An Ancient Strife

by Michael Phillips

  Andrew, Bill, and Paddy all returned to London together.

  Though it was still midwinter, the change of year caused Andrew to look forward and give even more focused attention to the Scottish issue.

  The woman called Fiona had been located, arrested, and brought back to London. Like Ferguson and Reardon, she was eager to save her own skin and only too happy to talk. Soon Malloy and Fogarty, who also had been instrumental in the theft of the Stone, were also behind bars. The druid Amairgen Dwyer, however, continued to elude Scotland Yard’s most concerted efforts to locate him.

  The Conservative leader Miles Ramsey still professed his innocence, though he stepped down temporarily from his party’s leadership. But evidence continued to mount against him in the murder, including a match of the partial fingerprint painstakingly lifted from the sgian-dubh murder weapon, as well as information provided by his former accomplices.

  Perhaps knowing that to apply pressure would prove futile in the long run, the SNP had not made contact with Andrew since the King’s speech. But new Conservative Party leader Archibald Craye, who had served as Miles Ramsey’s second-in-command for several years, was doing his best in the suddenly altered political landscape to woo Andrew’s affiliations in the direction of a new alliance in the Commons. The stakes were high, for if he succeeded, the SNP would be denied its coveted objective, and the Labour government of Richard Barraclough—held partly through coalition with Andrew’s Liberal Democrats—would surely tumble.

  As the new year progressed and as generally noncontroversial legislation worked its way through the parliamentary process, Andrew knew that eventually forces would converge to bring home rule to the front burner. When that time came, Barraclough, Craye, and Dugald MacKinnon would all do their best to convince him to side with them.

  Fifteen

  Meanwhile, Andrew’s walks, reading, and research now took the course of a dedicated search, motivated not merely out of curiosity but out of mounting commitment to make certain he possessed the historical detail necessary to make a wise decision for the country.

  As the backward threads of his own genealogy became clearer, Andrew found himself swept up in the drama of Scotland’s independence on two levels at once—historical and contemporary.

  He had managed to trace his own family’s line several generations further toward the present. Having discovered Foltlaig, Fintenn, Donnchadh, Dallais, Breathran, and Fionnaghal, now the name Darroch suddenly arrested his attention in his twelfth-century research. Darroch and the sons of Darroch were no Gordons. But the fact that circumstances had forced one of Darroch’s sons to move from Fife to the heart of the Gordon district indicated potential links with the Gordon name that Andrew found intriguing.

  It was a period of Scotland’s history, like today, when change had been imposed upon its people by forces from the south. Norman feudalism had sent the young MacDarroch, descendent of Fionnaghal, northward to a region known as Strathbogie. And right in the middle of Strathbogie now sat the town of Huntly—where the colorful blue sign had made him wonder if his family had roots everywhere in Scotland!

  9

  Normanization of the North

  AD 1172

  One

  A poor Scots woman sat up on the bed where she was lying.

  “Are you certain?” she asked.

  “The signs are unmistakable, Nara,” replied the midwife at her side.

  A moan of despair escaped the woman’s lips. Her name meant “happy,” but this news made her anything but. The joy of childbirth had already visited her twice within the last five years. But times were different now. For weeks she had prayed she was wrong.

  It was silent a moment in the small cottage. At length the young mother spoke.

  “How long?” were her only words.

  “From what you have told me, six or seven months,” replied the other. “But perhaps as few as five.”

  Nara nodded.

  “And how long before he will know?”

  “You will feel that better than I. Another month, perhaps two.”

  “Then I must tell him soon.”

  The midwife rose.

  “Thank you for your discretion, Odharnait,” said the woman, rising too and walking toward the table. “Do not forget the bread,” she added, handing the midwife two fresh loaves. “No one must know the other reason you came until I tell Darroch.”

  “You may count on my silence.”

  As soon as the large woman left with her loaves, Nara sat down on the edge of the bed again. What were they going to do? They did not have enough to eat as it was.

  And now another hungry mouth was on the way!

  Two

  Times were severe that winter of 1172.

  The cold had come early. Vegetables had grown to but half their normal size. Snowfall in the late autumn had been heavy. And the cow that Darroch, Nara’s husband, depended on to give milk to his small family had finally outlived its ability to be useful upon the earth and expired.

  Now he could neither feed his children nor pay his rent to the earl for his sparse plot of hard earth. It wasn’t much, but out of it he encouraged a few poor things to grow, and it had produced enough grass to give sustenance to the cow while she lived and still provided bugs for the chickens. He had never known good times, nor had his father before him. But this was surely the worst year of them all. If they did not starve, they would likely freeze to death before winter was past.

  And now his wife was again with child. It could not have come at a worse time. She had just told him yesterday, though he had already begun to suspect it.

  Darroch, son of Donnuill, who dwelt with his family west of the Ochil Hills, knew that he had come from the bloodline of the old Scots King called MacAlpin as well as the holy man Fineach-tinnean macAedh, though he knew nothing of his connection to the rising new clan of Donald in the west whose influence would spring from Somerled, Lord of the Isles.

