David the Prince - Scotland 03

by Nigel Tranter

  The Chancellor finished the burial rite, and the pall-bearers performed their last service to their chief, picking up the enormously weighty leaden lid from the floor and placing it over the embalmed corpse - where, despite all their care, it fell with a most final thud that seemed to shake the very crypt.

  The cymbalist led the living up and out. At their appearance the choir began to chant an anthem, sweet but sorrowful, before the Prior pronounced benediction.

  As the royal couple led the earls down through the congregation in the roofless nave to the west door and out, many sank on knee at their passing. But David gestured them upright. For he was not king yet, and it was important that this should be realised. He could only be Hing King by the election and decision of his lesser kings - which was still to come. He and Matilda had only arrived at Dunfermline from Rook's Burgh the previous night.

  Out in the early May sunshine, they walked the short distance to Malcolm Canmore's small palace, David's old home, through crowds uncertain whether or not to cheer - for this was after all the return from a funeral. Most smiled - but not all, for kings were in general far from being objects of popular affection. Alexander, although more so than the withdrawn Edgar, had scarcely been beloved by his people - his by-name had been the Fierce, after all, and he had a reputation for being terrible towards those who opposed him. And Malcolm, their father, had been hated — but feared. Which he had said was as it should be. So David scarcely looked for adulation.

  In a private chamber of the palace the all-important meeting was held. For tradition's sake David would have preferred to have held it in Iona. But that was now impossible, with all the Hebrides in Norse hands, thanks to Edgar's weakness. None of the Margaretsons had gone there. But Dunfermline would serve — and the outcome was certain enough. Only numbers were in doubt.

  It did not take long. They sat round a table with beakers of wine, nine of them only, although the Chancellor stood by the door. Constantine, Earl of Fife, not David, sat at the head. On his right were the Earls of Atholl, Angus, Mar and the Mearns. On his left, Strathearn, Buchan and Dunbar. David sat at the foot.

  "I see the ri of Alba," Fife said the time-honoured phrase. And added, "And I see the Earl of Dunbar. I do not see Moray or Ross or Sutherland."

  The Chancellor spoke from behind them. "All were sent message, my lords. There has been due time. My lord of Sutherland is not of age."

  "So be it," Fife said. "We are eight - sufficient. Six would be sufficient. Who names a name?"

  "I do," Madach said. "I name David mac Malcolm, brother of the late Ard Righ."

  "I say likewise," Malise of Strathearn seconded.

  "Does any say other?"

  No voice was raised.

  "Then I, Constantine of Fife, declare that David mac Malcolm is Ard Righ of Alba, High King of Scots, by consent of all here. Who pledge to support him to the death, with their voices, their swords, their mortuaths and their all. So say I."

  "So say I!" each of the others repeated in turn round that table, until they came to Cospatrick, who added, "I have no vote. But I proclaim the same support."

  David rose and went to each man, not for any kneeling of fealty hand-holding but to clasp every man, forearm to forearm in the symbolic, firm Pictish grip. To each he said,

  "I, Ard Righ, will uphold you as you uphold me."

  That was all. It was as simple as it was brief. Yet only one other ceremony was more important in all the Scottish scene.

  Yet there was the shadow. Although summoned, two of their number had failed to come. Admittedly they were the farthest off, the mortuaths of Moray and Ross, with Sutherland, embracing all the very North of Scotland. But both the Earls of Moray and Ross were young men, and could have reached Dunfermline in time had they so desired. That they had not come for this most essential meeting, if not the funeral, was ominous. Especially when both were nephews of David — Angus, eldest son and heir of Ethelred, Earl of Moray; and

  Malcolm, a bastard son of Alexander's own, whom he had made Earl of Ross in room of a descendant of King MacBeth, deceased. So both could conceivably make claim to the throne. Alexander's last words to his brother had been to warn him against Angus - but he had not mentioned his own illegitimate son Malcolm.

