Caging the Lyon

by H A CULLEY

  It was, but he had no excuse to stay at Craigmor as Guy was at Lauder. He did see Blanche briefly and she smiled shyly whilst studying the ground intently, but then she gave him a bold look which lasted for a so short a time he thought he must have imagined it. However, he did learn, through polite enquiry of her mother, Emma, that she was not yet betrothed. The question seemed to annoy Emma for some reason.

  When he arrived at Lauder he found Guy living in somewhat cramped quarters.

  ‘I’m planning to build a manor house here but for the moment I must make do with these rented rooms.’ He grumbled. ‘I shall be glad when the hearings are over and I can get back to Craigmor. Now, what can I do for you? You must know how unpopular the treaty of Falaise is. It doesn’t do for us to be seen together too often, even though we are cousins. I gather that the wretched Galweigans have risen in revolt again and it wouldn’t take much to set the rest of Scotland ablaze.’

  ‘In that case you might not like what I have come to ask you.’ Edward took a deep breath. ‘Last time we met you suggested it was time I took a wife and I think you’re right.’

  ‘Well done my boy. Do you have anyone in mind?’

  ‘Yes, Blanche.’

  Guy couldn’t have been more surprised if he had been told that the pope was a woman. ‘Blanche.’ He stuttered. ‘But you don’t know her.’

  ‘There are plenty of our kind who become betrothed without even seeing their future partner. At least Blanche and I have met twice, albeit briefly. And if I am any judge of women, and God knows that’s difficult enough at times, she is as attracted to me as I am to her. At least see what she says to the idea’

  Guy thought for a good few minutes before he replied. ‘I can see that you would be a suitable husband for my daughter in normal circumstances. You are cousins but only in the third degree and I am sure that my son Simon, who is now the chaplain to the Bishop of St. Andrews, can help with the necessary dispensation. The problem remains that we are on different sides now. You owe fealty to Henry Plantagenet for Berwick whilst I am pledged to King William.’

  ‘Yes I understand that, but King William is on his way back to Edinburgh and has acknowledged Henry as his suzerain so I cannot see that it should be a problem.’

  ‘The Scots take a very different view of matters, I can assure you. We have been in Scotland for seventeen years and many still regard us as foreigners. I don’t want to jeopardise the trust I have built up with the Scots lords, thanes and bailiffs in that time. However, it is time Blanche was married and there is no suitable Scot in prospect at the moment.’ He seemed to make up his mind. ‘Very well, if Blanche is willing to be betrothed to you I will agree.’

  ‘Thank you Guy. I am confident that she won’t say no.’

  Edward and Blanche were married by Simon of Berwick in the town’s parish church three months later. From the very first the couple were extremely happy. But that was before their world was torn apart by King Henry.

  ~#~

  Whilst Edward was extremely pleased with the hand that fate had dealt him, his brother couldn’t have been more miserable. Richard had returned to Harbottle after the punitive raid into Lothian to find that Claire had long since departed. After Jocelyn’s funeral she had declared her intention of taking her vows as a nun and had retired to a convent near Newcastle. Richard had tried to visit her but he wasn’t allowed to even enter the convent and was told that Sister Hilda - as Claire was now called after St. Hilda of Whitby - did not wish to see him ever again.

  In penance for the killing of Jocelyn, and with the agreement of William de Vesci, he paid for the rebuilding of Hulne Priory near where Jocelyn had died. He had hoped that this would make him feel better but it didn’t. He tended to spend most of his time at Harbottle now. Otterburn held too many memories and at least he had his mother’s company at his main castle. Furthermore he enjoyed going out stalking with Elliot, something they had first done together as boys, and reminiscing with the constable, Turstin, about his father.

  Otterburn castle had been damaged by the Scots during the period it was unoccupied but that had soon been remedied. He had garrisoned it again but hadn’t got around to appointing a new constable. One day in the spring of 1176 he decided to visit Byrness. He hadn’t been there since Robert had returned from the raid into Lothian to take up his lordship of the manor.

