Bruces reasoning and judgement might be sound, but how to implement it was another matter. There was not more than 600 fighting-men with the King at this juncture, and though many more could be raised, from comparatively near at hand, within a day or so, and thousands in a week or two, Pembrokes swift advance denied them the time they required.
Lamberton, whom Bruce had appointed Chancellor meantime, seizing on this need for time, declared that they must use cunning.
Valour for all to see was all very well for the monarch, but his ministers could afford to be more devious. He proposed that while the King was ready to meet Pembroke in the field, he himself should hasten south and seek a parley with the English civil authorities, make moves towards entering into negotiations. As Chancellor. This might blunt the edge or Pembrokes drive and effect a delayespecially as it was requested that such negotiations should await King Edwards own arrival. Doubt and delaythose could be valuable weapons in the circumstances, and every weapon must be used.
Bruce demurred. Hints at such early surrender, even though they had no base in fact, were repugnant. Also it would put Lamberton himself in a position of extreme danger, when the deceit was discoveredas in due course it must be. If the Chancellor was available for negotiations, he would equally be available for capture.
The other shook his head. It was a risk that fell to be taken. They all were adventuring all. Danger was their lot, every one, from henceforth until the kingdom was won and secure.
So it was accepted, and thereafter the royal party turned its face south again, the King calling on all leal men to rally to his standard.
But Lamberton hastened ahead, making for Edinburgh where the English civil administration had its base. None doubted that he was putting his head into the lions mouth.
By mid-June Bruce was at the Abbey of Coupar, at the west end of Strathmore, with 4,000 men, a quarter of them cavalry, when he learned that Pembroke was at Stirling and had halted.
Whether this was on account of Lambertons gesture at opening negotiations, they could not tell. But it gave the King a little more time to wait for his hoped-for reinforcements.
Only a few had come in, a day or two later, when the next courier arrived from the south. Pembroke had not been wasting his time. He had been sending out detachments to take loyalist castles, and amongst others had captured old Bishop Wishart at Coupar Castle in life. Worse, the Earl of Buchan had come north from England, and had called to arms the whole force of Comyn against Bruce. Now he was marching to join Pembroke, who was on his way to Perth.
Grimly Bruce abandoned his waiting game. Time, it seemed, was no longer in his favour. He gave the word to break camp and march. Elizabeth and the ladies he left behind in the care of his brother Nigel.
On the 18th of June the King of Scots approached the walled city of Perth, so close to Scone where three months earlier he had been enthroned. In the city, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, lay, with reputedly 6,000 chivalry, 1,500 more than Bruces total force, and with Sir Henry Percy and Sir Robert Clifford as lieutenants.
Taking up a position with the wide Tay on his left hand and the marshes of the incoming Almond on his right, the King sent forward a colourful party of heralds and trumpeters, under the King of Arms, to declare that the King of Scots wished to know the business of the Earl of Pembroke in his city of Perth.
Let him come forth and give an account of himself.
De Valence announced in reply that he could not have dealings with traitors to his King Edward. And he was very comfortable where he was.
Bruce had to weigh the pros and cons of this. Pembroke was a proved
and veteran fighter and no craven; moreover he had the larger force.And it was against his honour and reputation to hold back thus in the face of the enemy. He must have good reason for waiting, therefore. Was he expecting reinforcements? Or was this the result of Lambertons activities? Had he been ordered to hold his hand while the Primates peace feelers were investigated?
Would delay benefit Bruce more than the invaders? The Prince of Wales was held up in Galloway, fulfilling his fathers injunctions anent savagery. Edward himself, by his physicians orders, was having to travel very slowly, and was said to be no further north than York. Bruce himself was hoping for adherents from all over his kingdom. He would wait, thereforeand seek to cut off the English supply routes into Perth. The word of their new King already besieging the English invaders ought to be a fillip to the morale of the Scots people.
