the peace by acting as honest broker. If the claimants to the Scots crown would submit their cases to him, he would act fair arbiter and so save strife.

  It must be remembered that at this stage Scotland and England were good friends. The long centuries of warring had not yet started. Most of the Scots nobles owned lands in England, and vice versa—indeed they were nearly all equally Norman-French in origin. Edward was the foremost prince of Christendom, renowned, admired. His offer was accepted.

  The Plantagenet, for his own purposes, in 1292 chose John Baliol as King of Scots. And, as an afterthought to the judgement, announced he himself was Lord Paramount of Scotland.

  Thereafter, for four inglorious years, the weak Baliol attempted to rule a restive Scotland whilst suffering Edward’s dominance. This was no theoretical over lordship Grimly, savagely, Edward rubbed his puppet’s nose in the dirt. He summoned him to London to give accounts of his stewardship; even had him arraigned before the King’s Bench of England for judgement, like any criminal. At length, in 1296, even Baliol revolted, and taking to arms, made a mutual support treaty with France, also suffering from Edward’s oppression. The English invaded Scotland in overwhelming strength. The Bruces, and many like them, did not support Baliol they never had done. The puppet king fell, and Edward Longshanks was master of Scotland, at last.

  Old Bruce, the Competitor, was now dead, and his son the sixth Lord of Annandale no warrior, though proud enough to have resigned his earldom of Carrick to his own eldest son, another Robert, aged twenty-two, rather than make fealty for it to Baliol.

  The new Earl of Carrick was a very different character. Robert the

  Bruce is one of the great heroic figures of all time. But he was not

  always a hero—just as he was not always a king. He grew towards both,

  indeed, under the shadow of a still greater hero-William Wallace—in

  the terrible forcing-ground of heroism and

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  In Order of Appearance

  King Edward the First: King of England; Hammer of the Scots.

  Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham : Capt. General of St. Cuthbert.

  Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick : eldest son of Lord of Annandale.

  John Baliol, King of Scots.

  John Comyn, Earl of Buchan : High Constable of Scotland.

  Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale and Cleveland : son of the “Competitor”.

  Lord Nigel Bruce : third son of above Lady Elizabeth de Burgh :

  daughter of the Earl of Ulster.

  Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster : friend and companion of Edward.

  Gartnait, Earl of Mar : brother-in-law of Bruce.

  Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester: son-in-law of Edward and kinsman of Bruce.

  Sir John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch : head of the great Comyn family, and kinsman of Buchan.

  Sir Nicholas Segrave : an English knight and captain.

  Master John Benstead: Clerk, and Keeper of King Edward’s Pantry.

  Eleanor de Louvain, Lady Douglas : second wife of Sir William Douglas.

  James Douglas: heir of Sir William, later “The Good Sir James”.

  Sir William Douglas : 5th lord thereof.

  Lord James Stewart : High Steward of Scotland.

  Master Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow : patriot.

  Sir Alexander Lindsay, Lord of Crawford.

  Sir John de Graham of Dundaff : one of the few noblemen who supported Wallace.

  Sir Andrew de Moray, Lord of Bothwell : heir of Moravia.

  William Wallace : second son of Sir Malcolm W
allace of Elderslie, a small laird and vassal of the Steward.

  Alexander Scrymgeour : one of Wallace’s band. Later Standard

  Bearer.

  Sir Henry Percy, Lord of Northumberland : nephew of Surrey the English commander.

  Sir Robert Clifford, Lord of Brougham : an English baron.

  Lord Edward Bruce : second son of Annandale. Later King of Ireland.

  Master William Comyn: Provost of the Chapel-Royal. Brother of Buchan.

  Master William Lamberton : Chancellor of Glasgow Cathedral.

  Later Bishop of St. Andrews and Primate.

  Lady Marjory Bruce : child daughter of Bruce.

  Lady Christian Bruce, Countess of Mar : second daughter of Annandale.

  Later wife of Sir Christopher Seton.

  Margaret of France, Queen : second wife of King Edward.

  Sir John de Botetourt : bastard son of Edward. Warden of the West March.

