They have not got my Marjory yet! the other returned grimly.
I said to talk, did I not? Talk, rather than fight and be beaten. I still say talk. At length. While the English settle their quarrel with their king.
Why bide here for it, man? Why not slip away? Go north.
Come with me. All Scotland lies open …
Not all Scotland, Andrew. See youyou and Graham and others may slip away so. Your lands all lie to the north. Even Bothwell is not yet touched. You can raise men and means, from them. But most here, like myself, have their lands in this South West. Most already overrun by the English. Our sole power comes from our lands and our men. You know . If we run for it, northwards, we are becoming little more than landless men, outlaws, swords for sale! Is that how we, her great lords, can best fight for Scotland? Resist Edward? I think not. Douglas, the Steward, Crawford, and the restthey are in the same position.
I say talk, then. These terms will keep us talking for long. Go you, if you will…
Bruces strategy of talk, and more talk, was more successful, almost crazily so, than he, or anyone, could have hoped. A month later, no less, they were still talking at Irvine.
It was not all merely effective delaying tactics, of course, though
played its part. Events and conditions far from Ayrshire had the
greater effect. And the fact no one really wanted to fight was highly
relevantfor Clifford the fire-eater was despatched on the more
congenial and active duty of chasing Wallace. Indeed, if in Bruce was
the initial designer of what became known, and chuckled over, as the Capitulation of Irvine, the most long-drawn capitulation in Scotlands story, Wallace was the true protractor of it. With Edward Plantagenets help.
Wallace disappeared from Irvine into the fastnesses of the Ettrick Forest, his favourite refuge and a notorious haunt of broken men. From there, in an extraordinary short time, he emerged again with a tough and highly-mobile cut-throat band of perhaps two hundred. Avoiding embroilment with English garrisons in Lanarkshire, he made a lightning descent upon the town of Glasgow, where Bishop Anthony Beck had gone to collect the cathedral relics and to initiate a campaign for English hegemony over the Scots Church. Taken completely by surprise, the English in Glasgow were overwhelmed, and Beck was forced to flee, a salutary experience for that exponent of the Church Militant.
Wallace well knew that this kind of warfare depended for. its success on continual movement and surprise. He did not stay at Glasgow but, reinforced considerably, moved north into the Lennox where the earl aided and abetted him, being no Norman but of the old Celtic stock. Clifford was now tailing him, but far behind.
Wallace made a swift and unexpected dash right across Scotland, to Perth, and at Scone managed to surprise Edwards Justiciar of Scotland, William Ormsby, holding harsh courts, who escaped with his life but left behind much valuable booty. Then, by tremendous forced marches across the mountains Wallace descended upon the English-held towns of Brechin, Forfar and Montrose, to wipe out what Edward had done there to John Baliol.
All fell He linked up here with Andrew Moray, who had hastened north to lead his fathers people of Moray and the Black Isle, and could now claim the enemy-held castles of Inverness, Urquhart, Elgin and Banff. Together they turned south for Dundee.
This was a brilliant campaign for the summer of 1297. But it was, of course, superficial. Nothing was consolidated behind this guerilla fighting, and it could not be claimed that the so-called rebels held the territory they so vigorously swept through. But it all had an enormous effect, nevertheless, on the Scots people. The name of William Wallace was on every lip. Their lords had failed them, but the common folk saw Wallace as their saviour. Young men flocked to him from far and near, from highlands and lowlands from east and west and northmany of them against the wishes of their own feudal superiors. He had an army now, even though a rag-tag one. And some barons were supporting him, other than Graham and Morayfor word had gone out from the talkers at Irvine, privily, to rouse the land. With this host, Wallace attempted what he had not hitherto risked, the siege of a major fortress and garrison townDundee, where he had been educated, and whence came Scrymgeour and many of his band.