But before adopting such programme, Bruce sent a further and more explicit challenge to dc Valence, that all should be plainly established for the folk to see. He urged Pembroke, or Percy, or Clifford, to come out and put their differences to the test in knightly fashion, by single combat with himself, by chosen champions, by set battle, or in whatever fashion they would. To which Pembroke answered that he should be patient; the day was too far spentbut he might fight with him next day.
So Bruce, shrugging, sent out detachments to control all the roads leading to Perth, and foraging parties to collect supplies for his bestwhich had been on the march long enough to have a very depleted commissariat. And, as evening fell, moved his main force some three miles westwards, to set up camp on the long, low, tree-dotted ridge of Methven that flanked the River Almond to the south, a reasonably strong position, with the land falling away to north and south, yet with opportunity for retiral and escape, by wooded lands to the west, towards the Highland hills. They would see if Pembroke had intention, or stomach, for fight the next daythe Feast of St. Gervase.
There was some talk of the King spending the night in the small castle of Methven. But Bruce preferred to camp with his men. Besides, the laird, Sir Roger de Moubray, had been a Baliol supporter, and might well still be pro-Comyn.
It was the first night that Bruce had been parted from Elizabeth since the coronation. It was chilly, with intermittent showers, and he slept fully clad beneath his cloak, amongst a grove of hawthorns.
As well that he did. In the early hours of the morning he, and all others, were aroused by the urgent shouts of sentinels. The enemy was upon them, the cries rang out. To arms! To arms!
It is never actually dark in Scotland, of a June night, but the cloud and overcast greatly hindered vision, especially amongst the scattered woodlands of Methven ridge. Starting up and staring around, Bruce could make out nothing distinct or detailed, save only the sleepy confusion of his own men. Dragging on his jerkin of chain-mail, he shouted for Sir Neil Campbell, who was acting guard-commander. But of that stout fighter there was no sign.
Young Sir James Douglas, who was never now far from the King, declared that men said that Campbell had ridden off eastwards just before the first shouted alarm had rung out.
Bruce ordered his trumpeters to sound the rally, as precaution.
Barely had the high neighing notes died away than they were answered, and from no great distance to the eastwards. A somewhat ragged and breathless rendering it wasbut there was no doubting its tenor and significance. It was the advance, English version.
Shouting for. his own mount, Bruce ordered to horse to be sounded. Even as he cried it, he heard, felt indeed beneath his feet, the thunder of drumming hooves, thousands of hooves.
There was no time for any thinking out of tactics. Commanding that three main groups be formed, under his brother Edward on the right, the Earl of Lennox on the left and himself in the centre, and indicating that they so face the foe, there was no opportunity for even this limited manoeuvre to be completed before the dark mass of charging cavalry loomed out of the shadowy gloom before them, seeming to spread, right across the ridge in solid menace.
To stand and wait, stationary, for such a charge, was as good as to seek annihilation. Bruce was ordering the advance, when diagonally across their front a single rider spurred, from the north-east. It was Sir Neil Campbell of Lochawe, guard-commander.
Sire!
he yelled, they attack from the nor
th. Two assaults.
They circle to the north. Out of the valley. To take us in rear. A large force. Rode down my few guards. Shouting A Comyn! A Comyn!
Cursing, the King directed Lennox and the left to swing off, to seek to deal with this threat, and waved on his main body.
It was hopeless of course. Taken by surprise, short in numbersfor
the foragers were still absent, as were the detachments to close the
Perth roadsscattered, bemused and lacking the impetus successfully to meet a massive charge, the royal force was beaten before ever it met the enemy. It was not so much a defeat as a rout. Valour, leadership, experiencethese might affect the issue for individuals and small groups, but on the outcome of the day they were irrelevant. Pembroke and his disciplined English cohorts smashed through and overwhelmed the Scots in a single furious onslaught, hardly slackening the pace of their charge. In a few brief moments the Kings force was reduced to no more than chaos, and a number of desperately struggling groups of individuals.
