The Path to the Throne

by H A CULLEY

  Coira had screamed when he got into her bed, where she slept with her younger sister, and tried to rape her. Her mother, instead of taking her new man to task, had seen her as a rival and had chucked her out of the house in just the clothes she was wearing. With no money and nowhere to live she had been reduced to stealing to survive. It was her good fortune that, whilst running away having stolen an apple from the market in Turnberry, she had run full tilt into the Countess of Carrick, who was looking for cloth for a new dress.

  Elizabeth had been startled but was unhurt, unlike Coira who had fallen and hurt her shoulder. The countess had been accompanied by a page and two men-at-arms as escort. Normally her personal maid would have also been at her side but she was ill with a fever. The men-at-arms had hauled the girl to her feet none to gently and she would have been handed over to the town authorities for punishment had not Elizabeth intervened.

  Coira’s shift and surcoat were of good quality, marking her out as a tradesman’s or a merchant’s daughter, rather than a normal street urchin, even if it was dirty and torn. Under the grime the countess could see that she was extraordinarily pretty and something about the girl attracted her. So instead of being consigned to the stocks, or worse, the page paid the man whose apple had been pilfered and Coira was taken up to the castle.

  She had expected to become a laundry maid, the usual occupation for females in the castle. All the kitchen workers, servers and other servants were male. Instead she was bathed and given needle and thread so she could repair her clothes, once they had been washed, and became an assistant to the countess’s personal maid. Her duties initially had been to look after her mistresses’ wardrobe but, six months later, when the maid became ill once more and then died, she became Elizabeth’s personal maid.

  The two had liked each other from the start and had grown quite close; as close at any rate as two people from such different backgrounds could be. So when Elizabeth had asked her to take on an important mission, she was eager to help. She also thought it would be a great adventure, and that appealed to her spirited nature. Her only concern was who would look after her mistress but Elizabeth had sent for her younger sister, who was now thirteen, to fill the gap temporarily.

  Coira hadn’t seen her for some time and was relieved to hear than her step-father hadn’t as yet molested her. The truth was that her sister was as plain as Coira was pretty. After teaching her sister her duties Coira set off into England on the first stage of her roundabout route to join the Comyn household. She knew why Elizabeth had chosen to send for her sister and she was grateful that she didn’t have to worry that the new maid would try and replace her in the long term. She did think that perhaps she might be allowed to keep her sister as her assistant as a reward though.

  Of course, although she had avoided the unwanted attentions of her step-father she was no innocent and several of the more handsome squires had enjoyed her favours. She was therefore experienced enough to please an older man, like John Comyn, and to avoid getting pregnant, or so she thought.

  Two months later, in December 1305, she arrived back in Scotland. There was no snow as yet but the ground was hard with frost and the wind was icy enough to cut though the warmest cloak like the prow of a boat through water. She was therefore frozen to the marrow when she and the knight from the mesnie of the Earl of Hartford and his squire, who were escorting her from London, eventually arrived at the Comyn castle of Lochindorb.

  ‘Why on earth would Matilda think I needed another maid?’ Joan de Valance was puzzled. She shrugged. ‘Do you know why she sent you?’

  ‘I think it was because I was homesick for my native Scotland, my lady.’

  ‘Oh! I see.’ But it was plain that she didn’t. Coira had expected her to ask whereabouts in Scotland she came from and had her answer ready. From the dialect of Scots that she spoke she couldn’t pretend that she came from anywhere other than the South East so she was going to answer Galloway, where John Balliol had been lord, but Joan never asked. Coira had already come to the conclusion that she might be a daughter of one of the most prestigious and powerful Norman families in England, but she was as dull-witted as they come.

  Coira was attending to Joan’s hair prior to enclosing it in a wimpole ready for supper when the lady’s husband, John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, came into her chamber. Coira had already noted that husband and wife had separate chambers. She knew that this was a common arrangement when the pair had married for political reasons, rather than love. Although the Earl and Countess of Carrick fell into the political category, they always slept together when they were at the same place.