  Normally there was no great hurry about the coronation ceremonial, which always took place at Scone, the traditional heart of Alba. But David felt strongly that he would not be truly and undeniably king until he had sat as such on Scodand's talisman, the Lia Faill, the Stone of Destiny. Also many of these mormaors, earls and lords would require to be present, and it would be convenient to have it while they were still assembled. So the ceremony was fixed for only two days hence.

  It was Matilda's first visit to Alba or Scotland proper, as distinct from Strathclyde, Lothian and the border lands, and she was greatly taken with what she saw of the country its colour, its scenery and its people, all so strangely different from England. To come to it, for the first time, as its queen, made its impact the greater. Hills everywhere affected her with a great feeling of excitement, an urge to be amongst them, to master them, to see what lay beyond, unlikely as this might seem for a woman reared in the level fenlands around Huntingdon. On every hand were hills, great and small, green and heather-clad or rocky, forested or bare. Especially the unending jagged barrier of the Highland massif, which rimmed all distant prospects to north and west, drew her eyes. Scone was not in the Highlands, but it was on the edge of them, only a few miles from where great Tay came surging out through the famous woodland jaws of the Pass of Birnam, from the vast mountain womb which gave it birth. This was the mightiest river in all Scotland, greater than Tweed or Spey or Dee - and Matilda had thought Tweed unsurpassable.

  Scone, in fact, was placed exactly where it was because of the splendid river. For this was the point, over thirty miles inland from the sea, where the tidal ebb and flow ended and the life-giving fresh water conquered the death-dealing salt, a vital matter for the ancient Pictish folk who, although pagan, had been so concerned with the worship of the very elements of God's creation, fire and water, sun and air and the seasons. So they venerated not Tay itself but what Tay represented, the power of water, running water, which could not only defeat fire but could make the land fertile to support man and beast, provide fish for food - the salmon was a sacred symbol - drive mills to grind, and defend their forts with moats and marshes, and provide lochs for crannogs. So at Scone their priests and druids had set up an important temple of standing-stones; and later Columba and his missionaries from Iona had taken it over for a Christian monastery of the Celtic Church. And this Alexander had turned into an Augustinian abbey of the Roman Church. So although Romish ritual had been established only for a few years, worship had been offered here for millenia. It made an entirely suitable resting-place for the strange, mystic Stone which represented rule and timeless authority in this northern land.

  Robert, the Chancellor, was still Abbot of Scone as well as Bishop-Elect and so in charge of the ceremonial. Nevertheless this was his first coronation, so he required the guidance and assistance of the Celtic Church, which was steeped in it. Fortunately this was readily forthcoming for, thanks to Margaret's skilful handling and little-by-little methods, the Columban clergy were in the main co-operative with their Roman superscders, naively so according to some, accepting the changes as perhaps necessary reforms.

  The coronation service, as far as the ecclesiastical part was concerned, was still mainly Celtic therefore; and like most such, simple and brief, with only a few Romish additions. It was when, after the ritual washing, dedication, laying-on of hands, communion and benediction, the principals emerged from the abbey-church on to the Moot-hill outside, that the unique and dramatic aspect of it all took over. For like so much of the Celtic ceremonial, coronations in Scotland were held in God's open air and not in men's buildings - perhaps a strange conception for a land with such a doubtful climate.

  The Moot-hill, or Tom a Mhoid, the Hill of Vows, was a lo
w, grassy, flat-topped mound, not impressive until it was understood that it was made literally by bootfuls of soil from all over Scotland. Here was where, from time immemorial, the landholders of Scotland had come, from far and near, to swear allegiance and fealty to their High King. But on their own soil, not his - which was why David's title would be King of Scots not King of Scotland. For the land was not his, only the people on the land, and held in trust by him for the said people, a conception seldom understood by visitors from other kingdoms, and especially difficult for Normans to comprehend, with their elaborate feudal system based on the King's ultimate ownership of all. So, when the land-holders, mormaors, earls, thanes, lords and chiefs, came to coronation, each brought with him a bag of earth from his own property. At the right moment he took off his boots and put a layer of the soil in each before re-inserting his feet, so that when he took his oath of allegiance he did so as a free man should, standing on his own soil. Thereafter the earth from boots and bags was emptied out, so that the Moot-hill grew that little bit at each coronation - for there were hundreds upon hundreds of samples to add each time.