If all this had its inevitable effect on Percys negotiating position, affairs in England had almost more. Edward, with his ally Guy, Count of Flanders, was attacking Philip the Fair, of France, with doubtful successand at the same time fighting something like a rear guard action with his own recalcitrant barons at home. Many others had joined Norfolk and Hereford in refusing foreign service, some of them of lofty rank indeed. The King could do little against them without coming home, but what he could he did.
Many were dismissed their offices by hasty decreeincluding Surrey, who was demoted from being Viceroy of Scotland, and one Brian Fitz-Alan appointed in his stead. But even royal decrees have their limitations, unless backed by force on the spot, and Surrey was still commander of the northern armies, since they were largely composed of the Northumbrian and Cumbrian levies of the Percies and other North-Country lords. Fitz-Alan, then, required Surreys cooperationand got but little.
This bore notably on the spun-out negotiations at Irvine-which, indeed,
neither side was now in any hurry to bring to a conclusion. One defeat
for Edward in France, and the entire dynastic situation in England
would change, and the Scottish position with it. All balanced on a
knifes-edge, and men marked time, waitingsave for William Wallace,
that is. Percy restored Ayr Castlewhich had been only superficially
burnedand lodged there, contenting himself with only occasional
meetings with the Scots lords at Irvine. Or some of themfor Douglas
had soon tired of this, and slipping off to his Nithsdale estates, had
gathered together some men and surprised and taken Sanquhar Castle. He
had not yielded young James Douglas as hostage, eitherand so was now
proclaimed out with the Kings peace, outlaw. Bishop Wishart, too,
after Wallaces raid on Glasgow and Becks discomfiture, was declared
responsible for his see, and surrendered into English custody at
Roxburgh Castle, as a sort of personal hostage for Glasgow. But Bruce,
the Steward, Crawford and others continued with the play-acting of
negotiation, their en in the main dispersed, looking over their
shoulders to north and south. All had English estates as well as
Scottish. The fifty thousand foot turned and marched homewards, as
far as Berwick.
So passed an extraordinary summer. Bruces two-year-old daughter Marjory remained safely at Kildrummy Castle, in the care of his sister, Christian, Countess of Mar. And his father, the Lord of Annandale, was dismissed from his position as Governor of Carlisleby express command from France.
Everywhere men waited.
Bruce received a letterdelivered by Percy himself, no less. It was in feminine writing, and was sealed with the arms of Ulster and de Burgh. It read:
My lord, What are you? A loyal man, I understand. A rebel! understand.
But what is a man who sits and talks? A clerk? King Edward thought to wed us. Should I thank God for my escape?
Elizabeth de Burgh.
Bruce, in hot anger, crushed the offending paper into a ball, and threw it from him. Later, he retrieved it and spread it smooth againand once more crumpled it up. He almost burned it, but did not.
Chapter Seven
As is so often the case, the most carefully thought-out courses, the most masterly inaction and most delicately-balanced fence sitting, can all be brought to naught in a chaos of violence and unprofitable turmoil and often by the merest accident or conjunction of otherwise unimportant events. It was so in late August of 1297. Two unconnected incidents, neither in themselves significant, brought a
bout the collapse of so much that had been patiently contrived. And the men who used their wits were overwhelmed in the consequent conflagration just as surely as were the strong-arm realists and fire-eaters.
Edward Plantagenet won a small and insignificant engagement in the north of France, which became magnified by rumour, in England, into a major victory; and an English knight escaped from beleaguered Dundee, by sea to Berwick, with the word that the great fortress-town would have to capitulate to Wallace within a couple of weeks, for lack of provisions.
It so happened the Earl of Surrey was at Berwick Castle when both tidings arrived, in the process of handing over the civilian duties or Viceroy to Fitz-Alan, Lord of Bedale, in the company of Master Hugo Cressingham, Treasurer and real administrator of Scotland, who made his headquarters at Berwick. It was a humiliating situation for the great Earl of Surrey; moreover he and Cressingham, whom he despised as an up jumped cleric, were on bad terms. Out of this, the entire situation for Scotland suddenly changed. Fitz-Alan, the new broom, wished to prove himself as Viceroy; Cressingham demanded immediate action for the relief of Dundee; and Surrey, with the word from the south a great victory in France secured, Edward would now come home to set his English house in order, panicked. He had a name and reputation to save. He was still commander-in chief in the North; and fifty thousand men still lay encamped near Berwick.