  Warren had long since been knighted and was a member of his mesnie. Richard hadn’t bothered to replace him, making do with the servants at Harbottle most of the time. His mother still recruited pages and today he took one of them along to serve him. The boy was twelve so it wouldn’t be too long before he could expect to become a squire somewhere and this would be good experience for him. Two of his household knights and four serjeants came as escort, thought the Scots over the border had been unnaturally quiet since William had formally sworn fealty to Henry at York the previous year.

  When he reached the village he was impressed. The houses had been rebuilt, fields were under cultivation again and livestock grazed under the watchful eyes of three mounted archers. Most remarkable of all, the tower had been enlarged and surrounded by a high stone wall with a gateway. The influx of Robert’s men and their families had more than made up for the losses of recent years and Richard calculated that there must be a hundred and fifty people now living in the village.

  Sir Robert came out of the tower to greet his lord, followed by Marianne and a tall, graceful boy of about fourteen. Robert was now nearly forty but there were few traces of his age except for a slight greying at the temples. Marianne looked as attractive as ever although she was now in her mid-thirties. He guessed the boy was their son, Miles, but he hadn’t really noticed the boy before this.

  His page took his horse and Richard accompanied Robert inside the keep. The hall at first floor level was hardly spacious but it looked welcoming with several small tapestries dotted around the stone walls. After fifteen minutes Richard had asked what the altercation in the great hall at Norham Castle had been about and the conversation turned to Waldo Cuille.

  ‘He thought I was the man who had killed his father but I suspect he wanted to make sure by riling me.’

  ‘Do you think he is now certain?’

  ‘Judging by the two men he sent to kill me a month ago, yes.’

  ‘You didn’t let me know; what happened?’

  ‘I didn’t want to trouble you. They were caught on my land so I tried them and hanged them.’

  ‘They should have been tried by the sheriff for attempted murder.’ Richard rebuked him, albeit mildly.

  ‘And then their accusations about me would have had a public airing. No, thank you. My people are loyal; they won’t say anything.’

  ‘What are your plans for Miles?’ Richard asking, more to change the subject than because he was interested in the answer.

  ‘That’s a good question. I would like to place him as a squire now he is fourteen but, again, I am loathe to attract attention to myself. And I’m concerned in case his master asks about his early life. The boy would never make a convincing liar and saying he grew up in the greenwood would never do.’

  ‘Why don’t I take him as my squire.’ The thought had suddenly occurred to Richard and he had uttered the words before really thinking about what he was saying. Robert was useful to have as the first line of defence in Redesdale but, on reflection later, Richard wasn’t sure about making an outlaw’s son his squire. But what had been said couldn’t be unsaid.

  Chapter Nine – End of the Line

  The years that followed the signing of the Treaty of Falaise had not been kind to the de Cuille family. Guy was now in his mid-fifties and was suffering from arthritis so increasingly he relied on Nicholas to run the Craigmor estate. He surrendered the sheriffdom of Berwickshire in the spring of 1177 as he found the long journey to Lauder increasingly uncomfortable. To add to his woes he was seriously worried about his children. Nicholas was causing him some concern as he seemed to be becoming ever more discontented
with his mundane life in his father’s barony. He was also concerned for a time about Blanche.

  King Henry had been furious that his governor of Berwick had married without his permission: something that had not even occurred to Edward as being necessary, and the fact that he had married a Scot made it much worse. The king had peremptorily dismissed Edward from his post and told him that his replacement would arrive within a week; he was to be gone before then. Not only had Edward and Blanche lost their home but she was expecting their first child.

  Edward had little option but to throw himself on the mercy of his brother. If Richard was honest with himself he had been a little jealous of his brother’s meteoric rise to be governor and constable of Berwick and of his happy marriage so he was not entirely displeased by his equally dramatic fall from grace. It also solved a problem for him as Edward would make an ideal constable of Otterburn Castle. So it was there in February 1176 that Blanche presented her husband with a healthy baby boy, who they christened Tristan after the founder of the Northumberland branch of the family. A second boy followed in the summer of 1177 who they decided to call David.

  Guy was much happier now that Blanche was settled and had made him a grandfather twice over, but Nicholas’ restlessness and black moods were still a problem. Then he received news in the autumn of that year that Simon was seriously ill at St. Andrews.