  When David and Matilda issued from the church it was to find vast crowds thronging the Moot-hill and spreading down the slopes towards the riverside haughlands - but not a soul on the hill itself. There, on the summit, stood only two stones; at first sight only one, for the second was small and flat. On a plinth of slabs stood the Stone of Destiny, black, gleaming dully in the early May sunlight, solid, enduring. It was oddly-shaped seat-height, round at base but squared off above to the oblong, with curved volutes at each end and a hollow in the centre of the top. Highly carved with typical Celtic interlacing and strange animals, it looked heavy, heavy, most probably formed from a meteorite. To this Stone David was led by his seven ri and the Abbot. Some said that it was Jacob's pillow, on which he had dreamed of angels ascending and descending at Bethel, which Pharoah's daughter Scota had brought to Ireland on her marriage to a Celtic prince. Those less credulous, opined that it had been a Roman altar. Others said that it was Columba's own portable font-cum-altar— the hollow for holding the holy water - or that of some other early saint. Whatever its origins it had been brought from Ireland in the sixth century by the Dalriadic Scots when they came to found their Argyll kingdom of Dalar, and installed at Dunadd their capital and transferred later to Scone in 844 when Kenneth MacAlpin united by marriage the Scots and Pictish monarchies.

  Before this Stone, the High Sennachie came, colourfully garbed. He filled a role similar to that of chief herald and king's skald or saga-man. He now declared to all present that David mac Malcolm had been selected and chosen, most rightfully, by the mormaors of Scotland as Ard Righ and High King in the room of their late and mighty lord Alexander. That the Rightness of their choice should be known and understood by all, he thereupon recited the royal genealogy. If this might represent a comparatively modest exercise for some of the monarchs of Christendom, it was far from it for the King of Scots. For a thousand years was as nothing in the Celtic race-memory, and where authentic ancestors failed mythical ones were never in short supply, right back to Biblical times. Moreover both Scots and Pictish lines had to be rehearsed, one rivalling the other as to magnitude, complexity and colour. So what started out sanely enough as David mac Malcolm mac Duncan mac Bcthoc nic Malcolm mac Kenneth mac Malcolm and so on, ended up some seemingly immeasurable time later in unpronounceable fantasy. Yet none would have dreamed of interrupting or cutting short this quite unbelievable catalogue for the most ancestor-conscious race this side of Cathay.

  When at last it was over, Abbot Robert led David to the two-stepped plinth of the Stone. There he administered the oath, on a magnificent illuminated vellum of the Scriptures, David repeating after him that he would maintain the true worship of God, protect the realm, uphold the laws and do justice without favour. Then bowing, he left David alone to mount the steps and turn, to stand facing all. So in silence he waited.

  He stared around him, a lump in his throat. As well that he had no speech to make. This was the moment, the greatest moment there could be in any Scot's life. Once seated there could be no going back. This Stone would make him into a different man.

  There was absolute silence on every hand, save for the sleepy quacking of mallards down in the water-meadows.

  David took a deep breath and looked over at Matilda as Abbot Robert came behind him and placing a hand on each shoulder, pressed him gently down. He sat.

  Like a flood released, the pent-up emotion of the crowds erupted into shouting. "God save the King! God save the King! God save the King!" On and on it went until the very hills surrounding seemed to shake. There was much more to be done, but this was what the thousands had come to see. David sat silent, watching, waiting, his mind as much in a turmoil as on his wedding-day at Northampton.

  Then at last a trumpeter blew for quiet. Constantine of Fife came forward with his son Gillimichael, who bore the crown of Scotland on a cushion. The Earl picked this up and bowing, placed it around David's brows. Madach of Atholl came with the sword of state, to lay across David's thighs. Ruari of Mar brought the sceptre, Malise of Statherarn the Book of Laws, other ri the remaining symbols of rule and governance. Finally Matilda was led to stand behind the Stone, with Henry mac David, undoubted heir to the throne.