In the forefront, Bruce himself was unhorsed and thrown to the ground in the first headlong clash. Only James Douglas, first, and then Sir Gilbert Hay, leaping down and flailing their swords above the fallen monarch, saved him from being trampled to death. Others sought to make a ring round them, with Alexander Scrymgeour and the royal standard proclaiming the Kings position.
It proclaimed it to the English likewise, of course, and swiftly the greater pressure was swung on Bruce. In the melee of a cavalry fight no great degree of coherence is possible; but Pembroke was an experienced commander and was swift in seeking to control his force. He was already swinging round his flanks, right and left, to ensure that the Scots had no opportunity to rally and reform.
A riderless horse was found for the staggering Bruce-there were all too many of them to choose fromand he was aided into the saddle. Seton spurred close.
We must cut our way out, Sire, he cried.
Onwards. East Quickly. Behind them.
The King peered around him, dazedly.
The others…?
Not possible. All is lost here. Cut up. No rallying…
He is right, Sire, Hay agreed, All we can save is you! And must!
Edward …? Over on the right…?
God knows!
That way, then …
In a tight phalanx the little group drew even closer around the King and drove forward, others joining themselves to it. But quickly the opposition solidified. A large body of knights materialised against them, and with shouts that here was the Bruce, made furious onslaught.
The King, recovering from his shake, dealt effectively enough with the first assailant to reach him. Swerving in the saddle to avoid a jabbing sword-point at the throat, like a lance-thrust, and standing in his stirrups he thereafter swung round his own great two-handed blade in a sideways swipe that struck the knight on the back of his neck and pitched him forward over his mounts head helmet spinning. But there were another two attackers immediately at his back, and the King was their chosen target. Part unbalanced by his own slashing stroke he was the more vulnerable to the double assault.
The man on the right wielded a windmilling sword, but he on the left bore an upraised mace. In the instant of decision Bruce chose the latter-for though the sword was menace enough, one blow from a heavy mace could end all there and then. Ducking low, he dragged his horse round, to drive it straight at the mace wielder, and thrust up his lion-painted shield to take the smashing blow. It beat down and numbed his left arm, all but jerking it out of its socket. But the attacker was left, for the moment thereafter, almost defenceless. Hay was on the Kings left side, and having disarmed his previous assailant, now swung on the mace man and felled him with a single blow.
But Bruce paid the price of his swift decision. He flung himself round to face the swordsman on his right too late by seconds. The great blade struck him a downward hacking buffet on the shoulder and, sideways in the saddle as he was, toppled him headlong.
The chain-mail turned the edge of it, but the pain was stouning.
He crashed to the ground, only part-conscious.
Once again the ring formed around the fallen monarch, and men died there to save him. Eager hands raised him, while steel clashed on every side.
Gods curse on him-the dastard traitor! Hay gasped.
Did you see who struck him down? Moubray I Philip Moubray.
What? Roger of Methvens son?
Aye. The felon! He has brought them down on us…
Quick-hold him up. He swoons again. His horse…
Somehow they got Bruce hoisted into the saddle again, where he slumped,
swaying. But before Hay and Douglas could themselves remount, the
Scots ring was broken by a new assault, again aimed determinedly at the
King. Bruce, his sword lost, his head swimming, was in no state to
defend himself. His previous assailant, young Sir Philip Moubray, led
again. He drove right up alongside the reeling monarch, and seeing
him disarmed, grabbed his shoulder.
I have him! he yelled.
I have the Bruce! Yield, Earl of Carrick!
That cry of triumph and the fierce pain of the damaged shoulder, convulsed Bruce. Cringing, and seeking to strike out blindly at the same time, he jerked roundand the movement and agony was too much for his precarious equilibrium. He overbalanced quite, and fell to the ground for the third time that grim midsummer morning.
Almost crazed that he might lose a prize which King Edward would reward surely with an earldom at least, Moubray leapt down to straddle his fallen victim, shouting to his colleagues to close in around him. But before they could do so, Sir Christopher Seton, with a roar of fury, thrust in, completely overturning one horse and rider in the excess of his rage, and, reaching Moubray first, towering above him, felled him with a mighty blow.
