The Hammer of the Scots

by Виктория Холт

  However, like all of Edward’s daughters she had never wanted to leave England and was delighted to be back. She had confided to Joanna that when she married again it would be in England. ‘You did,’ she said. ‘I shall do the same.’

  ‘You may need a certain amount of cunning,’ replied Joanna.

  ‘Then I shall come to you to help me.’

  Joanna laughed aloud and said her wits were at her sister’s disposal.

  Then they talked of their sister Margaret who had been less fortunate than they. From all accounts Margaret had a good deal to endure from Duke John of Brabant.

  ‘He fills his palaces with his bastards,’ said Joanna. ‘I’d not endure that.’

  ‘It is easy to say you would not when you don’t have to.’

  ‘Margaret was always too meek. If I were her I should ask our father to use his influence on her husband and make him stop his philanderings.’

  ‘Do you think he would?’

  ‘At least he would have to philander in secret which could be undignified for a ruler. But Margaret has the bastards there and treats them with honour.’

  ‘She always had a gentle loving nature. And now she has a son, I daresay she is happy enough.’

  ‘It would not be enough for me. But our sister Margaret is like the Queen. She needs little to satisfy her. She has her young Thomas whom she believes to be the most perfect child ever born, and now there will be this new one. It would not surprise me if young Thomas went the way of our brothers John and Henry. He has a delicate look about him.’

  ‘Oh, do you think so?’

  ‘Undoubtedly, and I don’t like his French nurse.’

  ‘She seemed pleasant enough.’

  ‘I think that a prince of the royal house should have an English nurse. We do not want French customs here.’

  ‘The Queen seems happy with her.’

  ‘Of course she is. They chatter away in French all the time. It makes her feel at home. But I don’t think she is good for the child and he does look delicate.’

  It was clear, thought Elizabeth, that Joanna had taken a dislike to their half-brother’s French nurse, but it was a fact, however, that young Thomas was showing a certain delicacy.

  Joanna pointed it out often to Elizabeth. She was irritated by the Queen’s fussing over her children. Joanna had little time for hers. Nurses were engaged for children, she said, and if they were good tried English ones all was usually well.

  The King came to visit his family. A short respite, he thought, before he had to return to Scotland, which seemed to be inevitable at some time in the future. He could not expect peace to reign much longer; in any case he was determined to subdue Scotland as he had Wales.

  Elizabeth thought he looked older and tired. She had heard how he had broken his ribs and gone into battle, which was characteristic of him of course, and although it might have won a battle it had certainly not improved his health. Because he was so vital he sometimes forgot how old he was.

  Joanna, concerned with her own affairs, did not notice that the King was looking tired and old.

  She enquired of him how he found young Thomas. Did he not think the child was pale and had he noticed his cough?

  The King was horrified. He had noticed these things and was trying to persuade himself that Thomas was suffering from the ailments of childhood and would grow out of them. He said so to Joanna.

  ‘I believe the same thing was said about our brothers John and Henry,’ persisted Joanna. ‘I know what is wrong with Thomas. It is that French nurse. She coddles him too much; she overfeeds him. She brings French customs into your Court.’

  ‘Do you really think it can be so?’ murmured Edward.

  ‘My lord, I am the mother of children.’

  She was, he thought, but it was said not a very good mother. She left her children a great deal with their nurses – even more so than was necessary – that she might be constantly in the company of her husband.

  It was true Eleanor had left the children to follow him into battle and he had always thought her the best of mothers. Marguerite might have to do the same if the Scottish war broke out.

  He watched the French nurse. Joanna had sown seeds of doubt in his heart.

  He spoke to Marguerite about it. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘I do not think the French nurse is the best for Thomas.’

  ‘Oh, but she loves him so.’

  ‘Perhaps that is why she overindulges him.’

  ‘Do you wish me to speak to her …?’

  ‘No, my love. I will arrange for an English nurse. Joanna knows the very one.’

