The King's Dogge (25 page)

They remained there for some moments, faces raised in supplication to the Scots on the walls. It seemed that they would be saved as no move against them was forthcoming. My hopes proved ill-founded; men approached the top of the ladder, two of them carrying what looked like a tub. The liquid poured from the tub seared through the upturned faces of the men on the ladder. They raised their hands instinctively to try to assuage the indescribable agony of the quicklime upon their skin. As they fell below, the Scottish archers on the battlements lined up; working in conjunction with the Scots in the castle, they shot arrow after arrow at the fleeing troops.

‘We were routed.' Lord Stanley spoke firmly, but with fierce intensity.

I sat silently with him in his tent. The disastrous assault at Berwick had been bad enough, but the flight that followed had been a disgrace. In their panic to escape, our men had simply run, discarding weapons and bows. No attempt had been made to recover the stores or to assist the wounded.

I clenched my fists in anger. There had been many wounded who could have been saved as the Scots had made no attempt to pursue us. Many of these could have been treated, but neither Lord Stanley's captains nor his men had bothered with them in their haste to escape. Indeed, as far as I could recall, Lord Stanley's captains had appeared to be leading the rush to cross back over the river before the tide rose too high.

‘We'll have to try an alternative plan,' Lord Stanley began. But then he froze in shock and looked at me wildly. ‘What's that noise?'

I listened but could hear nothing. Excusing myself, I went outside and listened to the sounds that drifted across from the Scottish side of the river. At last, satisfied that I was correct, I returned inside.

‘It's the Scots,' I told Lord Stanley grimly. ‘They're torturing the men we abandoned.'

He bit his fist in horror.

‘What a way to celebrate their victory! I pray they will be tired of it by tomorrow.'

He was wrong. In order to convince Lord Stanley's men of the inadvisability of making further attacks on Berwick, the Scots devised a cruel deterrent.

At the base of the long curtain wall that straggles down the hillside from Berwick Castle, there was a small stone fortification. Positioned on the very edge of the river, the fortress was designed to provide additional protection to the castle itself.

At low tide, the little fort could fulfil this role quite well, but when the tide rose the fortress' usefulness was compromised as it became submerged by the waters. Unperturbed by this defensive weakness, the Scots made good use of the fortress. Every day a fresh batch of prisoners was imprisoned in it at low tide.

For ten long evenings Lord Stanley's men watched petrified as the tide rose. They tried to block out the frantic screams of the comrades they had abandoned, as they slowly drowned in the dark.

Brutal though the Scots' tactics were, they succeeded. Even Lord Stanley lost his enthusiasm for all-out assaults.

A day later he agreed to my plan.

‘So Gloucester will send ships in order that we can blockade Berwick by sea,' he summarised, ‘while I and my men try to contain the Scots here.'

‘That's right' I agreed. ‘Now while you do that I'll take my horsemen and archers behind the enemy lines and stop all reinforcements and supplies reaching Berwick. With no supplies, the Scots will weaken and then we can capture it.'

Lord Stanley thoughtfully stroked his beard. ‘It could work,' he admitted, ‘but if you are defeated then I have not got enough men to capture Berwick. I would have to abandon the siege and the invasion could not proceed.'

And Richard of Gloucester would be shamed and ridiculed.

‘I won't be defeated', I told Lord Stanley resolutely.

A few weeks later my confidence waned. The first Scottish convoy moving down the coast road to Berwick had been poorly defended and, not expecting attack, our archers made short work of the few Scottish troops. We had taken the wagons and draught animals to camp and buried the Scottish dead. It was as though the convoy had never existed. However, with the second convoy, we lost the element of surprise. While we captured the supplies, a number of Scottish horsemen managed to escape in the driving rain. Fennell's archers had been unable to shoot properly and, while our horsemen had killed a number of fleeing Scots, some got away.

‘So what will the Scots do now?' Dick Middleton asked as we rode back to the camp in the great forest.

‘I suspect what the Scots will do is to gather all their supplies for Berwick and send them down with the reinforcements. This would serve two purposes. Firstly, they would prove a strong escort on the journey south to Berwick. Secondly, if they could get their supplies to Berwick, they know we would have to retreat.'

He frowned. ‘Why's that?'

‘Because once they have all their men and supplies at Berwick the English invasion cannot go ahead,' I said irritably. ‘They would be too strong a force for Richard of Gloucester's army to leave behind.'

