Some, no. But who will? Show me any man who will receive the support of all!
It is not enough. For Wallace. After Falkirk. Fifteen thousand died on field, and he takes the blame to himself.
Fifteen thousand …? So many?
Aye. In a battle which he now says should never have been fought. He takes all the blamehowever much others blame the lords who rode off. Says that he should have known better than to front Edward so. Or to trust these others.
The man must be ill. In his mind. A defeat, by the largest most powerful army ever to invade Scotland, is no disgrace. All commanders must accept defeats. And fight on …
Wallace will fight on, never fear, my lord. But not as Guardian.
Especially as the Comyns threaten to impeach him.
What! Impeach? The Comyns…?
Aye. Buchan and the others claim that he mishandled all. Did not send for them. Indeed of intention would have kept them away. From the battle. They claim that he has divided the land …
God forgive them! This is beyond all. And you would have me to work with these?
Wallace would. And, since he will by no means remain Guardian, I deem him right in this, at least. Many other lords and knights follow the Comyns. Would even make Red John the King. Lamberton looked at Bruce shrewdly, there.
John Ballots nephew. There is only one way to unite the realm, in face of Edward, Wallace says. A joint Guardianship. You, and John Comyn of Badenoch.
I say it is madness. We can scarce exchange a civil word!
How could we rule together?
It would be difficult. But not impossible. What is not difficult, today? You are not hairns, my lord. So much is at stake. If Bruce and Comyn would agree, the nobility would be united. And Wallace working with you, carrying the common people with him, for he has learned his lesson, he says. And myself, speaking for the Church. The three estates of the realm. As one, for the first time …
Comyn would never serve with me. He hates me. Besides, he is in France.
Wallace has sent for him. To come home. With this offer. If you do not accept, I swear Comyn will! And who else is to control him, as joint Guardian? The Steward? Buchan, his own kinsman, another Comyn? Mar? Atholl? Menteith…?
Helplessly Bruce shook his head again.
Nonone of these.
But … John Comyn I Even Buchan himself would be less ill to deal with
…
Buchan led the flight at Falkirk. That will not be forgotten by the people. They would never accept him as Guardian. But the Lord of Badenoch was not there. And whatever else, he is a fighter. None doubts his courage.
Bruce halted in his pacing, to stare at his visitor.
How many of the Scots folk accept me! I am told they think of me as Edwards man.
They did, yes. But no longer. You did not fail at Falkirk. You saved Wallace.
There was silence for a little. Then Bruce shrugged.
If I say that I will consider the matter, it must not be taken I agree, he said, heavily.
That I promise anything. Better to convince Wallace to continue as Guardian.
He will not. That I promise you.
Where is he now?
At Scone. Above Perth. Assembling men. That is where I have come from.
And Edward? They tell me he is moving into the West?
That is true. He hoped to find food. The English are hungry, my lord. Are not we all? But they are scarce used to it! Edward has heard that the famine has not hit the West so badly. Moreover, he has work to do here I And the West is not yet burned in his face. Wallace burned all before him, right up to Perth. Perth itself. After Falkirk, Edward went to Stirling. There he found all burned black. Save the Dominican Priory. He lay there fifteen days, a sick man. Kicked by a horse they say. But his armies did not lie. He sent them north and east and west. To Perth and Gowrie. To Menteith and Strathearn. To Fothrif and life. Seeking food. And harrying, slaying, devastating the country.
Use all cruelty, he orderedEdward Plantagenet! How many thousands they have slain, God knows. Far, far more than on the Falkirk field. Women and children. Especially on the lands of those who supported Wallacethe old Earl of lifes lands. Menteiths.
Strathearns. Murray of Tullibardines. And the Churchs.
Mine. My St. Andrews is now a smoking desert. He spares neither kirk nor monastery, monk nor nun. Dunfermline. Balmerino.
Lindores. Dunblane. Inchaffray. All these abbeys and their towns.