Then the big Yorkshireman performed a feat which was to be forever afterwards remembered of him. Leaping down and tossing away his sword, he picked up his half-stunned brother-in-law almost as though he had been a child, and lifted him high on to his own horse in an access of next to superhuman strength. Then, as the others spurred to protect him, he clambered up behind the King.
Without any more delay, searching for Edward Bruce or anyone else, the tight knot of the Kings closest friends set about the business of beating their way, swords flailing right and left rhythmically, monotonously, out of that shambles, eastwards. In the face of their savagely dedicated determination few remained long in their path.
So, ingloriously, the new King of Scots left his first battlefield, only semiconscious.
His escort won through the rear of the English array, and swinging away southwards in a wide arc through the marshlands of Methven Moss, were able to turn back westwards. The Highland hills, a black barrier ahead, beckoned like a blessed haven in a storm.
Chapter Twenty-three
The larks trilled joyously high in the blue, the cuckoos called hauntingly from-the lower birch-woods, and the myriad bees hummed lazy contentment from the rich purple carpet of the bell heather and the blazing gold of the whins which crackled in the early July sunshine; while the tumbling, spouting, peat-stained Dochart shouted its laughter up from its rocky bed, all in praise of as fine a noontide as that lovely land of the mountains could proffer. But the man who sat alone on the heathery knoll, chin cupped in hand, elbow on knee, and stared eastwards towards Ben Lawers and Loch Tay, heard and saw and felt none of it.
His brow was dark, his jaw set, his thoughts bitter. And it was not the pain of a broken shoulder troubled him; he scarcely felt that in his present state.
He sat alone only because he would have it so; for down in the camp by the riverside there were friends enough who felt for him, who often gazed up towards him, most of whom indeed had already shed blood for him. But the King, in his deep hurt, wanted none of them. He wa
s sick, sick not so much of pain and the body but of the heart, the mind, the spirit; and was by no means to be comforted.
None denied that he had cause for bitterness, for hurt; but few accepted his self-censure, his burning sense of personal blame-which can be the sorest burden a man can carry.
Robert Bruce was not unduly introspective, self-centred or guilt-conscious as a rule. As a youth and younger man he had not been noted for a sense of responsibility indeed. But he had undoubtedly changed, of late. His brothers, and those closest to him, averred mat the change dated substantially from the murder of Comyn. Guilt was now seldom far from his mind. And the fact that the Pope had indeed now pronounced the dread sentence of excommunication upon him, however much it might be politic to make light of it, was like a leaden weight on his soul. He felt that the hand of God was against himand deservedly so. Moreover, equally daunting was his awareness that so many others must pay the price for his fault.
This last assumption was hard to gainsay, at least. It was two weeks
since Methven, two weeks of flight, of skulking and hiding in the
mountains of Strathyre and Breadalbane, while survivors, refugees and
broken men joined him, singly and in little parties, bringing with them the grim details necessary to build up a true picture of what that shameful debacle had cost. A glance at the camp below, by the Dochart, revealed the broad outline. Barely 500 men were thereall that was left of the Kings army-His brother Edward was there; and Christopher Seton. But Thomas Randolph, his nephew, was captured. The tight group which had carried him off the fieldand whom he now blamed for that very thingJames Douglas, Gilbert Hay, Robert Boyd and Robert Fleming, were present, though nearly all wounded to a greater or lesser degree. Also the Earl of Atholl, the Bishop of Moray and Sir Neil Campbell.
But that was all.
The long list of the dead was like a knell tolling in the Kings mind; for the vast majority of those surprised at Methven were now dead. Fortunate indeed were those who had fallen cleanly in the heat of battle for, true to his masters orders, Pembroke had carried the dragon flag, and the wounded and captured had been slain out of hand. Only a few of the highest ranks had been taken prisoner. And these, with the exception of Thomas Randolph-saved not out of mercy, but that he might be used against his unclehad all been summarily hanged, drawn and quartered;
The Steps to the Empty Throne bt-1 Page 43