Caging the Lyon

by H A CULLEY

  Altogether three thousand men set off to follow earl Waltheof and the high steward on the road through the Ettrick Forest and down to Lochmaben near the border between Annandale and Galloway, where Robert de Brus had his main castle. Here de Brus joined the royal army with another five hundred men, mainly lightly armoured clansmen mounted on Garrons.

  It was a dozen miles between Lochmaben and Dumfries, the main town in Galloway, so it was late morning when the scouts returned to say that Gilbert of Carrick had drawn his men up ready for battle to the south east of the town in an area called Lochar Moss. The scouts estimated the enemy numbers at about five to six thousand, all half clothed and armed with long pikes, just as their fathers had been at the battle of the Standard four decades before. The difference this time was that the Galwegians were in a defensive position where horses couldn’t operate. In such a situation the pike had a great advantage over almost every other weapon except for distance weapons.

  Waltheof had been sensible enough to visit Guy, who had been present as a young squire on the English side at the battle of the Standard, and had discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the Galwegians with him before setting off on the expedition. Following Guy’s suggestion, he had brought six light mangonels with him. He had also persuaded Alan FitzWalter to combine the archers and the crossbowmen into one unit under the command of a master archer.

  The royal army shook itself out into it battle formation when it arrived at the edge of Lochar Moss and faced Gilbert’s men five hundred yards away. To the surprise of the Galwegians all the war horses were left with the squires well to the rear of the battle lines. The knights formed the front rank on foot with the sergeants on the flanks. The men at arms and then the villagers’ militia stood in ranks behind them. The archers and crossbowmen filed through the infantry and took up position three hundred yards from the Galwegians.

  Then came the greatest shock of all: six mangonels were pushed to the front through gaps that opened up in the battle lines. They were followed by carts loaded with stones. Once in position they started to lob heavy stones at the milling mass of ill-disciplined Galwegians. Some stones crashed to earth doing no more than splash those nearby with muddy water but most found a mark crushing limbs and sometimes splattering whole areas with the eviscerated remains of one or more men. Mangonels were hardly quick firing - one missile every five minutes was considered a good rate - but Alan and Waltheof were determined to provoke the enemy into abandoning their defensive position. .

  The Galwegians had been disconcerted by the tactics being used against them. They expected the knights and other mounted men to charge them. The charge would lose its momentum in the boggy ground and then men and horses would be impaled on the pikes. They stood there with no answer for the constant, if sporadic, bombardment. Then the stones ceased coming and the supply carts came forward with a new type of missile. Tar soaked bundles of straw tied round stones were loaded into the buckets of the mangonels and set on fire before release. The balls of fire that then rained down on the Galwegians caused even more consternation than the stones had. But still they stood there and took the punishment. Although perhaps a hundred or more were burnt by the fiery missiles, some of them fatally, it did more harm to their morale than it did to their numbers.

  Then the supply carts came forward once more. This time they loaded pots of quick lime onto the mangonels. These did little damage if they struck the marshy ground, perhaps burning a few feet, but if they hit a man they exploded covering all those around him with quick lime. It had a violent reaction if it came into contact with water, producing a lot of heat. The men covered in it suffered from severe irritation when they inhaled it or it came into contact with moist skin or eyes, and most of them were wet through from traipsing through the bog. In their case it could cause severe burns, abdominal pain, blindness and vomiting.

  This was more than the Galwegians could bear and with a roar they charged at the hated mangonels. These were hurriedly withdrawn to the rear, having achieved what they had been brought here for. The charging Galwegians then ran into a hail of arrows and crossbow quarrels once they got to within range. As few wore any sort of armour, they went down in droves. But they kept coming. Just like the battle of the Standard, the twelve foot long pikes proved unwieldy when charging full tilt and the weapons either tripped up others, got embedded in the bog or were just thrown away as too cumbersome. More and more men fell to the subsequent volleys of missiles and then the archers and crossbowmen withdrew through the ranks of foot soldiers. The archers started firing again from the rear, aiming high in the air so that the arrows came down to strike the rear ranks of pikemen.

  By the time the front rank hit the shield wall of knights they had been severely thinned out, were disorganised and many were demoralised. Few bothered to press the attack home and the armoured knights made short work of dispatching those who did. Nicholas felt that this was a cowardly way to fight. He had imagined himself riding into battle, lance in hand, or chopping down at and trampling his enemies underfoot from horseback, not fighting on foot like a man-at-arms.

  The strength of the shield wall lay in its cohesion. A solid line of shields was difficult to attack. Every man protected, not himself, but the man to his right. Nicholas forgot this and brought his battle axe down on the man attacking him; a quite unnecessary blow as the man to Nicholas’ left had already thrust his sword into him. But the knight to Nicholas’ right was left unprotected and was killed by a blow over his shield into his neck.