  ‘But …’

  He patted her hand. ‘The French nurse shall be sent back to France. I shall reward her well so that she thinks happily of her stay in England.’

  Marguerite had difficulty in restraining her tears, but she managed to because she knew that Edward did not like them. She wanted to protest, Joanna has done this. But how could she make trouble between the King and his daughters!

  What could she do but accept the decision? She was too much in awe of her husband to do otherwise and she did not want to offend Joanna.

  By a strange coincidence when the new nurse came Thomas’s health began to improve. Joanna was triumphant and commented continually on Master Thomas’s rosy cheeks. ‘He has completely lost his cough,’ she said. And she reminded the King that she had brought about this happy state of affairs.

  Poor Marguerite felt sad and lonely without the nurse, for it had been so comforting to talk of home sometimes.

  Then the Court adjourned to Woodstock for it had turned very hot and the air was considered to be good there. On the fifth of August Marguerite gave birth there to another boy. She called this one Edmund.

  Two months later on the fourth of October Joanna’s son was born. He was named Thomas. Joanna was delighted that the irksome business was over and left Court to return to Gloucester.

  * * *

  The Princess Elizabeth was determined to follow the advice of her sister Joanna. She was so happy to be back in England and had confided in her sister that she was going to find a handsome husband and marry him before her father found some foreign prince for her.

  ‘You have always said that as we married once for state reasons, the second time we should choose for love.’

  ‘I have and always shall,’ affirmed Joanna.

  ‘You have never regretted it?’

  ‘Never,’ declared Joanna; and Elizabeth thought that Ralph de Monthermer must be a very unusual man to have won her wayward sister’s affection so whole-heartedly.

  Joanna was young and beautiful but there were times when Elizabeth felt that the flush in her cheeks was a little too bright and her beautiful eyes too brilliant. It was almost as though there was so much fire in Joanna that it was burning her up.

  But Elizabeth was too concerned with her own affairs just then to think over-much about her sister. She had found the man she wanted to marry. He was Humphrey de Bohun, the Earl of Hereford and Essex and High Constable of England. He was also a very rich young man, witty and high-spirited. As soon as Elizabeth saw him she wanted him.

  The King was at first not inclined to agree to the marriage for daughters should be good bargaining counters, but when she reminded him that he had allowed Joanna her free choice it was hard to resist. However, if he had retorted that Joanna had married without his consent, that might be considered an invitation for her to do the same. Events weighed heavily on him. He suffered pain in his ribs for he had never fully recovered from that accident. His doctors said that he should not have ridden into battle in that state and it was not surprising that he still felt pain.

  He was weary of the Scottish troubles which were far from settled. He deplored the fact that he had been unable to complete the conquest. He was never sure when Wallace would appear again and drive the English out of the garrison towns. Then his brief victory would have been in vain.

  He was too old and tired to enter into conflict wit
h his daughters. He liked to see them happy. It was a marvel to him that Joanna had made the perfect marriage from her point of view. It was perhaps better for the princesses to remain in England particularly when, as they reminded him, they had married once for state reasons.

  Elizabeth was appealing and beautiful in love. He had his good Queen Marguerite and was happy with her. He wanted his daughters to be happy too. In fact he was glad that he had failed to win the beautiful Blanche. She could not have suited him as well as Marguerite did. His Queen was docile and tender. Blanche would doubtless have been more demanding. How could he, who had been so lucky in both his Queens, deny his daughters their happiness?

  It was a dull November day when the wedding of Elizabeth and Humphrey de Bohun was celebrated at Westminster.

  Elizabeth certainly looked radiant in her golden crown which was set with rubies and emeralds, and there was great rejoicing throughout the city. It was clearly a love match and the people liked to think that their princesses were not married out of the country.

