The Path to the Throne

by H A CULLEY

  Within forty minutes it was all over. Malcolm had little pity for the wounded or those who had surrendered. He had seen the tortured and mutilated villagers – men, women and children - in Nithsdale and elsewhere who had been caught by Edward’s men. At least these men were given a quick death by slitting their throats.

  Edward and Henry de Lacey were concerned when the foraging party didn’t reappear. As they hadn’t arranged for re-supply by sea, they were dependent on living off the land. They were now short of food and finding enough to feed eight thousand men became a priority. The next foraging parties were double the strength – two hundred men each, including a conroi of knights.

  Malcolm decided to take a gamble and divided his small army in two. They still outnumbered the foraging parties and had the twin advantages of surprise and knowledge of the terrain. Malcolm’s tactic this time was to launch an attack using a third of his men which was easily beaten off. As he expected, the knights and mounted serjeants set off in pursuit intent on cutting down the Scots as they fled. Instead they led them into an ambush and soon all eighty horsemen lay dead for the loss of half a dozen Scots. It was then a simple matter to overcome the remaining one hundred men-at-arms and twenty cart drivers.

  The other half of Malcolm’s men had been equally successful, though they had lost over thirty men in the encounter. The two groups combined and scouts guided them to Knock Moss where the third party of foragers were returning from an area known as the Machars laden with booty and driving several hundred cattle and sheep. Having dispatched fifty men to drive off the animals, Malcolm led the remaining five hundred against the escort. Outnumbered as the foragers were, Malcolm only had a chance to use his flail on one knight before it was all over. The man had the sense to raise his shield to ward of the blow but the advantage of the flail was that the flail had three balls. Two got stuck in the shield but the third ball went over the top and caved in the front of the knight’s helmet. It broke his nose and his jaw, smashed in his teeth and effectively blinded him as the steel of the helm was so buckled that the eye slits were no longer in line with his eyes. Malcolm let go of the flail and drew his sword to finish the knight off.

  When none of the three forage parties returned by nightfall Edward began to panic. Even the Earl of Lincoln was seriously worried. Eventually one of the outlying piquets brought a knight on his destrier into the camp. The earl brought the man to the Prince of Wales. He was clearly dead and had been tied upright in his saddle to a cross nailed to the cantle. On his chest was nailed a message in English on a wooden tile: ‘go home or suffer the same fate.’ Then Edward saw that the man’s genitals had been hacked off and stuffed into his mouth. He was violently sick and yelled for someone to get the knight out of his sight.

  Too late the Earl of Lincoln realised that, by bringing the man through the camp, the army’s morale had suffered a serious blow. That night more than a thousand deserted and fled along the coast to Carlisle and safety from the terrifying Scots. Edward and Henry de Lacey had little option but to follow them and a week later they crossed the border back into England.

  Edward Longshanks had reached Glasgow by this stage, having captured Kelso and Peebles en route. He was engaged in besieging Bothwell Castle, a mighty stronghold to the south east of the city with a large circular donjon or keep. The king had brought a siege tower called a belfry which required thirty carts to transport the machine unassembled. It took two hundred men to wheel it up to the walls. Hundreds of soldiers climbed up from it onto the parapet on top of the outer wall and captured the bailey. The wall was then partly demolished so that the belfry could be laboriously wheeled up against the wall of the donjon.

  The defenders tried to halt its progress by directing their fire against the men hauling and pushing it along but King Edward’s archers outnumbered them by five to one and they managed to keep the defending archers from being a serious threat. Fire arrows didn’t work either as the tower was protected by hides which had been soaked in water. Once the belfry had been placed alongside the donjon it took less than thirty minutes before the garrison surrendered.

  King Edward was in a really good mood that afternoon until the messenger from his son arrived. Longshanks was well aware of his son’s successes to date and so he was expecting to be told that he had completed his subjugation of Carrick and Galloway. He was therefore less than pleased to find out that he and the Earl of Lincoln were back at Carlisle with what remained of their army.

  Prince Edward’s message had been phrased in polite and flowery language. His father’s reply was not polite. It was terse and to the point. The Earl of Lincoln was sent home in disgrace and Prince Edward was to proceed with all haste to Linlithgow, near Edinburgh, after calling a fresh muster in Cumbria. He was to be there by the middle of October at the latest.

  The prince was resentful. He had conducted a brilliant campaign, which his father had not praised him for, until they ran out of supplies. The younger Edward blamed the elder for that as he had not allocated him any ships and the Scots had used cowardly tactics against his forage parties. He overlooked the fact that he had not asked for any ships, nor had he taken into proper account the need to keep his army fed.

  It was therefore unsurprising that, when the two did eventually meet at Linlithgow in late October, they had a blazing row which ended with the king dismissing his son after telling him contemptuously that he would never make a good king and the prince seriously considering how he could hasten his father’s demise.

  Most of the muster was allowed home for the winter but the king, his son and the core of the army remained at Linlithgow until January 1302. William Wallace’s efforts in Paris had not been in vain. In November a French embassy arrived at Canterbury and subsequently talks were held in France at Asnières-sur-Seine. Philip threatened to supply troops to help the Scots unless Edward called off his campaign; it was a threat that Philip had no intention of carrying out, but Edward couldn’t be sure of that. A truce was eventually agreed which came into effect on 30th January. The terms included specific provisions regarding the Earl of Carrick and his family.