So action, crude and vigorous, took the place of dialectics.
Blood would flow, not words.
The first indication of this dramatic change reached Ayrshire by urgent courier to Sir Henry Percy, in peremptory terms. The High Steward, Crawford and certain other Scots lords, with the main body of the English forces at Ayr, were to be sent to join Surreys army forthwith, on its advance on Dundee by Edinburgh and Stirling. But Percy himself was to proceed at once in the other direction, south to Carlisle, taking the Earl of Carrick with him, there to assemble as large a reinforcement army as he could in short time, for the aid of his uncle. Bruces father, though replaced as Governor of Carlisle by the Bishop thereof, was still detained at that castle. His great lands of Annandale teemed with men, the richest territory in SouthWest Scotland. The Bruces must provide their thousands from Annandale on pain of treason.
The velvet gloves were discarded now, with a vengeance.
Percys cavalry descended upon the unsuspecting Scots, who found themselves under what amounted to arrest, at Irvine. There was no argument or debate now. The Steward and the rest were taken off northwards. Percy and Bruce rode south. The Capitulation of Irvine was over, and the Leopards of England showed their spots again, dark, clear and unchanged.
In the circumstances, Bruces reunion with his father at Carlisle was
less than happy. They had never got on well together, the father
finding the son headstrong, independent, and, in especially
extravagant; the younger saw his parent as indecisive, interfering
ineffective, and mean. The sons expensive ways, as compared with his sires parsimony, had been a stumbling-block between them for long. This was why, as much as because he could not bring himself to make an earls fealty to his rival John Baliol, the elder Bruce had handed over the old and impoverished Celtic earldom of Carrick, which he had gained by marriage, to his son, and thereafter washed his hands of himretaining, of course, for himself, the infinitely richer if less lofty-sounding Lordship of Annandale. There was seldom love lost when these two met.
Bruce found his father practically a prisoner in Carlisle Castle though he did not admit the factwith the Bishop in command.
Percy did not delay in making known his uncles demands for a large contingent of armed and mounted men from Annandale, his hesitancy of manner now scant cloak for brusque authority and left father and son to their own company.
How dare he I How dare that insolent puppy speak me so!
the elder Robert Bruce cried, trembling with outrage.
I, who should be King of Scots!
Yet you will bear it, Fathersince you must. As must I. For you are not King of Scots. And, like me, you are Percys prisoner in all but name.
I am no prisoner, boy! By envy and malice and Edwards spleen. I have been superseded as Governor herethat is all. As though I care for that! If Edward Plantagenet does not know his friends, and trusts instead such as Percy and Surrey, the more fool he! I shall not give them one man from Annandale. They may whistle for their men!
Brave words! You did not speak them to Percy!
I shall. You may lick the boots of such as he. I do not.
I lick no boots. Nor ever shall. But I recognise facts. Power.
The reality of power.
You I Power? You recognise fine clothes. Jewels. Blood-horses.
Women. You recognise those who will pay for your debts! You licked Edwards boots for gold, did you not? He paid your debts.
Is it Percy, now?
With a great effort Bruce held in his hot temper.
I lick no mans boots, I tell you, he repeated heavily. And changed the subject, stiffly.
How do you propose, my lord, to assert yourself?
Against these commands.
I shall go. Leave. I do not remain here, in Carlisle, to be insulted and mistreated, by God Where shall you go? If they let you. Your lands in England, in Essex and Huntingdon, will scarce offer you protection against Edward I And Annandale, of all the dales of Scotland, lies most open to the English. Its mouth, wide and open to the Border, cannot be defended. Only at its head amongst the hills. And there the English hold Lochmaben.