  Notwithstanding the blood of past kings and conquerors, poets and priests, that flowed in his veins, poverty for Darroch was a consuming reality. These days, the only nobility that mattered in Scotland spoke French and English. The amber blood of one’s Celtic heritage and one’s Gaelic tongue—whatever their past glories—counted now for little. Even what he knew of his lineage seemed to be of little practical value in his life. Though he was by nature a thoughtful and even philosophical man, his life had taught him well the impossibility of putting one’s genealogy on the table for hungry mouths. Bread, turnips, kale, and milk to feed his family—these had to be of primary concern to Darroch MacDonnuill. And this year he knew he had too little of any of them to last the winter.

  Three

  What should have been an occasion of great rejoicing five months later was for poor Darroch MacDonnuill only a further reminder that there were too many mouths and not enough to put in them.

  All at once the number of those mouths he must feed had grown, not by one . . . but by two!

  Even the midwife Odharnait had not foreseen this!

  When the startling fact was known, at last the mother’s heart could not help reflecting on the meaning of her name. They might all starve, thought Nara, but what a gift for the Almighty to bestow upon a woman—to choose her to give birth to twins! It had not been an easy labor, but now her months of anxiety gave way to the fullness of a mother’s joy.

  That his wife should bear twin sons—both of whom, by the look of them, would grow into strapping lads—was an improbability that could not altogether penetrate Darroch’s consciousness before it was confirmed a second time by the midwife. With a great smile on her face, the ruddy-cheeked, buxom woman turned back toward the bedchamber, leaving poor forlorn MacDonnuill with an expression of hopeless incredulity on his suddenly very pale face.

  Whatever the development may have indicated in approbation of his own virility, all Darroch knew was that all of a sudden he was the father of four . . . and poorer than ever.

  At no time and in no place does
the arrival of twins fail to occasion heightened interest in the mystery of birth and the hand of Providence in the affairs of men. Word of the simultaneous appearance of two young MacDonnuill offspring therefore spread quickly through the tiny village. Thence, like widening ripples in a quiet mountain pool, it moved out through the countryside—from cottage to cottage, from mouth to mouth—until at length it arrived to the ear of the lord of the region, Duncan II, earl of Fife.

  Himself a twin whose identical mate had died at birth, Lord Duncan had harbored a lifelong fascination with the phenomenon of multiple birth. Upon hearing the news that twins had been born in his region, he immediately set out to investigate.

  Toward the end of July, therefore, in the year 1173, when the lads were three months of age, Darroch MacDonnuill heard a tumult of horses early one afternoon outside his poor cottage. He rose to investigate the clatter and found Lord Fife himself at the door, inquiring if he might set eyes on Donnuill’s twin sons.

  Trembling lest the laird mention the upcoming rent, for which he had not a penny laid aside, Darroch fearfully complied.

  Four

  Though great influences had come north to Scotland in Margaret’s train, it had been the sons of the Canmore and the Saint—they of the English names, whose faces no longer looked toward their Celtic past—who actually accomplished the most widespread Normanization of the land of their heritage.

  Malcolm and Margaret’s youngest son, David, more than any of his brothers, had been responsible for permanently altering Scotland’s cultural landscape. Bred in English ways, educated largely in the south, and having spent much time in France, David the Saint was a thoroughly English and Norman lord. His marriage to a rich Norman heiress made him the English King’s brother-in-law and one of the most powerful barons in all Britain. He encouraged both Normans and Anglo-Saxons to settle in the north, desiring to bring Scotland fully into the flow of modern Europe. Devout and as religious as his mother and a great benefactor of the church, David I would nevertheless be remembered primarily as the man who turned Scotland over to Norman hands.

  Every aspect of Scottish society was changing during these years. Under the Norman system of feudalism, land became the sole determinative commodity, the essential unit by which all things were measured. With control of land went authority over every aspect of the lives of those living upon it.

  All the realm belonged to the King. In the King’s hand was thus power to grant use of land according to his will. Twelfth-century kings, therefore, granted fiefs, or “holdings of land,” to loyal noblemen they could trust. By this means, kings maintained their domains, kept them free from invasion or rebellion, and profited from them.

  Landholding nobles were responsible to make their land pay. This they accomplished by dividing their land into smaller fiefdoms, which they leased to vassals lower than themselves. This practice provided them with means to raise the tribute they owed to those over them and to line their own pockets in the process.

  Each nobleman was lord over his own particular domain—giving protection to his vassals, while profiting from them. Large fiefs usually contained within them any number of smaller fiefs, while overall the King remained lord of the land.

  It was an ingenious scheme, allowing every level of the nobility a certain degree of autonomy to profit from his judicious exercise of power, as long as he kept the one above him happy. Universal law, as it would one day be known, did not exist. Each fiefdom was a law unto itself, with its landholding nobleman serving as constable, judge, and jury all in one.

  Alas, however, for those at the bottom, where the peasantry labored to eke out a meager living. These vassals at the bottom level of the feudal system had no rights and privileges except those granted them by their lord, who served as both landlord and magistrate. Each paid the master above him, who paid his, who in turn paid his . . . all the way back up to the earls and dukes who held huge tracts of land and who were obliged to make their tribute to the King.