  ‘Well, who have we here?’ The Red Comyn studied Coira appreciatively. Coira gave him a demure sideways glance and sank to her knees in a curtsy.

  ‘Oh, this is Coira, a new maid who Matilda sent me because she was homesick for Scotland, though God alone knows why. Give me England any day.’

  Comyn frowned at his wife. Sometime he wondered why he had married her, sister of the Earl of Pembroke or not.

  That night Comyn sent his squire on a delicate mission. The boy woke his brother, who was one of the Lady Joan’s pages, and got him to fetch Coira. He then took her to his master’s chamber, closing the door behind him and laying across the threshold outside. He might not have been able to see what was going on the other side of the door and behind the bed hangings but he could certainly hear and the noises of passionate love-making managed to get him quite excited.

  For her part Coira found that her previous dalliances with youths hadn’t prepared her for what was to happen at Lochindorb Castle. Whilst enjoying the efforts of the inexperienced squires at Turnberry, she found that they didn’t compare to the sensuous attentions of the thirty six year old Lord of Badenoch. He had treated her like the novice she was and taken care to made her reach peaks of ecstasy that she hadn’t imagined were possible. If her devotion to Elizabeth de Burgh hadn’t been so deeply ingrained she might well have fallen under John Comyn’s spell and betrayed the Bruces. As it was, it was a close run thing.

  If Joan noticed the disappearance of her new maid, she soon forgot it. Lord John was entranced with his beautiful new mistress and, when he travelled down to his castle at Dalswinton in Nithsdale in January 1306 he took Coira with him disguised as his second squire and now called the male equivalent, Coire. No one close to him was fooled by such a pretty boy but tactfully they went along with it.

  Shortly after arriving at Dalswinton Coira was half asleep in Comyn’s bed after a particularly strenuous bout of love making when she became aware of hushed voices the other side of the bed hangings. She listened carefully as John Comyn briefed one of his senior knights about an important document that he was to take to London and place in King Edward’s hand. The man was to set out at dawn the next day, accompanied by his squire and two serjeants as escort.

  When Comyn came back to bed Coira pretended to be asleep. After a further frenzied bout of sex he fell into the deep sleep of the exhausted and Coira dressed quickly in her squire’s apparel. Lord John’s squire slept across the threshold to protect his master and there was no way out of the room except through the door he guarded. Coira had no alternative but to draw her dagger and slit his throat. He died with a gurgle but the snoring from the bed continued unabated.

  Once out of the bedchamber Coira made her way out of the keep and headed for the stables. She had two options, to try and sneak out of the castle or to be bold and pretend that she was on an errand for the Lord of Badenoch. All those close to the Red Comyn were aware that his second squire was a girl but no-one else knew. If they had, word would soon have got back to his wife, and Comyn didn’t want the hassle that this would cause.

  She was therefore able to put on a gruff voice and order a horse saddled then ride to the main gate and demand that it be opened as she had an important dispatch from her lord to deliver. Her voice might have given her away but there were a few other squires whose voices were going through the changes of puberty and the portc
ullis slowly rose and then the gates were dragged open by the sleepy eyed guards. Coira felt like yelling at them to get a move on and had to resist the temptation to look over her shoulder at the darkened shape of the keep. She expected the alarm to be sounded at any moment but she managed to sit on her palfrey calmly waiting as if she had all the time in the world.

  Eventually the drawbridge thumped down on the other side of the dry gorge that protected the gate and she rode out and headed for Lochmaben Castle miles away. It was her good fortune that the Red Comyn, exhausted by his night of passion with the lovely Coira, didn’t wake until two hours after dawn. By that time the knight and Comyn’s missive to Edward Longshanks had left and were heading down Nithsdale towards Dumfries.

  Coira had left six hours ahead of them and reached Lochmaben three hours later, having got lost on the way. She was expected but it took fifteen minutes for her to persuade the knight commanding the main gate that she was both a girl and not a servant of the Comyns, despite the badge on her tunic. Convincing him that she was a girl was easiest, as all it took was a quick display of her chest.

