Kingdom (65 page)

The Scots were coming down out of the woods, thousands of spear-heads catching the dawn light, as if a glittering sea were pouring from the trees. They moved in four companies, one behind the other. With them were several hundred cavalry on small, sturdy horses, led by Robert Bruce, riding beneath his standard, the red lion rampant on a sweep of gold. The English knights appraised them as they approached. Many were surprised – not expecting the Scots to have chosen to meet them openly on the field. Others were grimly satisfied by the inferior numbers of these common foot soldiers, to whom they – the flower of English chivalry – would now teach a lesson in blood.

As the Scots fanned out in their companies, forming four great crescents on the hillside, Edward scanned them from the height of his destrier. He hadn’t wanted to come – to cross the border and resume his father’s war. But now he was here he would prove himself, to the Scots who had challenged him to this duel and to the barons who had betrayed him. On his mantle, which bore the royal arms of England, he wore a silver stag’s head brooch. Piers had given it to him on the night of his coronation. It had taken over a year, but finally he had laid his love to rest in the chapel at King’s Langley. His rage had melted in the cold tide of his grief. Now, grief had frozen into resolve. He would slake his thirst for vengeance on these men before him, then let him return, his sword stained with Scottish blood; let him return victorious to look down upon those who had refused to follow him here. Let the craven curs be humbled by his triumph, none more so than Lancaster, his hateful cousin.

Ahead, as one, the Scots knelt, the sea of glittering spears falling in a wave of darkness as the weapons were laid on the ground. The king and his men heard the words of the Lord’s Prayer come whispering across the grass towards them.

Edward laughed in surprise. ‘So, they kneel to ask for my mercy?’

Beside him, Aymer de Valence’s lip curled. A few of the other lords joined in the laughter.

Ingram de Umfraville, a former guardian of Scotland, shook his head. He didn’t laugh. ‘They ask for mercy,’ he murmured, his eyes on the kneeling lines of his countrymen, ‘but from God, my lord, not you.’

The mirth faded among the lords.

Edward’s eyes narrowed. ‘Then let us send them to Him.’ He turned in his saddle. ‘
Archers!
’

Arrows stabbed down around the Scottish lines. The men remained crouched where they had knelt in prayer, ducking from the steady rain. Most didn’t have shields and many no real armour, so where missiles struck they struck hard. Men collapsed as bolts punched into throats and shoulders. Others hunkered down behind dead or dying comrades, using them as shields. At Robert’s command, the Scottish archers, many of them the green-clad men of Selkirk, answered the English with volleys of their own, but they weren’t a match for the scores of Welsh longbowmen or the one hundred crossbowmen King Edward had called from Bristol and their own barbs, for the most part, clattered harmlessly off the steel- and iron-clad ranks of knights.

Another barrage was exchanged, but this time the rain from the English lines was lighter. Horns were sounding. Robert, watching from the saddle of his palfrey, some distance behind his companies of spearmen, guessed that not all of the English archers had yet been called up from behind the tight rows of cavalry. The deep gorge of the Bannock Burn, which lay to the left of the English position, was causing them to funnel up from the plain, bunching into knots as they emerged on the field. More cavalry were coming up, visible by their lances, but until the front rows moved they had nowhere to go, neither did the infantry.

Now, as the hail of arrows diminished, Robert knew it was his chance. As he raised his fist, a horn sounded among his own troops, its deep voice echoing along the ridge. At the signal, the fifteen hundred Scots of the first schiltrom – under the command of Edward Bruce – began to advance.

The points of their spears went first, a slow-moving wall of iron-spiked death. The front two lines of the schiltrom walked shoulder to shoulder, no gaps between. Behind, three more rows gathered in tight, most of the men armed with axes and dirks. Edward and his knights, among them Neil Campbell and Gilbert de la Hay, rode at the back of this shield of spikes, which fanned out as it advanced towards the English lines. Yelling orders, they kept it in good formation, shouting at the men to close any gaps that appeared, roaring battle cries to goad them on.