I shall not go to Annandale. Nor into England. I go to Norway.
To Isabel. I shall seek King Erics aid. To put me on my throne of Scotland. I shall return with a Norse army.
His son stared, almost unbelievingly. Although, knowing his father, he perhaps should not have been so surprised. Bruce the elder had ever lacked any conspicuous sense of the practical.
But… but this is folly! he exclaimed.
Eric will not aid you.
Not with men, an army. He has his own troubles. Nearer home …
He is my good-son. To have me King of Scots would greatly strengthen his hand. In his own wars.
The Lord of Annandale had been potent, if not practical, and his countess-wife fertile. They had had five sons and four daughters.
And the eldest child, Isabel, had married four years earlier King Eric the Second of Norway, as his second wife. The family had not seen her sincebut she was indeed Queen of Norway.
Her brother knew the uselessness of argument with his sire.
They will not let you go, he said.
The English.
Why should they stop me? I am a free man. I have been put down as Governorbut that is not my doing. It is your fault. For your folly, at Irvine. Of turning rebel, at the wrong time! Always you were a fool, Robert! And have cost me dear.
The young man turned away, and strode to the window to gaze out, while he mastered himself. It was a small and undistinguished tower chamber, very different from the fine Governors apartment which the Bishop now occupied. Without facing his father, he spoke, level-voiced.
They will not let you go. Unless you seem to aid them. I know these Englishif you do not. Though you should, fore God I They are merchants. They bargain, always. If they have power, they give nothing for nothing. You can bargain for your freedom with your Annandale men.
Men! You say that? You, the untimely rebel! You would give the English our Annandale mento fight against our own folk?
To fight, no. To assemble and ride, yes.
What do you mean?
I mean that these are your vassals. Bruces vassals. By the
thousand. The English wish them assembled, in arms. Very well Let them assemble. It is a thing we dared not have done, ourselves.
But on Surreys orders …! Then, when we ride north, we shall
speak with a different voice! Who, think you, these Bruce levies will obey? Percy? Or Bruce?
You mean … you mean that you would take them … and then change sides? Turn your coat, man?
My coat is already turned, is it not? Whatever side I must needs seem to wear! In my need, I cannot afford the luxury of wearing only one side of my coat, my lord!
But… what of your honour, man? Have you none?
Honour? I have been learning what honour means! If Scotland is ever to be free, if Scotland is ever to have its own king again, Bruce or other, we will have to think again on what means honour. Does Edward know the word, I wonder? But… enough of this. These men of Annandale, my lord, are your vassalsnot mine. Yet. But with your permission, and Percys aid, I shall make them into an army. To use against our enemies. Your enemies. Those who have so de spitefully used you.
The older man chewed at his long upper lip in indecision.
You have your own men. Of Carrick. Use them, he jerked.
I cannot. Think you Percy would allow that? Carrick, all Ayrshire, is watched, garrisoned, held. Thick with English. A few men I might raisewere I free to do so. But I am not. Here it is different. We would be acting on Surreys orders. Do you not see it? And do you not see that you have here much to bargain with? Say to Percy that you wish to retire in peace. That your sixty years weigh heavy on you. That you will give me authority to raise your vassals of Annandale. But that you must be allowed to go, in peace. From here. Where you will. Do not say to Norway, I counsel you!
Aye. The other had started pacing the floor.
Ayeand when I return from Norway. In the spring. You will have an army waiting for us? To gain my throne?
His son lifted wide shoulders.
God willing, he said cryptically.
So, for once, father and son were agreed, or seemed to be.
Percy, when told, appeared well content. He requested Bruce to proceed forthwith to Annandalewith Sir Harry Beaumont and a contingent of two hundred cavalry to aid and escort him. Other recruiting-agents were sent through Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland. Percy himself departed across country eastwards, for a brief visit to his own Alnwick, to raise more men there. One week, and all must be back at Carlisle.
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