  Nicholas saw the gap in the shield wall appear and stepped to the right to try and cover it. It wasn’t necessary as the man in the second row was already stepping forward to take the dead man’s place. Only he couldn’t do so because Nicholas was in the way. A Galwegian saw the opportunity and grabbed the exposed left side of Nicholas shield, which should have been covered by the shield to his left if only he had remained in position. As one man pulled the shield towards him another thrust with his sword into Nicholas’ left side. The steel blade split the links of chain mail asunder and it went on through the padded gambeson worn under his mail shirt, between his ribs and punctured a lung. A split second later the knight standing to Nicholas’ left chopped off the head of the man who had grabbed Nicholas shield with one blow of his sword and then thrust it into the chest of Nicholas’ assailant. But it was too late; Nicholas was a victim of his own ill-discipline.

  He felt nothing at first as he fell to the ground mortally wounded. Then an agonising pain ripped through his body so that he was forced to cry out, try as he might to grit his teeth. He was trampled on as the battle waged above him and then it ceased. Gilbert of Carrick’s men were fleeing. By then Nicholas was totally unaware of anything as he slipped into unconsciousness before death took him.

  His body arrived back at Craigmor just as the first foundations were being laid for the castle at Dumfries which his father had suggested.

  ~#~

  Waldo Cuille knelt in a side chapel of York Minster keeping vigil throughout the night before he was knighted by Bernard de Balliol, the man he had served as his squire for the past seven years. Rain lashed the windows of the cathedral in a way more usual in the middle of winter than the mid-summer of 1179. His mind wandered as he knelt shivering in the cold, dank little chapel. His thoughts were mainly of his home at Edale in the High Peak and of twin sister, Margaret. They had very been close as children; the one difference being her calm acceptance of their father’s murder whereas Waldo burned with a passion for vengeance. Once he was a knight and came into his inheritance he vowed that his first deed would be to seek out Robert of Locksley and kill him. After all didn’t the Bible talk of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? He saw it is as his duty to the father he had never known.

  Margaret had been betrothed to Sir John Beauilly, the deputy sheriff of Derbyshire and constable of nearby Peverel Castle, when she was eleven and married to him at the age of fifteen. He was twenty years older and a bully. She was a placid girl by n
ature, quite unlike her hot headed twin brother, and seemed to accept the occasional beating from her husband with equanimity. But under the surface the one thing that kept her going was dreaming about exacting revenge one day.

  A year later Margaret gave birth to a son. Something died within Margaret a year later when he went down with a fever just after his first birthday and slowly slipped away. The three babies that Margaret had given birth to after him had either been still born or had died after a few days of feeble life. Each time John Beauilly had beaten Margaret for her failure to produce a living child. Had Waldo been aware of the situation he might have been more concerned at dealing with Beauilly than with Robert of Locksley, but Margaret was careful to keep her problems to herself.

  The day after the vigil Waldo was given the accolade by his former master and he celebrated by getting uproariously drunk and bedding one of Lady de Baliol’s maids. The following morning he set off for Derbyshire with a sore head but feeling on top of the world for all that. Once he had taken over control of the four manors at the end of his minority he started to plan the death of Robert of Locksley in earnest.

  ~#~

  Guy FitzRichard had aged since the death of his two sons. Now the only child left to him was Blanche. He had assumed that she and her husband, Edward Cuille, would inherit Craigmor on his death but, when he wrote to the sheriff of Haddingtonshire seeking to confirm this, he got a shock. Under Scottish law daughters became joint heiresses and he had entirely forgotten about Marjorie, who he hadn’t seen for over forty years. No-one else knew that she wasn’t his daughter by blood. His first wife, Margaret of Edale, had been abducted and raped by a man he had then killed long before he had come to Scotland. The daughter born to Margaret had been fathered by her abductor but, for the sake of Margaret and the child, he had always treated Marjorie as his. This wasn’t important whilst he had a son to inherit, but now this meant his estate would be contested between the two heiresses – Marjorie and Blanche. Just to make matters more complex Marjorie herself didn’t know that she wasn’t Guy’s daughter. The sheriff had added in his reply that he doubted that the king would want to see the barony split up.

  Guy could understand this, especially as it now contained one of the most important castles on the east coast of Lothian. It wasn’t clear to him which of his daughters would inherit this. He wasn’t well enough to travel to Edinburgh himself to see Walter de Barclay, the Lord Chamberlain and thus the king’s senior law officer, so he asked Edmund FitzHenry, his constable, to go instead. Edmund had served him ever since he was his squire and, although he was only three years younger than Guy, he was in much better health. He took Edmund into his confidence but his constable wasn’t too surprised. He had suspected as much; he was there at the time of the abduction and had noticed that Guy was always a trifle cool towards Marjorie.

  ‘And you can swear to the veracity of what the baron of Craigmor states in this document?’ Walter de Barclay gave the elderly man sitting in front of him a penetrating stare.

  ‘I was there when his first wife was abducted and Lady Marjorie was born nine months after that incident. Lord Guy always treated her with some reserve and never with the warmth he displayed to his later children so it all fits with the statement he has made, my lord.’

  ‘Hmmm. Certainly the king would welcome the barony being kept intact’ he mused. ‘Even so it would effectively come under the control of one Englishman or another.’

  Edmund stiffened. ‘Guy FitzRichard was born in England, so was I, and no-one has ever questioned out loyalty to King William, or to King Malcolm before him. Furthermore Lady Blanche, the heiress, was born in Scotland.’