Again, Robert raised his fist and, again, the horn echoed. Now, the schiltrom led by his nephew, Thomas Randolph, set out, the earl’s men eager, blooded by yesterday’s victory. Another blast and the third schiltrom, commanded by James Douglas and Walter Stewart followed. That morning, as William Lamberton blessed the troops, Robert had dubbed several young men in his army, among them James and Walter. The cousins, newly knighted, rode proudly together behind the ranks of their spearmen, both keen to win their spurs this day. Now, the three huge crescents were moving in one great phalanx, advancing steadily on the enemy, still forming up, some distance away.

Robert’s own schiltrom remained with him. Angus, Malcolm, Nes and Cormac were mounted around him, the sun illuminating their faces beneath the rims of helms and the mesh of mail. Before him, the men of Islay, Kintyre and Lennox waited, augmented by the galloglass, axes brandished. Close by was the marshal, Robert Keith, with the horsemen. Robert would keep his troops back for now; wait to see where they were needed. Beside him, his royal banner had been planted in the earth, fixing his position and his resolve.

That morning, breaking bread with his men, he had set aside all doubts. Addressing them, he had spoken of the eight years of struggle that had led them from the Moot Hill here to this place at the heart of their realm. He spoke of the flame of hope that had been faint in the darkness and threatened by the winds around it, but never truly extinguished. He spoke of freedom, the first love of all people, for which they and so many before them had poured forth their blood. Freedom – for the hope of which St Andrew and St Thomas, and all the saints of Scotland, would ride with them into battle.

A distant cry rippled across the field. Robert’s eyes darted towards the source. He saw a group of knights at the front of the English ranks suddenly break from the lines and urge their horses towards his brother’s schiltrom. They were led by Gilbert de Clare of Gloucester, visible by his red-crested helm at the front of a band of gold-clad knights. His arms were joined by those of Robert Clifford, Ralph de Monthermer, the Red Comyns and David of Atholl. No horn had been sounded and the attack seemed rushed and ragged; not the usual steady advance of knights, from walk, to trot, to gallop. But it was still the thunderous charge of heavy cavalry; a sweeping tide of death made of muscle and bone, determination and arrogance, all sheathed in tons of iron and steel, now hurtling towards the advancing foot soldiers. The ground shook with their coming. Lances that had been raised swung level. Robert rose up in his stirrups, as his brother’s spearmen braced for impact.

The clash of Gloucester’s cavalry meeting the schiltrom resounded across the hillside. The air was rent with splintering cracks as lances and spears shattered. Men and horses were run through, flesh torn and sliced and punctured. Others were sent flying; knights pitched from saddles, spearmen hurled back against their comrades. But it held. The schiltrom held. Even as his men slipped and tumbled, others surged in to take their places, jabbing at the knights and their mounts, pressing in along their lines. His brother was riding along the back rows, bellowing at them to stand fast. A knight in Gloucester’s red and gold hurled a war-hammer across the knotted ranks towards him, but Edward swerved out of its path.

Their lances broken, or else tossed aside, the knights drew swords to strike out at the front rows of Scots, but the twelve-foot spears that gouged at their horses kept them at bay. Although some managed to cuff aside the poles and hack at those wielding them, more Scots pushed in to stab at them from the sides. Horses, pierced by multiple spears, screamed and writhed. Those caught in the thick of the line, unable to break free, buckled in agony, bringing their riders down to the level of the Scots and exposing them to the spikes of maces and the curved blades of axes.

Horns were blaring wildly among King Edward’s ranks, the cavalry still emerging from the plain. It was a tight battleground, without the space for the cavalry to deploy with the full force of an ordered line. More knights were forming up, preparing to storm the incoming schiltroms of Thomas Randolph and James Douglas and Walter Stewart, but for those caught in the chaos of the first charge, it was too late. With Edward Bruce’s orders cried at their backs, the schiltrom pressed forward, pushing hard against the enemy. The ragged line of English and Scottish knights began to break. Knots of coloured surcoats came undone like a huge patchwork cloth being torn apart as men were cut off, divided from their comrades. Injured horses were collapsing under the determined onslaught of spears and men, spilling blood over the grass, already soaked red.