And many another. No mercy. All to be destroyed.
And now he has turned west. To punish Lennox, the Steward, Crawford.
And yourself, my lord!
Aye. That came out on a long sigh.
Edward, at least, will no longer think me his man! He comes here, you think?
He has sworn to punish all whom he says rebelled against his peace! Will he spare Bruce, whom once he held close? But who now holds the SouthWest against him. You should know, if any!
He will not. But … I cannot hold the SouthWest against him. Not against this great host. You know .
I know it. But you can do what Wallace has done. Deny him food,
drink, comfort. Burn the land before him, my lord. Leave him nothing. Burn this castle and town. For, God knows, what you do not burn, he will I Alas for this poor Scotland! But only so shall we save her freedom.
Freedom, yes. And freedom …? Is it worth this, my lord Bishop?
This cost?
Freedom is worth this and more, my friend. Freedom is worth the last breath we draw. Freedom is life. And the life after life. Is there aught greater? Faith, worship, charity, peacewhat are these, without freedom to exercise them? Freedom is the soul of the nation. What profit all else if we lose it?
Long Bruce gazed at the wary mans stern face, deeply moved by his vibrant words. He inclined his head.
Very well. Tell Wallace that I burn the SouthWest. For freedom. As my brothers even now are burning over the Border. The Lord Nigel I sent to Annandale, then to Galloway, to raid over the West March. But . dear Godit is easier to burn other mens lands than your own!
I know it, friend. How many men have you assembled here?
Four thousand. So few against Edwards hordes.
Four thousand men can do a deal of burning…!
So Edward Plantagenet, leaving a blackened smoking desert behind him at Glasgow and the lower Clyde, marched south, up Clyde with his legionsand found only smoking desert before him. Rutherglen, Bothwell, Lanark, he found empty, black, smouldering, and all the land around and ahead billowing unending smoke-clouds in the hazy autumn sunshine. Like an army of Goths and Vandals, grim-faced, their eyes red-rimmed from more than their own smoke, Bruces men of Carrick, Cunninghame and Kyle, with volunteers from far and near, efficiently, methodically, destroyed the land, their own land, herding the people with roughest kindliness into the hills. Towns and villages were emptied, the matches pulled off the roofs to burn in the streets, with all stored food and fodder mat. could not be carted away. Churches and monasteries were denuded of all mat made them places of worship, and left vacant shells. Castles and manors were cast down, where possible, rendered untenable, un defendable and left open, deserted. Farm lands were wasted and despoiled, hay and grain fired, standing corn trampled flat, all beasts and poultry that could not be driven off into the hills slaughtered and tossed on to the blazing barns and byres and cot-houses. Mills, markets, fisheries, harbours, hutmentsall were cast down and devastated, in a twenty-mile belt from the sea to the burgeoning purple heather of the wild uplandsnow fuller of folk than they had ever been before. From Clydesdale right down into Galloway the pattern was repeated, and the smoke rose over a once-fair land, by day a black rolling pall that darkened the sun, by night a murky red and ominous barrier stretching from horizon to horizon. The folk cooperated, in th
e main, even did their own burning. There was short shrift for those who objected.
The English, in fuming rage, sought other adversary than fire and smoke, and found nonesave odd and pathetic hiders in woods and deans and caves, whom they outraged, tortured and hanged. Day after day they marched south, a blackened snarling host, the fine colourful display of their chivalry dimmed and soiled now, angry, ravenous men; and each day their march grew longer, as their empty bellies forced them on, hoping, hoping for some area undestroyed, some green oasis in the black desert overlooked.
But there was none, save in the high fastnesses of the flanking hills, Scotlands ultimate refuge, where Edward dared not let his mutinous men strayfor such as did seldom returned.