  When Simon had gone to Kelso Abbey as a scholar in 1164 he was ten years old. He had stayed there until he was sixteen when he had travelled to Paris to enrol in a seminary to train for the priesthood. He had no intention of becoming a village or parish priest, who were more often than not ill-educated and usually came from the ranks of the population they served. As the son of a nobleman Simon had his eyes on a bishopric from the start, but that would mean cultivating the right people with influence in the Church. Bishop Richard of St Andrews, who had been head of the Scottish Church until the Treaty of Falaise made him subordinate to the Archbishop of York and, through him, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been appointed in 1163 and was related to the earl of Dunbar. Guy had met him twice at Dunbar Castle and on the second occasion he had mentioned Simon to him. Richard was still the most powerful of the Scottish bishops, despite the terms of Falaise, and so, when he asked Guy to send Simon to see him on his return from Paris early in 1175, Guy had high hopes for his son. He was therefore delighted when Simon wrote to say that the bishop had appointed him as his personal chaplain.

  Guy had last seen Simon in 1175 when he had come down to Berwick to officiate at the wedding of Edward and Blanche. When he received the message about Simon’s illness in October 1177 he set off again, despite the fact that he was still recovering from travelling to Otterburn for the baptism of his new grandson.

  The middle of October that year was a time when Scotland was looking its best. It had been a dry autumn so far and the roads were dusty rather than muddy. The trees were clothed in all shades of browns, yellows and rusty red and the blue sky overhead was dotted with the odd small white cloud. Guy thought that it would have been a perfect day if it wasn’t for the pain in his joints, made worse by the jolting he suffered as he rode, and his worry about Simon. Emma had wanted to come with him but she wasn’t in the best of health herself and so she had reluctantly agreed to stay at Craigmor.

  When he reached Edinburgh he made for the house of his banker, Ishmael the Jew, where he usually stayed the night when he was in town. It was convenient and it gave them the chance to talk business. Unlike the occasional persecution suffered by the Jews in England, their colleagues in Scotland were not only tolerated but welcomed for the financial services they offered. Guy had not been at Ishmael’s house for above an hour when a page arrived with a summons for Guy to attend the king at the abbey of the Holy Rood.

  William had taken up residence in the abbey after his return from Normandy as his previous home, Edinburgh Castle, was now occupied by an English garrison. It was far from ideal but William had no intention of building a separate palace for himself, especially as he was a bachelor and so his needs, and that of his court, were fairly modest. Guy struggled to dismount from his horse and hobbled into a small chamber near the main gate where the king and his brother David were in conference with Waltheof of Lothian, Robert de Brus, lord of Annandale, and Alan FitzWalter, who had succeeded his father as high steward after Walter had died earlier in the year.

  ‘Ah, Guy. I am sorry to see you in pain and I apologise for dragging you out again. Do sit down.’

  ‘It is nothing, sire, just old age. It comes to us all in time.’

  William laughed. ‘What a cheery prospect. I think we have enough to concern us without worrying about infirmities to come.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Prince David barked, a trifle impatiently. ‘You had better brief Guy on the situation, brother.’

  ‘Thank you.’ William glared at him for a second before turning back to Guy. ‘Not before time, King Henry has finally allowed me to deal with the revolt in Galloway that broke out two years ago. As you know, I made Uhtred lord of Galloway after his father, Fergus, was defeated. Fergus’s younger son, Gilbert, was left as lord of Carrick, the western part of Fergus’s previous domain. Well, Gilbert seized his chance two years ago to add Galloway to his lands by capturing and murdering Uhtred in the most brutal way. After blinding him he castrated him and cut out his tongue before leaving him to bleed to death. He had then gone on to murder every Norman and Saxon settler in the area. This is something that neither I, nor indeed King Henry, are prepared to tolerate. Henry and I may not agree on much but this is one matter where we are in total accord.’

  He glanced at his brother before continuing. ‘Unfortunately Prince David and I need to deal with an incursion into Ross by the Norse earls of Orkney as a matter of urgency. The Orcadians have already conquered Caithness and I don’t intent to let them encroach into any more of my kingdom. I have therefore asked Earl Waltheof and the high steward to lead a punitive expedition into Galloway to seize and hang Gilbert and bring it and Carrick back within my control. I had hoped that you would be able to help with the expedition. You would have been invaluable because of your past experience, but I can see now that would be asking too much of you. With the loss of Walter as well I am getting short of good military leaders.’