  Edward Bruce was taking no chances and set out with twenty men to hunt down the knight and his small escort. He knew that, by now, they must be on the Dumfries to Carlisle road and just hoped that they hadn’t passed the town of Annan at the bottom of Annandale. Just in case they had, he sent six men off across country to Longtown where the messenger and his party would have to cross the River Esk at the point where it flowed into the Solway Firth. He pressed on towards Annan with the other fourteen.

  He needn’t have fretted. Edward and his men were in position in the narrow streets of Annan as the Comyn knight and his men rode into the small town. The fight was brief and bloody. All of Comyn’s men were killed, including the knight’s fourteen year old squire, and the cylindrical leather container was handed to Edward. He glanced at the contents; they consisted of a letter to King Edward signed by Comyn and the original of the deed signed by him and Robert Bruce giving Comyn Carrick, Annandale and the Garioch in return for his help to crown Robert as King of Scots. Edward slammed both documents back into the container and hung it over his shoulder.

  Wisely none of the townspeople of Annan had shown their faces and Edward’s men buried the three men and the boy in a common pit outside the town before heading for Turnberry and Robert Bruce.

  ~#~

  ‘The bastard, the devious turncoat, the devil’s spawn!’ Robert Bruce was running out of names to call the Red Comyn. When he read the letter to Edward Longshanks he couldn’t believe that Comyn would stoop so low. Not only had he betrayed Robert’s designs on the throne of Scotland to Edward, he had implicated all those pledged to support Bruce and included the secret agreement that they had both signed. He had said that he had been a party to it in order to trap Edward’s enemies but asked him to honour the transfer of Bruce’s lands to him, Comyn.

  Had the messenger reached York and the king, not only would Robert and all his family very probably have been executed. Four other earls, three bishops and several abbots would have either shared their fate, or been incarcerated for a long time at the very least.

  After a while Robert had calmed down sufficiently to think lucidly.

  ‘This time Comyn has gone too far. Scotland would have never recovered from the vengeance of King Edward had he got to know of our plans and been able to prevent us from acting. The Comyn family would have been left as the only faction with any power and they would have been totally subservient to the English king.’

  ‘So what do we do, brother?’ Neil wanted to know.

  ‘First we confront Comyn and see what he has to say to the charges. Then we arrest him and try him for treason. All must be done fairly and we must be seen to be just. After he is out of the way, then we can arrange for the coronation of the new King of Scots and lay our plans for ridding this land of the English. Longshanks is old and feeble now. He won’t be able to take the field against us himself and so he’ll send that popinjay, his son, Edward of Carnarvon.’

  Edward and Neil both looked dubious.

  ‘Comyn still has eight Scottish earls in his pocket as opposed to the four we have, including you, Robert. Plus the English have a lot more military commanders than Edward of Carnarvon at their disposal.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late now. We have to arrest and deal with Comyn and then arrange for my enthronement as King of Scots. Our one hope is that the Scots, nobles and commons, will then rally behind us.’

  ~#~

  John Comyn paced the floor of the great hall of Dalswinton Castle. He had heard nothing since he had sent his message to Longshanks, but then it had only been a week since it had been dispatched. His man should have arrived at York a few days ago and Edward would need time to act and arrest Bruce. Now the wretched man had written to him suggesting a meeting at Dumfries Abbey, as neutral ground, to discuss the detail of his handover of Carrick and his other lands to him, Comyn, and the support he would give Bruce when he claimed the throne.

  ‘What should I do?’ It was not like the Red Comyn to be in a quandary, nor to display such nervousness. He was also concerned that his new mistress seemed to have ridden out of the castle in the middle of the night after apparently killing his squire and disappearing, despite his best efforts to find her.

  His uncle, the Earl of Buchan, seemed unconcerned and his lip curled slightly in distaste as he saw his nephew’s agitation.

  ‘Delay until Edward makes his move,’ he advised.