  ~#~

  Edward Bruce was furious and Robert sat with his head in hands. Neil and Thomas sat despondently not knowing what to think.

  ‘After all that you’ve said and done fighting against that bloody man, how could you abandon Scotland and accept Longshanks as overlord of Scotland. Have you no pride, Robert?’

  ‘I did what I thought was best for the family, Edward. If I haven’t asked Bishop Wishart to seek a pardon for us we would be outlaws like William Wallace. We would have lost Annandale, the Garioch and Carrick, just like Douglas has lost Douglasdale. How would that have helped Scotland?’

  ‘But can’t you see that in the eyes of all true Scots we are now traitors. For God’s sake, Robert, you change sides so often you’re like a whipped cur who will accept any master for a crust of bread.’

  ‘Be careful, Edward, you go to far.’

  ‘But Edward’s right, Robert can’t you see that? You say that you have ambitions for the throne once father is dead and you have a legitimate claim, but the Scots won’t accept you if you’re Edward’s toady. You’ll be regarded worse than Balliol. How will that help?’

  ‘We need a power base. If we have no lands, no political influence, no men who owe us allegiance how then can I claim the crown when the time comes? There are plenty of others who have sworn fealty to Edward when it was expedient to do so.’

  ‘Yes, but they are not hoping to rule this land.’ Thomas pointed out.

  ‘I can see that you are all against what I have done, but it’s too late. I have already agreed.’

  Later on Neil asked Robert how the clause granting them a pardon had been included in the terms of the truce.

  ‘I asked Bishop Wishart to include it.’ Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, had been one of the negotiators of the truce and was the most influential churchman in Scotland after the Bishop of St. Andrews.

  ‘Why wo
uld he do that?’

  ‘Because I have entered into a secret alliance with him. He will support my claim when the time comes.’

  At the same time Edward and Thomas were sharing their concerns in private.

  ‘This decision of Robert’s will delight the Comyns. They can now claim that, with Robert in the enemy camp and Balliol in the hands of Philip of France, that the Red Comyn is the legitimate king.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re right, Edward. But what can we do?’

  ‘Well, we could disassociate ourselves from the pardon, but then that won’t help Robert’s claim to be the legitimate king.’ Thomas might only be coming up to eighteen but he had a good brain and was probably the brightest brother, apart from Robert. ‘I don’t see that we have any option but to follow his lead, however much we might disagree. If we become disunited as a family, then all is lost.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right. I wonder who else will be pardoned. It might help us if we aren’t alone.’

  The triumvirate of Lamberton, the Red Comyn and the Earl of Angus, who had replaced Bruce as a Guardian, had been dissolved the previous year under the terms of the truce. There was now a sole Guardian again, Sir John de Soules, the man who Robert Bruce had helped to recover his castle of Hermitage in Liddesdale.

  During the truce it became clear that Robert’s decision had been astute. Not only did the English king award Bruce the custody of the boy Earl of Mar, the brother of Robert’s late wife, Isabella, but he agreed to the betrothal of Robert to Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of the Earl of Ulster. Together with the hidden support of Robert Wishart and John de Soules and the more open backing of James Stewart, the High Steward, and Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Robert Bruce was building a power base which he hoped would rival that of the Comyns and their allies.

  By arrangement between his father and her father Robert and Elizabeth’s wedding was to take place in May 1302 at Writtle in Essex, one of his father’s most important English manors. The king was to attend, as would his obnoxious son, the Prince of Wales. The five Bruce brothers rode down through England together intending to arrive a week before the wedding. The youngest brother, Alexander, had been ordained the previous year and now, at seventeen, had just been appointed as Dean of Glasgow Cathedral by Robert Wishart as a favour to Robert Bruce. He would be officiating at the wedding. If he was nervous at conducting such an important ceremony in front of the King of England and many of his senior magnates, he didn’t show it.

  Elizabeth was only thirteen when she married the twenty eight year old Robert. The day was blustery with occasional squally showers. Perhaps the unsettled weather gave a clue as to what fate had in store for her. As Earl of Ulster and Lord of Connaught, her father was the most powerful magnate in Ireland and a close friend of King Edward. No doubt the latter believed that such a marriage would bind the Earl of Carrick more closely to him. For a time he was correct.

  However, if Robert Bruce thought that it would bring him an ally, he was mistaken. De Burgh had ten children, six of them daughters. As far as he was concerned, marrying her off to one of the most important earls in Scotland was a good match and got the girl off his hands, nothing more.

  At the wedding feast the king, who sat between bride and groom was all affability. His son, who sat between Elizabeth and her father completely ignored her and either talked to the Earl of Ulster or across him to his second son, the sixteen year old John de Burgh, who the prince seemed rather taken with. This was not lost on Robert, who was initially appalled but, on reflection, felt that the prince’s weakness could only help his aspirations to rule an independent Scotland; once both their fathers had died. In both cases they were now old men – Edward was sixty three and Robert’s father was fifty nine and not in the best of health - so that day could not now be too far off.