  David had no hand to spare to clasp his Queen's, but she gripped his shoulder proudly, in support. He needed support then.

  He rose, burdened, and one by one, save for the crown which he kept on his head, he handed the other symbols to the Abbot and Sennachie to be laid on the Stone. Then he moved over to the other lesser stone. This was merely a simple granite boulder half-imbedded in the ground. But on it was carved the imprint of a man's right foot, cut to perhaps an inch of depth. This also had been brought from Dunadd. Here each of the ri, but they only, drew from pocket or pouch a small bag. From these each poured a little earth into the carved footprint. Then kicking off his right sandal, David placed his bare foot on top, pressing down the symbolic soil under his sole, in token of/tw authority.

  There remained only the fealty-giving. But since this involved many hundreds of land-holders, in their due order of precedence, names read out by a team of sennachies, not to mention the formal soil-emptying thereafter, it took as long as all the rest together. Throughout David had to sit on the Stone again, crowned, and take each man's hands within his own and repeat his name and style after the High Sennachie. Before that was finished he was weary and stiff indeed and Matilda beside him pale with her long standing.

  But the thing was done at last, and need not be done again, God willing, until it was young Henry's turn. Now, only refreshment, feasting, for all, there on the riverside grassland. They had still to play host, the gracious king and queen, to greet and smile and listen. But that would not tax them too greatly. And tomorrow, whatever anyone wanted him to do, whatever else was planned, David would say them nay and take Matilda off into those Highland mountains which beckoned her, to be just themselves. That was a promise.

  Even monarch and consort were entitled to that, surely?

  21

  ROOK'S BURGH WAS perhaps not the most convenient position for a royal palace - as David's ministers and officers were apt to tell him. Situated on the very southern edge of the kingdom, it was highly difficult of access from most of the rest, and a long way for official folk to travel from central parts. Moreover, the King's normal residence, as well as being reasonably central, ought surely to be in Scotland proper, ancient Alba, the heartland, not down here on the rim of the Merse, territory which was incorporated in the realm only a century or so before. David mildly accepted that, but stubbornly continued to make Rook's Burgh his main home. He pointed out that he was quite prepared to call Stirling his capital, as Alexander had done; or his father's Dunfermline, if that was preferred; or Scone or Dunsinane or Forteviot, even Edinburgh, or any other of the more central places favoured by his predecessors. He would go thereto for all necessary duties, councils, ceremo
nial and so on. But the March Mount of Rook's Burgh was his own house chosen and built by himself, in country of which he and his wife and family were fond. After all, other monarchs had had their favourite seats, often far from their capitals - Alexander at Invergowrie, MacBeth far away up in Moray, Kenneth at Kincardine in the Mearns. But as well as all this, there was an excellent reason why the royal presence should be made very evident here in the border lands. For this was the most vulnerable part of his kingdom. The fact that it was the latest addition, not part of the old Alba, meant that it could be most easily detached again. And the English nearby were ever ready to detach it - as they had done fairly recently to the Cumbrian part of Strathclyde. Nothing would be more likely to deter any such attempts, he asserted, than the frequent residence of the King of Scots therein.

  It was a telling argument - whether or not he really believed it himself.

  But Rook's Burgh had another disadvantage even more frequently pointed out, also concerned with accessibility - but on a different level. Built as a strength, a fortress, at the junction of two rivers, it was damnably difficult to get at. Both rivers were wide and the peninsula between steep and rock-bound. Access had to be gained by going half-a-mile up Teviotdale, to the nearest fording-place, and there crossing and approaching the castle from the west, climbing on to its spine, a most round-about route for all visitors save from the west itself. In fact, from the north, it required a ford of Tweed first, at Kelshaugh; from the Merse likewise. This David could by no means deny - although he pointed out that it did give the occupants the advantage of warning of all approachers, which could be helpful. After all, Stirling Castle, and Dunedin likewise, on their lofty rocks, were scarcely easy of access either.