A great deal of food is necessary to feed over 100,000 men. The leadership was losing control. Great bodies of troops were running amok, fighting with each other, falling sick by the thousand, doing unmentionable things in their terrible hunger. Shaking his fist at the gaunt ruins of the burned-out castle of Ayr, reached on the 27th day of August, Edward, in impotent fury, after giving orders Bruce must be pursued deep into his Carrick hills, right to the Mull of Galloway if need be, countermanded it all, and ordained the swiftest possible withdrawal to the Border, to English soil. It was as near flight as anything the Plantagenet had ever faced. He left a woeful trail of the weak, the sick and the weary behind him, of men and horses and equipment. And out from the wilderness lairs the folk of the charred land crept by night, knives in hand.
The King, with the view of fair England at last, on 6th September, and
much in sight reeking, as black as what lay behind them, turned in
terrible, savage wrath on Annandale, the last of the Scottish dales,
which the younger Bruces had largely spared, after all their
building-up from Cliffords raid. Now even that expert, in Edwards
train, had to confess himself mastered. If a land can be crucified,
the lordship of Annandale was, that September of 1298. When, in the remote tower of Loch Doon, amongst the great heather hills where Carrick and Galloway meet, Nigel brought word of it, Robert Bruce would have wept if he could. Tears were a luxury few Scots could rise to that autumn.
Edward himself was near to tears, at Carlisle, where he halted at last, too tough a nut for the Bruce brothers to have cracked.
But they were tears of sheerest choler. For not only had he to bear the humiliations of his undignified scramble back to his own soil, and the frustrations of a campaign abandoned in midcourse, with the benefits of a great victory squandered, and the outrage of mutinous soldierynow his own lords turned mutineer. And not merely a few disgruntled nonentities, but the greatest of all-Norfolk, the Constable; Hereford; Lincoln; Northumberland.
These, and lesser barons, when they heard that Edward was intent only on garnering vast food supplies, re-equipping and disciplining his army, and then marching back into Scotland to complete his task, refused flatly to co-operate. They claimed that this was not only profitless but contrary to the promises that the King had made on his return from France, he would rule henceforth with the acceptance of his nobility and parliament. In fury the monarch named them treasonable, seditious dogsand though, on second thoughts, he hastily convened a council, there at Carlisle, and named it a parliament, it was too late. Norfolk, Hereford, and those like minded marched off with their followings for the south, leaving an angry sovereign and a make-believe parliament to pass edicts for further ambitious mobilisation, the large-scale provisioning necessary, and the equipping of a great fleet of vessels which would proceed round the Scottish coastline, keeping pace with the armies, and supplying them without fail.
This, and the wholesale forfeiture of the lands of all Scots nobles, not only those who had supported Wallace but those who had failed actively to support Edward; and the apportioning of these immense properties to the English lords and knights who remained with the King at Carlislethough the new owners were faced with the problem of how to take possession. The greatest of these, Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, got the Bruce lands, and others, to retain his support.
Then, after a fortnight, Edward marched his somewhat refreshed if still grumbling host north into Scotland once more, but only as a token thrust this time, an indication of what would happen in the spring when campaigning was once again feasible.
He moved up Liddesdale, spreading desolation, to Jedburgh, which he sacked and levelled with the ground, wreaking especial vengeance on its great abbey. Contenting himself with this gesture and foretaste, he turned south for Newcastle, Durham, and his winter quarters at York.
Scotlands sigh of relief was grim as it was faint.
Another sort of relief it was to ride through the green-golden valleys and quiet glades of Ettrick Forest, and see hamlets unburned, churches and shrines intact and cattle grazing peacefully in clearings and water-meadows. To eyes become accustomed to the charred wilderness that was most of Southern Scotland that autumn, this was a bitter-sweet solace. Bruce and his brothers trotted through it all in the mellow October sunshine, in answer to the Guardians summons, allegedly the last such that would come from Sir William Wallace.
They found Selkirk and its ruined abbey in an even greater stir than on the previous occasion, when Wallace had been knighted and proclaimed Guardian; for this time, more of the nobility and clergy had come, aware of the drama and importance of the proceedings.