  Joanna and Elizabeth were now both happy; Margaret had her problems, but she was far from home and, he believed, growing older was now able to look after herself; poor Mary seemed contented in her convent with the consolation that she would not have to consider a period of penitence when she grew older as so many did; if she had missed a happy family life in England, at least she was sure of her place in Heaven. Little Thomas was thriving – now he had an English nurse – and young Edmund was doing well. He had a fine family … with one exception.

  Yes, it was true. That very one who should have given him most pleasure was the one who caused him the most anxiety. His son Edward.

  He often said to himself: ‘Pray God I do not die just yet. God help England if my son were the King.’

  He had a duty to live, to conquer Scotland, to make England great and to keep young Edward from the throne until he was more mature, more fitted to rule.

  Edward was no longer a boy; he was getting on for twenty years of age. A man indeed. Yet how frivolous he was. Rarely had so much talent been wasted, for Edward was by no means unintelligent. He was tall and handsome and had ability. Alas, he was lazy and frivolous and liked to indulge in rough practical jokes which sometimes caused distress to those about him. There had been complaints and these disturbed the King because they were well-founded.

  He often thought of the baby he had presented to the Welsh. What a bonny child he had been and how he and Eleanor had gloried in him! But something had gone wrong somewhere. Had Eleanor accompanied her husband on his travels when she should have been giving more attention to their children? Had he failed in some way?

  He was sorry now that he had given him Piers Gaveston as a playfellow. He had only wanted to honour Gaveston’s boy. Gaveston had been a good and loyal knight of Gascony who had served his King well and so, when he had died leaving a young son, Edward had taken him into the royal nurseries and he had been brought up there.

  Edward and young Gaveston had become fast friends. They were inseparable and Edward seemed to care for him more than he did anyone else.

  It was not a relationship the King liked to see. He must do something about it.

  Young Edward must accompany him when he went to Scotland.

  * * *

  The time had come to make war on Scotland. The King was feeling his age. He was advancing into his sixties and would not admit that he more quickly became exhausted as he never had in the old days.

  He was obsessed by his dream of uniting England, Scotland and Wales, and the desire had become fraught with a feverish determination because time was running out.

  There was little opposition in the south and he marched through Edinburgh and Perth and as far north as Aberdeen. In Moray the lairds submitted to him and the only town which did not fall easily into his hands was Stirling. As usual the nightmare of the campaign was the fear of running out of supplies – one which must always affect a commander when his army was far from home.

  He was going to make a treaty with Scotland and for this purpose he summoned all the lords to St Andrews but there was one with whom he would not make terms. That man was William Wallace.

  Edward had thought a great deal about Wallace. He knew that he was in hiding somewhere. He believed he understood the man well for he was not unlike himself. Wallace was tenacious, a patriot of the first order. Wallace would never make terms and while he lived he was a danger.

  He wanted Wallace delivered to him. He wanted to see Wallace in chains. He would never rest until he had Wallace’s head on a pike over London Bridge as he had Llewellyn’s and Davydd’s. That was the way to subdue a people. Kill their leaders and humiliate them. And what could be more detrimental to a hero than to have his head severed from his body and placed where all could jeer at it?

  He had made it very clear that there would be no truce with Wallace. With that man it must be unconditional surrender. He had hinted that he would make it well worthwhile for one of Wallace’s associates to deliver their leader into his hands.

  * * *

  Wallace had become a spectre which haunted Edward’s dreams. Wallace was in hiding somewhere and the mountains of Scotland provided a secure refuge. It was not easy to hunt a man down there. At any moment Wallace would rise and there was evidently a fire in the man, an aura of heroism and leadership which inspired men. Edward wanted inspired men on his side not on the enemy’s.