  John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond: nephew of Edward and Lieutenant of Scotland.

  Sir John Stewart of Menteith : second son of Earl of Menteith and Governor of Dumbarton Castle.

  Sir Christopher Seton: a Yorkshire knight married to Lady Christian Bruce.

  Sir Roger Kirkpatrick of Closeburn : a Bruce vassal.

  Abbot Henry of Scone : custodian of the Stone of Destiny.

  Isabel, Countess of Buchan : daughter of Mac Duff Earl of life, and wife of the High Constable.

  Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke : English commander.

  The Dewar of the Coigreach : hereditary custodian of St. Fil Ian’s crozier, in Glendochart.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Even strong men, hard-bitten, grim-faced men winced as the horseman rode right into the church, iron-shod hooves striking sparks from the flagstones, their noisy clatter stilling all talk and reverberating hollowly under the hammer-beam roof. Stracathro was no mighty church, merely a prebend of the nearby Cathedral of Brechin, and horse and rider seemed enormous in its narrow echoing constriction.

  Both mount and man were indeed large, the former a great and ponderous warhorse, massive of build, thick of leg, shaggy of fetlock, such as was necessary to carry the burly, weighty man with the extraordinary length of leg, clad in half a hundredweight of steel armour richly engraved with gold. Right up to the altar steps, the length of the church, the horseman rode, with behind him other striding armoured figures led by one notably broad, squat, pugnacious of jaw, with a tonsured bullet head, who bore a mitre painted on his dented black steel breastplate.

  The waiting, watching men, as of one accord, drew further back against the bare stone walls of the little church.

  Up the steps into the chancel itself the rider urged his cumbersome steed, there to pull it round in a lumbering half-circle, its great hooves scoring and slithering on the polished granite.

  Turned to face the nave and all the waiting throng the big man remained seated in the saddle, grinning. The thick-set individual with the underhung jaw took up his position at the other’s right hand stirrup, and the remainder, who had followed him up, ranged themselves on either side. The long shoulder-slung sword of one of them knocked over a tall brass candle-stick flanking the altar, with a crash, spattering hot wax. There was a curse. Somebody laughed loudly.

  The man on the horse raised his hand. He was handsome, in a heavy-jowled, fleshy, em purpled way, in his late fifties but with strangely youthful-seeming hot blue eyes and a leonine head of greying hair, bare now, with the great crested war-helm banded with the gold circlet hanging at his saddle bow.

  ”Have him in, then,” he cried.

  “God’s blood—must I sit waiting here?” There was just the slightest impediment in the man’s speech, but it lost nothing in forcefulness thereby.

  As men at the door hurried out, a voice spoke up, old, quavering, but tense.

  “Highness—I do protest! To use God’s house so!

  It is ill done …”

  The speaker was a frail and elderly man, not in armour like most of those present but wearing the robes of an ecclesiastic, sorely stained and patched—William Comyn, Bishop of Brechin.

  This was one of his churches.

  “Silence, knave!” A knight nearby raised a mailed gauntlet and struck the Bishop, a blow that sent the old man reeling. A second buffet was descending, when the steel-clad arm was grasped and held.

  “Enough, Despenser! Let him be.”

  The English knight found himself staring into the grey eyes of a young man, richly dressed in only half-armour over velvet tunic and hose, worn with long soft doeskin thigh-boots and a short satin-lined heraldic riding-cloak slung from one shoulder. The velvet-clad arm that restrained the steel gauntlet was steady, strong, despite its soft covering.

  “Curse you—unhand me! Unhand me, I say!” the Englishman shouted.

  “No man mishandles Despenser so. Even you, my lord Earl!”

  “Then let Despenser not mishandle an old done man, see you.

  And a churchman, at that,” the young man returned, though he released the other’s arm.

  “A traitorous clerk! Raising his voice…!”

  “In this place, might he not have some right?”