Their encampments, pavilions and banners were everywhere in the spreading haugh lands of the Ettrick, their men-at arms too many and truculent for peace and comfort. Churchmen were almost as numerous as barons, with their retinues, with no fewer than ten bishops, and abbots, priors and other clerics unnumbered.
Lamberton was making his authority felt.
The Bruces found Wallace installed in the old royal castle of Selkirk,
a ramshackle, sprawling place built as a hunting lodge for David the
First. With him was the Steward, his son Walter, Crawford, Menteith,
Lennox and the old Earl of life; also, of course, Lamberton and his
galaxy of prelates. The Primate was undoubtedly something of a
showman, stern though he appeared to be, and there was considerable
attempts at dignity and display, including a throne-like chair at the
head of the great hall table, for the Guardian, with a huge tressured
Rampant Lion standard hung on the wall behind it. The herald King of
Arms was present with his minions, and busy establishing precedences
and places, superintending the setting up of banners, fussing over
details. In view of the appalling devastation that surrounded this
green sanctuary of Ettrick Forest, the unburied multitudes, the famine
and want and despair, it all seemed as pointless as it was unreal,
even ridiculous.
Wallace himself certainly gave the impression that he thought it so, standing about ill at ease and unhappy. Seldom can a man have looked less at one with the surroundings of which he was the central figure. He had changed not a little since Falkirk. He was thinner, more gaunt, older-seeming altogether, and though of course still enormous, of less commanding presence than heretofore, despite the finery which seemed to sit so uncomfortably on his huge frame. His great hands were seldom still, groping about him as though seeking the sword, the dirk, the battle-axe, which were almost extensions of himself, but today were absent.
He looked a man at odds with his fate.
He came great-strided to greet Bruce, at least, with an access of animation.
My lord, my lordyou have come! I thank God for it. He gripped the younger mans hand and shoulder.
It is good to see youfor much depends on you hereafter.
Bruce looked doubtful at that, his glance searching past the other for Comyn.
Wallace perceived it.
The Lord of Badenoch is not yet arrived, he said.
But he comes, he comes.
His coming here, like mine, is the least of it, Sir Guardian!
We shall never agreethat I swear.
Do not say so. If sufficient depends on it, any two men can seem to agree, however ill-matched. Even I have learned that lesson! Think you I have loved all that I have had to deal with, work with, this past year and more? And enough depends, here, on my soul! The future of this realm, no less.
Scarce so much as that, I think …
Yes. So much as that. See you, my lordthe magnates of this Scotland are divided. By many things, many feuds, much jealousy, warring interests. But, in the end, all depend on the Crown for their lands and titles. You know that. And the Crown is vacantor nearly so. I act in the name of King John Baliol, since the Crown must be vested in some name. De jure, he is still King. De facto, he is not, and the throne empty. One day, if Scotland survives, she will have a king again. That king will be either a Baliol, a Comyn or a Bruce. You know it. John Baliol has a son, Edwarda child. Held, like his father, hostage by the King of England. King John has renounced the throne, for himself and his son, at the demand of King Edward. Renounced and abandoned. Therefore, it is scarce likely that John or his son shall ever reign. So the king shall be your father, the Bruce. Or John Comyn, Baliols nephew.
Bruce made an impatient gesture, at this rehearsal of facts only too well known to him.
Ayeyou know it. All men know it, my lord. Therefore, since the nobles hold all they have of the Crown, they must take sides. For Comyn or Bruce. In order that they may retain their lands from the winner in this contest. Divided, as I say. And Scotland cannot afford a divided nobility, today, see you, when she fights for her life. So, your father being none knows where, only you, and Comyn, can heal the division. By acting together.
Joint Guardians. Nothing else, and no other, will serve.
That was a long speech for Wallace, who was not notably a man of words.
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