  He knew what it meant to men to follow a leader. He himself was an example of that. Would he have won his battle if he had not got onto his horse, ignoring his broken ribs, and ridden at the head of his men? He was sure the battle would have been lost if he had given way to the advice of his attendants and called his doctors. Soldiers were superstitious; they looked for omens. Listening to the legends of his ancestor, William the Conquerer, he knew what store that great man had set on superstition. He had never let it work against him, and even when it appeared to he would find some way of assuring those about him that it was in truth a good omen they were witnessing and he would twist the argument to make it so. Victory must be in men’s minds if they were going to conquer.

  He could subdue Scotland and soon; but not while William Wallace lived.

  There were many Scots who were not entirely loyal to the Scottish cause. Some had worked with him if they had thought it would be to their advantage. The Scots would know the hideouts in the mountains better than he did. Some might even know the whereabouts of Wallace.

  He sought in his mind for the man he felt best fitted to the task and after a great deal of thought the name of Sir John Menteith came into his mind.

  Menteith was an ambitious man who had been a prisoner in England briefly. Edward had released him on condition that he follow him to France and serve with him against the French. When Menteith had returned to Scotland he had joined Wallace and harried the English. He was a man who found little difficulty in changing sides and he liked to be on that of the winners. Edward despised such men but it would have been foolish not to admit that they had their uses.

  It had come to Edward’s ears that Wallace was in the Dumbarton area and it was almost certain that he had a mistress there. Women had played a certain part in Wallace’s career. He had nearly been captured once at the house of a prostitute; and then the affair at Lanark had come about because the Sheriff Heselrig had killed another of his women.

  Perhaps it would be better to seek him through a woman.

  When he was in St Andrews he summoned Menteith and taking him into a private chamber sounded him on the matter of Wallace.

  ‘My Lord Menteith,’ he said, ‘I have thought much of that traitor William Wallace and it is my desire to bring him to justice. You know that he is one with whom I will make no terms. I want him … dead or alive.’

  ‘My lord King,’ replied Menteith, ‘Wallace is as slippery as an eel. It would not be easy to apprehend him.’

  ‘Nay. If it were we should have done so long ere this. But the man is a fugitive,
hiding in the mountains, awaiting the moment when he may strike me in the back. It was hinted to me that he is in hiding somewhere in the Dumbarton area. I believe he does not like to stay too long away from the towns for he is rather fond of women. Would you say that, Menteith?’

  ‘I believe, my lord, that there have been some romantic adventures in his life.’

  ‘Then depend upon it, he will not want to cut himself away from the society of that sex. I believe there was an occasion when he was almost caught visiting a leman.’

  ‘That was so, my lord.’

  ‘I am ready to bestow the post of Sheriff of Dumbarton on one whom I would consider worthy to hold it … It is a fine town, Dumbarton, a fine castle.’

  How Menteith’s eyes sparkled! He is my man, thought the King.

  ‘Of course, if the rebel was in an area it would be the duty of one soon to be its sheriff to deliver him to me.’

  Menteith nodded. ‘But a hard task, lord King.’

  ‘Hard tasks are meant for those worthy to hold high office. Once they have proved themselves honours come their way.’

  ‘My lord, you fill me with the desire to serve you well.’

  ‘Forget not, Menteith, that that is your duty.’

  ‘I shall not forget my duty, sire.’

  ‘Nor the rewards of duty. If you bring me Wallace I shall be grateful to you. But I want him … and I want him soon. While he lives in hiding we can never be sure when and where he will rise with fools to follow him.’

  Menteith bowed and retired, his head full of plans.

  * * *

  The idea came to him suddenly when he thought of what the King had said. Through a woman, yes. There must be a woman in Wallace’s life. It was almost certain that he would come into Dumbarton or some such place at dead of night to visit some woman.

  Then he remembered Jack Short, one of his servants, so called because of his small stature – a wiry man with darting ferret eyes. Menteith had employed him now and then for some unsavoury task. The man had few scruples and he and his brother – now dead – would do anything if the reward was good enough. Jack Short was a man who knew what was going on. He made it his business to. He could be plausible; he had an oily tongue and oddly enough numerous people could not see through his falseness.