  The two stared at each other in very different kinds of anger, the one hot, the other cold. Sir Hugh le Despenser was a noted commander, veteran of much warfare; Robert de Bruce, twenty-two-year-old Earl of Carrick, was a scarcely-blooded warrior, his campaigning spurs still to win, a sprig of nobility, merely the son of his rather—or more significantly, the grandson of his grandfather, the old Competitor, barely a year dead. All around men held their breaths, their glances more apt to dart up towards the figure that sat his saddle in front of the altar than towards either of the protagonists, or even old Bishop Comyn, who shaken, leaned against the wall.

  The long-legged horseman was no longer grinning. His heavily good-looking features were dark, thunderous, a mailed hand tap tapping at that gold-circled helmet at his saddlebow. Then abruptly he laughed, head thrown up, laughed heartily-and men breathed again. The hand rose, to point down the church.

  “Whelps snapping!” he shouted, chuckling.

  “I’ll not have it.

  Before the old dog! Enough, I say. If my friends must bicker, let them choose better cause than a broken-down old Scots clerk! A mouse squeaking in its barn! Shake hands, fools!”

  The two down near the door eyed each other doubtfully;

  neither would be the first to reach out his hand.

  “Robert, my young friend—your hand. Sir Hugh—yours.”

  That was genial. Then, in one of the man’s lightning changes of front, as hands only faltered, the big man roared.

  “Christ God!

  You hear me? Do as I command, or by the Mass, I’ll have both your hands off at the wrist, here and now! I swear it!” And the speaker’s own hand fell to the pommel of the great two-handed sword that hung at his side.

  Hastily knight and earl gripped hands, bowing towards the altar.

  As still the roof-timbers seemed to quiver with the sudden storm of fury, a clanking sound turned all eyes towards the door.

  The clanking was not all made by armour-clad men; some of it was made

  by chains.

  Strangely, the new advent was brilliant, splendid, colourful, compared with all that was already in the church—where, apart from a few handsomely dressed individuals such as the young Earl of Carrick, most men were in the habiliments of war, not the vivid panoply of the tourney but the more sober and often battered practicalities of stern campaigning. Eight men came in.

  The first admittedly was an ordinary English knight, less well turned out indeed than many present, a mere captain of cavalry.

  But he carried one end of a rope. Behind him came a breathtaking

  figure, magnificently arrayed, a tall, slender man of middle years and

  great dignity, despite his hobbling gait, who walked with a slight

  stoop, head bent. Bareheaded, he wore no armour but clothes of

&nbs
p; cloth-of-gold and worked silver filigree with jewelled scintillating

  ornamentation, and over all a most gorgeous tabard or loose sleeveless

  tunic, heraldic ally embroidered in blazing colours, picked out in gold

  and rubies, depicting, back and front, the red Rampant Lion of Scotland

  on a tressured field of yellow, a coat of such striking pride,

  brilliance and vigour as to challenge the eye and seem to irradiate the

  somewhat sombre stone interior of the little church. In his hand he

  carried a flat velvet bonnet rimmed with pearls, to which was clasped

  with an enormous ruby, large as a pigeon’s egg, a noble curling ostrich feather that tinkled with seed pearls. On either side this splendid personage was flanked by an ordinary man-at-arms, each of whom kept a clenched hand on the bejewelled and bowed shoulders.

  The man was limping slightly, and being tall, had obvious difficulty in adjusting his stride to the short chain of the leg-irons which clamped his ankles. The rope from the knight in front was tied to his golden girdle.

  Behind, between another couple of soldiers, came a burly man with a bandaged head, dressed in the finest armour in all that building, gleaming black and gold, but also with his legs shackled. He made a less careful business of the difficult walking, and in fact stumbled and tripped constantly, scowling and cursing, to the imminent danger of the handsome crimson cushion which he carried before him and on which precariously rested in sparkling, coruscating splendour the Crown of Scotland and the Sceptre of the Realm. A heavy portly figure, older-looking than his forty years, he kept his choleric head high and glowered all around him—John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, Constable of Scotland, the proudest and most powerful noble in a land whose nobles were proud above all else. another rope was tied around his middle, and trailed behind to be held by the aproned grinning scullion from Montrose Castle’s kitchens, who Drought up the rear of the little procession, a white painted rod in his hand.