  The lord chamberlain held up his hand. ‘I didn’t mean to cause any offence. I accept this disposition but I will need a formal written statement from you corroborating what you have told me. I will then issue a royal writ naming Lady Blanche de Cuille as the sole heiress of Lord Guy.’ He paused. ‘I just hope that Marjorie de Cuille doesn’t challenge it in the English courts when she gets to hear about it.’

  ‘What have the English courts got to do with it?’ Edmund wanted to know.

  De Barclay grimaced. ‘Ever since the Treaty of Falaise Scots law has been subservient to English law and so Henry Plantagenet can overturn King William’s writs. However, from the evidence you have provided I am sure that Blanche’s case would stand up down south as well. And,’ he went on ‘her claim would be supported by a baron, her husband’s brother that is, against the support of Marjorie’s son, who is still only a knight, even if he is a tenant-in-chief holding his manors directly from the king.’

  The next day Edmund returned to Craigmor with three copies of the writ: one for Guy to retain with his papers, one copy for Blanche and one to be lodged with the sheriff at Haddington. That settled, Guy thought no more about it.

  ~#~

  King William was getting extremely frustrated waiting for King Henry’s response to his request to lead an army and deal with the incursions into the earldom of Ross from the Orcadian Norsemen who had already seized Sutherland and Caithness from Scotland. Eventually the necessary agreement came from Henry but he placed a six month time limit on the expedition. William felt that he was being expected to defend his kingdom with one hand tied behind his back, especially as it would take some time to travel so far north. He didn’t feel any better when he marched past Stirling Castle and saw the royal standard of Henry Plantagenet flying from the battlements. He could well have done without having to pay for the garrisons in the five castles that he had been forced to hand over to the English too.

  His spirits were somewhat restored as he marched north and the earls of Gowrie, Strathearn and Atholl joined him, doubling his numbers. He was slightly annoyed when they made it clear that they expected the king to pay them for the provisions for their own troops as well as those from Lennox, Menteith and Edinburgh that he had brought with him, but he had little option except to agree.

  He had never been this far north and he was stunned by the brooding mountains that dominated the skyline as he crossed Perthshire and entered the Grampian Mountains. William could see why this was a difficult land to govern.

  It was now the middle of summer and he and his men were plagued by a myriad of tiny flying insects that bit and infected every exposed bit of flesh. He looked at the highlanders marching along wearing nothing but a piece of tattered cloth wound round their waists and over one shoulder and wondered at their unblemished bare skin.

  ‘Och, we’re too hairy and smelly,’ the earl of Strathearn joked. ‘The wee beasties far prefer soft skinned southerners.’

  When he reached Badenoch the earl of Moray rode into his camp with the perturbing news that the Norse had captured Inverness. This town was to the south of Ross and within Moray. Once again William cursed the idiotic provision in the Treaty of Falaise that required him to get the king of England’s permission to keep order in his own kingdom. The delay that this had caused had lost him the most important town in the whole of the north. Moray’s men were trying to stop the Orcadians advancing any further into their lands but the earl estimated that there were at least five thousand of them and he had gathered less than a quarter of that number with which to oppose them.

  Despite the loss of Inverness, the king was encouraged to hear that he outnumbered the Norsemen as he now had some six thousand, including Moray’s men. As they neared Inverness the Scots emerged from the mountains onto a plain to the south of the town. Here they were met by several Moray men mounted on garrons who told the king that the Norse army were pouring out of the town to take up their battle positions. William immediately halted to consult with his brother, the four earls and the young man in charge of Moray’s scouts.

  ‘What kind of troops do they have?’ he wanted to know first.

  ‘They are mainly Norse warriors on foot armed with the usual – swords, axes and shields in the main, most are wearing chain mail shirts and helmets, no missile weapons except for javelins. There are
perhaps four and a half to five thousand of them. Plus there are some who are mounted, maybe another five hundred. Sometimes they fight on foot, sometimes they stay mounted, but they are not good at fighting on horseback.’

  William was impressed with the man’s concise briefing and said so.

  ‘He is my son.’ The earl of Moray was evidently proud of him. ‘I wouldn’t expect any less.’

  Prince David gave a breakdown of the royal army. ‘There are three thousand highlanders, including the Earl of Moray’s men, mostly on foot, unarmoured in the main, armed with sword and buckler. Some have spears or axes as well. Of these perhaps six hundred are mounted on garrons. There are a thousand men-at-arms, all armoured and armed with swords, shields and spears. There are four hundred Flemish mercenaries with crossbows, two hundred archers armed with the Scottish short bow, three hundred knights and some four hundred serjeants. Most of the latter are armed with sword, shield and horsemen’s axe.’

  King William thanked his brother and rode forward to look at the ground. The Orcadians were forming up as a traditional shield wall seven ranks deep with their right flank anchored on the River Ness and their left flank protected by just over half of their mounted men. The rest of the horsemen were kept in the rear as a reserve. The ground between the armies sloped downwards slightly from the Norse position but the ground to the north appeared to be level with few obstacles.