  ‘But if I delay too long Bruce will realise that something is afoot.’

  ‘Then meet him and but string things out as long as possible.’

  John Comyn was seriously considering doing just that when a messenger arrived with routine correspondence from York, the centre of English administration for the time being. Comyn impatiently asked his clerk if there was anything there from the king.

  ‘No, my lord. Only the usual demands for tax and so on, but there is also a note for you to say that the king is at Winchester at the moment and so any correspondence should be addressed to your brother in law, the Earl of Pembroke, who is in change at York for the time being.’

  Comyn groaned. It would take some time for his message to the king to reach Winchester and for him to respond. It was now the third of February so he decided to leave it until the tenth before meeting Bruce in the hope that he could then delay doing anything positive until after the king had time to issue a warrant for the arrest of Bruce and his brothers. He therefore replied to Robert Bruce saying that he would meet him in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries on the tenth at noon.

  The Earl of Buchan had returned north but his uncle, Sir Robert Comyn, accompanied the Red Comyn, along with several knights of his mesnie. Robert Bruce was accompanied by his brother Edward, Sir Christopher Seton, Sir Roger Kirkpatrick and Sir James Lindsey as well as several other knights.

  When Robert arrived John Comyn was already there, standing by the high altar talking to the Abbot of Dumfries. As the Bruce party entered and stood just inside the west door of the abbey church, the abbot made his excuses and left via a side door. Robert walked down the nave accompanied by his brother and Christopher Seton. John Comyn, his uncle and another knight strode forward to meet them.

  ‘I gather you want to discuss the details of our agreement,’ Comyn began.

  ‘You mean this agreement?’ Robert asked, handing him Comyn’s copy of the agreement together with the letter that he had sent to the King of England.

  Both John and Robert Comyn made the mistake of trying to draw their swords as soon as they realised that they had walked into a trap. Bruce and his two companions were a step ahead of them and drew their daggers, which was a lot quicker. Edward stabbed the neck of the knight opposite him whilst Christopher Seton killed Sir Robert Comyn.

  Robert Bruce stabbed at the chest of the Red Comyn but he was wearing a chain mail hauberk underneath his surcoat and tunic and, although he suffered a flesh wound, the mail had deflected t
he blow from his heart. He staggered back up the nave and his other men rushed him out of side door.

  Robert had wanted to make sure that Comyn didn’t escape and had placed men outside both doors. A melee now developed between Robert’s men and Comyn’s knights, during the course of which the wounded man managed to escape into the churchyard and hide behind a stone tomb. It was here that his squire found him and ran back to get a horse on which to spirit him away.

  However, when he returned he found Seton and Fitzpatrick standing over Comyn’s body with bloody swords. His master was dead. He fell to his knees, his eyes blinded by tears, so he didn’t see Fitzpatrick’s sword come down to slice into his neck and take his life too. He had only been the Red Comyn’s squire for a fortnight. It seemed that the position of squire to the Lord of Badenoch had been one that it was best to avoid.

  As soon as they heard that their lord was dead, the remaining knights of Comyn’s mesnie fled.

  ‘What do we do now, Robert?’ Edward asked, leaning on his sword to get his wind back. It had been a brief fight but an energetic one.

  Robert had sat down on a gravestone to think. He had wanted to arrest Comyn but not to kill him; however, he acknowledged to himself that he should have realised that Comyn was hardly likely to give up without a fight. He sighed and smiled grimly at his brother.

  ‘Take our dead with us and leave a bag of silver for the good monks to bury the Comyn dead. Unsurprisingly there are no wounded. We should return to Lochmaben to consider our next moves but I will need to go to Glasgow as soon as possible to confess to Bishop Wishart and obtain absolution. Then we probably need to gather at Scone. There is now no impediment to my coronation.’

  ~#~

  James Douglas was bitterly angry that he had failed to regain his ancestral lands in Douglasdale and had returned to St Andrews to ask the advice of William Lamberton. Thus he was with the bishop when the news arrived about the slaying of the Red Comyn.