  Robert wasn’t too keen on making love to a child, so he had let it be known that the wedding guests could forgo the usual bedding ceremony. It had been several years since he had a wife to warm his bed, but he had taken several mistresses in the meantime, six of whom had presented him with a bastard. He was quite content to continue with his current sexual arrangements until his wife was a little older before deflowering her. He didn’t ask if she wanted to wait and he would have been surprised if he had been told that she was bitterly disappointed and, even worse, humiliated that Robert hadn’t wanted to come to her bed on their wedding night. It was not an auspicious start to their relationship.

  During 1302 Edward repaired castles and re-garrisoned them and also built new palisades around important towns such as Linlithgow and Selkirk. He had wanted these walls to be of stone but, once again, the treasury was short of money.

  Although the truce expired at the end of January, Edward had no intention of launching a winter campaign so he sent out orders for a muster at Whitsun in 1303. However the Scots hadn’t waited for the English to make the first move. On the twenty fourth of February John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and Sir Simon Fraser ambushed John de Segrave, Edward’s new Lieutenant of Scotland, whilst he advanced from Berwick towards Edinburgh. The Scots had about eight thousand men whereas the English army numbered some twenty thousand. The former shouldn’t have stood a chance.

  Although Segrave was an experienced military commander he made the fundamental error of allowing his vanguard, main body and rear guard to become spread out over too great a distance. The vanguard of some six thousand men were outnumbered by the Scots and they were unprepared for the ambush. As they reached the midway point between two woods three thousand Scots hobelars charged into their flanks whilst two mixed forces of archers and infantry ran out to block both their advance and their retreat. The knights in the vanguard didn’t have enough time to organise themselves and charge the much lighter hobelars. The latter, armed with axe and sword, darted in and out of the milling knights striking mainly at their horses. Once on foot, the knights were cut down by the mounted Scots.

  The English infantry didn’t fare any better. They were demoralised and confused. Very soon they fled the field leaving the knights to their fate. The Welsh archers didn’t have a target to aim at as the Scots were in amongst the enemy before they could bring their bows into play. They too decided that discretion was the better part of valour and fled to fight another day. The Scots let them go and, once the last knight was killed, captured or fled, they began to organise themselves to face the main body of eight thousand.

  The two sides for this second encounter were equally matched in terms of numbers but the English had been unnerved by the rout of the vanguard and advanced cautiously with a screen of mounted serjeants in front. Neither Buchan nor Fraser could understand why Segrave didn’t wait for the rear guard to come up, but he didn’t.

  This time the Scots opened proceedings with volley after volley of arrows and quarrels from the safety of the woods on either side of the wide path through the valley. The Welsh archers with Segrave’s men responded but, of course, they couldn’t see a target at which to aim. A few lucky shots struck home but most imbedded themselves uselessly in trees. Segrave had more sense than to send his horsemen into the dense woodland but he ordered his footmen to sweep the trees and clear them of the Scots.

  The Scots withdrew before them and, as the English penetrated further and further into the dense woodland they became separated into small groups, which the Scots then dealt with piecemeal. Eventually the English became spooked and fled back out of the woods.

  In the meantime the hobelars had charged the waiting body of knights and their squires and had driven them back towards Berwick. Segrave, finding himself virtually alone, had fled after them.

  The rear-guard was also six thousand strong but they were strung out guarding the baggage train and the camp followers. Having seen the rest of the army flee past them they were very jittery and many fled as soon as the Scots hobelars rode into view. The remainder put up some resistance but it was soon over.

  Not only had the Scots defeated an army two and a half times its own
size but it had also captured the English baggage train. However, that was the only piece of good news for the Scots that year.

  Robert Bruce played no part in the campaign. His new father-in-law sent a fleet of nearly two hundred vessels to support King Edward and they started by capturing the Isle of Bute. They then landed near Inverkip on the Clyde and defeated a local Scots force. However the Irish had little impact strategically, apart from capturing Rothsay Castle for Edward, and they soon sailed away again with their plunder.

  William Wallace returned from France as his embassy had ultimately ended in failure. Philip of France had been defeated by the Flemings and was too preoccupied by problems at home to press the Scots’ case with the Pope. Once free of French pressure, Boniface declared that Edward Longshanks was Lord Paramount of Scotland and, furthermore, that the Scottish dioceses were part of the Archdiocese of York. This meant that Robert Langton was no longer primate of Scotland but merely Bishop of St. Andrews.

  William Wallace and Malcolm Cowan immediately started to harass Edward’s army as it made its way from Berwick to Brechin via a floating bridge Edward’s engineers had built over the Firth of Forth. Brechin Castle stoutly resisted Longshanks until a rock hurled by a trebuchet hit the castle parapet near where the constable was standing and he was killed by a sliver of stone. The castle then surrendered.

  The rest of the campaign achieved little. Once Edward had gathered the scattered remnants of his army and repaired the damage done by Buchan and Fraser, he marched as far north as the Moray Firth and encountered no opposition worthy of the name. By November he had moved south again and he decided to spend the winter at Dunfermline.