  Neither Alan FitzWalter nor Waltheof of Dunbar took kindly to this statement and started to protest. William held his hands up.

  ‘I don’t mean to denigrate you my lords; you have been good and faithful servants through these trying times, but neither of you has the experience of either Guy here or of your late father, Alan. However, it can’t be helped but we can at least discuss tactics whilst we have Guy here.’

  Waltheof nodded but Alan gave Guy a dark look and muttered something under his breath, which the king chose to ignore.

  ‘Well, if you are asking my advice sire, then I suggest you adopt the strategy of William the first of England when he conquered the country. When he defeated the opposition he built a castle to ensure he remained in control of the area then moved on and did the same at the next place.’

  ‘So you are suggesting that we move into eastern Galloway and, what, build the first castle at Dumfries?’

  ‘Exactly so sire.’ Both Alan FitzWalter and Waltheof of Dunbar were now looking interested. ‘And carry on until you reach Carrick.’

  ‘That might be the solution to keeping the Orcadians out of Ross too,’ suggested David.

  ‘Yes, an expensive one but probably the best way to restore order to these areas,’ William agreed, then smiled at Guy. ‘I knew it would be a good idea to involve you.’

  The next day Guy continued his journey to St. Andrews. He was in constant pain on horseback and had to stay a day at Kirkaldy on the way before he could carry on. The next day was overcast and the sky got blacker as he and his escort turned inland for the last twelve miles. As they neared the town the heavens opened and Guy was soaked to the skin by the time he reached the bishop’s palace.

 
; Without waiting to change out of his wet clothes he asked to be taken straight to the infirmary, but he was too late. Simon had died two hours previously. Guy’s shoulders sunk and inside he was crying that this couldn’t be true. He imagined that he was floating outside himself watching a different person, who happened to look like him, thanking the infirmarian and asking to see his son’s body. For a moment he felt dizzy as reality returned and he had to sit down. The monk gave him a glass of water and then took him to see his son. Simon looked so peaceful in death but his body was wasted away and his cheeks were sunk into his face.

  ‘What was it?’ Guy almost whispered.

  ‘We don’t know for sure my lord. Some form of wasting sickness. That’s what made it so difficult for me to treat.’

  ‘Did he suffer?’

  ‘A little at first I think, but towards the end he was unconscious and he wouldn’t have felt a thing. If it is any consolation he wouldn’t have known you were here, even if you got here several days ago.’ It wasn’t a comfort but Guy thanked him anyway.

  The journey back took a week. Simon’s coffin was loaded onto a cart loaned by the bishop and Guy found it more comfortable to ride in the cart with his dead son, despite the constant jolting over the rough roads. Simon was buried at Craigmor. Blanche wanted to attend the funeral but, as she was suffering with morning sickness having conceived her third child, Edward and Richard travelled over accompanied by their squires and three serjeants as escort.

  When Edward got back to Otterburn he found that Blanche had lost the baby, a girl, and was still quite weak, having lost a lot of blood. For a time he was really worried that there would soon be another funeral in the family, but then Blanche slowly started to recover. However, it was obvious that she wouldn’t be strong enough for them to try for another child for quite some time.

  ~#~

  Nicholas had proudly led the contingent of Craigmor men to the rendezvous at Selkirk. Guy’s barony amounted to ten knights’ fees in total and so he was bound to contribute that number of knights, their squires and one hundred men, normally a mixture of serjeants, men-at-arms, armed villagers and archers; though there were many fewer in Scotland who had trained to draw a war bow compared to England and Wales. Most Scottish archers used a bow designed for hunting or were crossbowmen but it was an expensive weapon, as were the quarrels it fired, so only a few could afford one. Guy was proud that he was able to send a dozen crossbowmen as part of his contingent who answered the summons in March 1158. Previously he had been able to field three or four times that number of knights and men but that was in the days when he was governor of Berwick and sheriff of the shire.