Those who could were now wheeling their mounts around, trying to ride from the chaos. Young John Comyn was one of them, but as he turned, his horse was killed under him. Beast and man fell together, disappearing beneath the hedge of Scottish spears. Close by, another horse reared, its hooves striking out. Its rider was Gilbert de Clare, who had led the charge, the red goose feathers on his helm waving madly. The earl let out a fierce cry and swung his blood-wet blade at the men pressing in on him. He felled two, before his horse stumbled, pitching him out of the saddle. The Earl of Gloucester went down, the weight of his armoured destrier collapsing on top of him.

Gloucester’s fall was as a pebble in a pond, the shock of it rippling out in waves, from his knights and the men around him, all the way down to the English lines.

King Edward, his visor raised as he urged more knights forward, ready for another charge, saw it happen. His eyes widened in horror as his nephew sank beneath the heaving tide of men. ‘Dear God! Gilbert!’

Beside him, Aymer de Valence’s hard face was livid at the sight of their men being torn apart on the spears of the Scots. He turned to the king. ‘Archers, my lord!’ he snarled, over the din of horns and the clash of the battle. ‘We need them here!
Now!
’ He thrust his finger at the other two approaching schiltroms. ‘Let those curs have a volley! We’ll rip them apart and ride them down!’

Tearing his gaze from the place where his nephew had fallen, Edward swallowed thickly and shouted the order to his captains.

As the horns continued to bellow, more archers struggled up the escarpment to join the others already there, notching arrows to bows or loading quarrels in crossbows, preparing to let fly another barrage.

At a shout from Malcolm of Lennox, Robert saw the English and Welsh archers priming their bows. There were more of them now, aiming at the schiltroms of Thomas Randolph and James and Walter. The first missiles were launched, soaring over the ground, now rapidly closing between the enemy and his men. Robert gritted his teeth as the storm swept through the two schiltroms. Men, struck, reeled and arched, dropping their spears to clutch at the barbs embedded in thighs and stomachs. The crossbow bolts proved especially lethal, punching into men with terrible force.

Screams sounded and the lines broke, here and there, as the injured went down, but the formations held, men stepping in to fill the breaches, others dragging wounded or dead comrades behind them, so they didn’t clog up the ground. The schiltroms kept on moving, closer now to the English, but the bowmen were loosing more missiles. Robert knew it was the archers that had been Wallace’s downfall at Falkirk, his spear rings unable to withstand the onslaught. He was ready for this.

At his signal, Sir Robert Keith and the five hundred horsemen now swept down from the brow of the hill, cantering swiftly to where the field levelled out. The archers, clustered on the outer flanks of the English cavalry, saw them coming. Some shifted round, aiming arrows at the incoming charge. Some horses, hit, plunged to the ground in clouds of dust, but many more kept on going. The company of archers began to break, then scattered as the horsemen came hurtling towards them. Within moments they were in a rout, fleeing for safety, ignoring the commands being shouted by their leaders.

The men in Robert’s company let out a cheer. A few of them broke ranks, starting forward a few paces, champing at the bit to join the fight.

‘My God, they have made themselves sheep in a pen!’ shouted Angus, turning to Robert in astonishment, as the English cavalry struggled on the slope, no real room to manoeuvre – lest they fall foul of the Bannock Burn gorge which fell away on their left flank. Rows of knights were starting to sweep in waves towards the other two schiltroms, but there was little ground left to give them momentum as they dashed themselves upon the walls of Scottish spears.

This was it. Robert could feel it. Promise of victory charged the air, crackling through him. He drew his broadsword, given to him by James Stewart at his coronation. The gold pommel flashed like a star in the morning sun. He called for his banner-bearer to hoist the royal standard, then, with a yell, urged the men of his company forth into the fray. As he rode, the dawn light in his eyes, his men beside him roaring his name, Robert felt that familiar song of war sing its violence through his limbs, drumming his heart against his chest. He would throw himself out over the abyss of this battle; let death or glory rush to claim him.