Dick Middleton agreed hesitantly.

‘Mm… well I suppose we'll just have to wait until they move their men and supplies down to Berwick. We might just be able to deal with them, providing they are not too strong.'

This was the issue that had caused me to worry. At the outset I had assumed the Scots would reinforce and re-supply Berwick bit by bit. They were, after all, moving supplies in their own territory and had no reason to fear attack. But with the knowledge that a hostile force was based in their country, their tactics would alter radically. They would merely muster the strongest force they could and send it down to Berwick along with the supplies. Nor did they have any need to look for us; the Scots knew that we would have to attack their force. If we failed to defeat it and the Scots reached Berwick, then the English plans for invasion would be ruined.

Back in camp, Sergeant Haxx greeted me.

‘Have you learnt anything from the Scottish prisoners we captured after the first attack?' I asked him.

He shook his head as we walked together on the soft moss.

‘Nossir! Scotch bastards refuse to give anything but their names, sir!'

‘What nothing at all?'

Haxx halted reluctantly. ‘One of those Scottish thieves has the same name as you have, sir – Lovell; he's called, Henry Lovell. Mind you, I wouldn't trust that little bastard.'

‘Why not?'

He gave me a pitying look. ‘Got clean hands sir. How many soldiers do you know that have got clean hands. It's not natural sir!'

‘I'd like to meet Henry Lovell.'

‘I'll have him sent to you.'

It was dusk when the mysterious Henry Lovell was brought to my tent. We inspected each other silently. He seemed shorter and slighter than me. He was probably a bit older too, I mused; there was grey in that sandy hair of his.

‘I will tell you nothing that will assist the invasion,' he told me curtly.

I grinned at him.

‘I wasn't going to ask you why a well-born man was going to Berwick, while it was under siege.'

‘I would not tell you.'

‘Nor why he sought to pass himself off as a common soldier.'

‘It's none of your business.'

‘Tell me about yourself.'

He looked amused.

‘Do you think you'll succeed where your man Haxx failed?'

‘No, but I won't try.'

To put him at his ease I told him a little of myself first. He listened attentively and, when I had finished, he got up and stretched.

‘You're honest, Francis; I like that in a man.'

I choked on my wine.

‘How do you know that?'

‘What you've told me bears out everything that we already know about you,' he replied coolly.

But despite our mutual suspicion, Henry Lovell and I drifted closer to one another. If there were certain topics we would never discuss, there were a great many others which we could. We found we had common interests and drank together. One evening he told me of himself.

His own life had been an interesting one. He had done his military training in France and then moved to Burgundy to become a hired soldier for Duke Charles.

‘I'm surprised you survived that experience.'

‘So was I,' he admitted with a grin. ‘After Grandson, I swore that next time I would be the one holding the pike, not facing it.'
¹⁵

Lacking confidence in Duke Charles's ability to win a battle, he had returned to Scotland and married, but, sadly, his wife had died in childbirth leaving him a son. After a spell fighting in the East March, he had entered the service of the Earl of Argyll, the Scottish Chancellor.

‘So what are your duties?'

He raised an eyebrow.

‘What do you do for Richard of Gloucester?'

‘Mm… All right, I see. So where's your home?'

‘Ballumbie.' He grinned at my blank expression. ‘You mean to tell me that you've not heard of it? It's near Dundee.'

I believed that Dundee was on the east coast near Edinburgh.

‘Have your family always lived there?'

‘Originally we settled in Hawick.'

‘Oh yes, Hawick'

I doubt I convinced him, but he continued regardless anyway.

‘That's where the Scottish Lovells started,' he explained. ‘Three or four generations after the Norman Conquest, one Ralph Lovell became quite a favourite of your king, Henry II. He gave him a wealthy heiress, Margaret of Hawick, to be his wife.'

I had never heard of any of this before.

‘So the Scottish Lovells and the English branch descended side by side thereafter. Are there any more of us anywhere?'

‘Well I suppose there must be the French line.' Henry smiled at my enthusiasm. ‘Our mutual ancestor came over at the time of William the Conqueror and was given lands in England but the rest of the family stayed in France. They must have done well for themselves. My father told me that one of them rose to become Chief Butler of Normandy.'

‘What does a chief butler do?'

‘I've no idea,' Henry responded frankly. ‘It can't be that important though or else we would have one in Scotland.'