  Five

  Duncan II’s visit to admire Darroch MacDonnuill’s new twins was brief. The son of Donnuill would not set eyes on the earl again for seven years. Yet almost immediately after the visit, circumstances for the poor household began to brighten.

  For one thing, he managed to keep his rent paid—how, Darroch never quite understood. If, as was said, twins brought good fortune, Gachan and Beath had certainly brought it to Darroch’s humble cottage.

  A cow had been given him when the boys were four months old by a farmer in the next village. The circumstances were peculiar, MacDonnuill admitted, but he was not one to turn away such a needed gift. The poor man’s perplexity mounted when, only months following, a calf was born. Surely there was some mistake. The farmer could not intentionally have meant him to have a fertile beast.

  When the calf was three weeks old, therefore, with rope around its slender, hairy neck, Darroch made the long walk out into the countryside to the farm on the other side of the earl’s estate to explain what mistake had been made, to thank the man again for his generosity, and to return the newborn.

  No, answered the man, seemingly surprised only by MacDonnuill’s appearance, not by the existence of the calf. Good fortune followed the gift. Calf and mother belonged entirely to Darroch.

  Protestation proved useless. At length Darroch turned and began the thirty-minute return walk clutching the end of the rope, still too bewildered to rejoice in his newfound circumstances of plenty. Two beasts—this was wealth indeed!

  Nor were the benefits of the newly smiling face of fortune occasioned by the twins’ birth entirely bovine in origin. Not only did more milk flow into the mouths of his children—there were also more eggs to accompany it. From several sources, even a few with whom MacDonnuill possessed not so much as a passing acquaintance, began arriving gifts of a chicken or two. The givers had heard, they said, of the boys’ birth and of the difficult straits in which the father and mother found themselves. It was only fitting, they added, that neighbors and kinsmen do what lay in their power to help. They hoped Darroch and Nara would accept their humble gifts.

  “I don’t know what to think,” the baffled father said to his wife as she sat nursing the two infants.

  “Then don’t think,” she urged him with a mother’s innate practicality. “God has blessed us. It is up to us to accept His blessings with thankful hearts.”

  Six

  The intrinsic societal change in western European culture to a land-based feudal system involving landowners and tenants, noblemen and peasants, had brought with it an inevitable class hierarchy extending from the lowest vassal-peasant all the way up to the King. The more entrenched the system grew, the more advantage was taken of those at the lower levels of the societal ladder. The poorest eventually became little more than serfs, or slaves, to a wealthy aristocratic elite, which included its own hierarchy within itself.

  To endure, feudalism needed a mechanism to insure faith between the various echelons of the developing society. If the loyalty of a landholding noble began to waver, the King might strip him of his land and give it to another who would be loyal. Thus, by the authority of his position at the top rung of the feudal ladder—and his ability to bestow wealth and power—did the King rule his kingdom and command the loyalty of those under him. This process of keeping a vassal in submission, financially bound and morally indentured to his lord, was the mortar which held the whole system together.

  Sealing the bargain between King and nobles—and those nobles in turn with those under them—the ceremony of homage thus became foundational. It was essentially a statement of the terms of loyalty and submission—including both financial and military obligation—upon which the entire system rested.

  To give homage, a vassal went to both knees, clasped his hands, placed them between the hands of his lord, and solemnly declared himself bound as his “lord’s man,” promising to keep faith with him, to bear arms with him against all others, with the proviso—if the lord did not happen to be the
King—“except the faith that I owe to the King.”

  The King, or lord, on his part, essentially said in return, “By virtue of your homage, I grant you a portion of land in my kingdom to hold for me, as my man. You may develop and improve and profit from it and in every way treat it as your own. Certain fees will be required of you, for I too must profit. You must keep what I have granted secure and maintain order on my behalf. And you must help me in battle when I require it and do whatever I may call upon you to do, for you are my man.”

  Feudalism offered an efficient decentralized system for maintaining order in distant regions of a kingdom where dwelt potentially fractious and unruly native populations.

  Subjugation of the diverse peoples inhabiting the land was accomplished by placing loyal noblemen at vital strongholds along strategic routes throughout the country. There, fortified by castles and defenses, noblemen of varying rank were able to administer their fiefs, rein in dissident subjects, and squelch whatever uprisings might occur, thus keeping the kingdom intact on behalf of the King. To these ends, castles began to be built upon raised earthen mounds throughout Scotland.

  And what, meanwhile, of those to whom the lands of Caledonia had belonged for hundreds of years? Gradually they were given to others—parceled out among the vassals of the King, just as other tribal societies around the world would later be dispossessed by those with the power to control the direction of progress.

  Such transformations were slow and gradual. Not only Englishmen and Normans were granted lands from Scottish kings. Celtic earls with Pict and Scot heritage also rose to prominence—or retained their power under the new system. Nevertheless, the imposition of a feudal land system in the north brought more and more Norman blood into the great blending of bloodstreams that had characterized Scotland’s past.