The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce (33 page)

“I’ll answer you. I believe every Scots lord acted in good faith. But I believe, too, that their good faith was based upon a false premise. They acted—and I with them—out of fear, the fear of civil
war. And in the grip of that fear they—we—opened a door that we might never be able to close again.” The old man’s brows drew together and he inhaled sharply before continuing.

“A moment ago it crossed your mind, your polite denial notwithstanding, that old age was causing me to lose my wits. Now, my mind is as firm as it ever was. But who can swear, with certainty, that the same is true today of the Plantagenet? He is a vastly changed man since the death of his wife two years ago.” He quirked an eyebrow at the bishop. “We should ask ourselves, is he going mad as he grows old? Could it be dangerous to us, to Scotland? And if it is—if there is even a possibility it might be—then think of this
catechism
, as you named it, from that point of view. Do that, though, and you will be forced to concede that in May and June of last year, driven by our own fears and desperate to find a king while avoiding the threat of civil strife, we might have made a fatal error. We might have misjudged our man, counting too much on his former reputation and failing to see what he might have become in recent times.”

Again the bishop waved him away. “Too many mights and maybes, Robert. Too much speculation and too little certainty.”

Lord Robert hawked and leaned forward to spit into the fire, then wiped his lips with the back of his wrist. “Aye. Well then,” he growled, “let us speak of certainties. It is a certainty that Edward Plantagenet is a king above and beyond all else. He revels in statecraft and there is no other king like him in all of Christendom, save perhaps Philip of France, of whom I know little—and little of that is good. With the sole exception of his Queen, Eleanor, nothing in Edward Plantagenet’s life has ever been more important than his kingdom—his realm of England. Nothing at all. And Eleanor’s was the only warning voice that held him in check. She ruled him with love and kept his vices manageable. She curbed his lust for power, his princely choler, intemperance, and regal impatience. She guarded him against his own lack of restraint throughout his life, advised him on matters of state. And he took heed of her for thirty years and more. But now Eleanor is dead, and he is grown more
choleric, more impatient and irascible with every day that has passed. Those are certainties, widely observed.

“It is a certainty, as well, that his realm is wealthy and yet he never has enough money to conduct his wars and keep his armies paid and equipped. His barons are fractious and tight fisted not only with their money but with their men and their feudal service to the Crown. Edward had no need to conquer Wales and add it to England. To subdue it and control its rebels, yes, and to impose his peace upon it. But to make it part of England’s realm? The Welsh are Welsh. They have never been English and never will be. But Edward needed the gold, the rents and revenue his rule of Wales could command. He needed the men and the resources of the Welsh archers, to use as a threat against his own barons. And so he is now building massive new stone castles throughout Wales—at Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, and Beaumaris, more of them at one time than ever before in history—to cow the people there and keep them in subservience and fear. Those are
certainties
, my lord bishop.”

He did not wait for Wishart to respond. “And to this man, this King, I fear we may have made a gift of Scotland, to add to Wales and swell the bulk of his Crown. We have acknowledged him as overlord of Scotland. Our highest nobles have resigned their positions as Guardians of the realm to him and then accepted those same positions back from his hand as that same overlord.
Paramount
, Robert—we named him lord
paramount
of this realm. Think of what that means, or could be held to mean. His English garrisons now control our royal Scottish castles—Edinburgh, Stirling, Roxburgh, and all the others. They
hold
them. For another certainty they say they hold them for our own protection—against ourselves— but they man our castles this day, and all we can do is pray they will return them to us as they promised. We have placed ourselves in Edward Plantagenet’s hands and now we are forced to hope and pray that he will do his best for us with no consideration of his own desires and wishes. That, too, is a certainty, and it frightens me.”

Wishart mulled that over for some time before raising his head again. “And you believe he has selected Balliol for hitherto unsuspected reasons of his own, reasons that bode ill for this realm?”

“He had two options open to him—to elect a man he could influence and control to his own ends, or to pick one whom he knew would never submit to being bullied.”

Another long pause followed that before Wishart shook his head. “That is your own opinion, Robert, and not without bias.”

Lord Robert shrugged. “Perhaps, but it’s not without logic, either. Of the two options, he chose the former.”

“And Balliol will be a feckless king, you fear. On what basis—?”

“No, my lord bishop, I do not fear that. I know it. All my fear now is for this realm of ours. I believe Edward covets this land, as another jewel for his crown, like Wales. He had his goal achieved, if you’ll but think of it, when his son was to wed our new young Queen. But when the lass died, his plans died with her, and Edward Plantagenet does not tolerate denial of his wishes, even when God’s own hand is evidenced. You watch—he will seek now to govern through John Balliol.”

“To
govern
? This realm? Do you have any concept of how mad that sounds, my friend?”

“Aye, Robert, that I do. But the madness is not mine. The madness is that no one else in Scotland cares to—or dares to—see the truth of it.” He glanced at his son and Rob. “Look at these two, listening without a word to say. They and I have argued loud and long on every aspect of this thing and I was hard put to win them to my view. Now, though, they believe me, at least sufficiently to trust that I will not lead them into danger henceforth.”

“Hmm. So what
will
you do?”

Lord Robert thumped a fist into his open hand. “I will do my duty to the realm and I will recognize Balliol as the rightful, anointed King of Scots, once he is crowned. But Edward of England is my feudal overlord by right, and I will do anything on his behalf that he legally requires of me as his loyal vassal. You heard what I told you of the need I see to keep him honest by directing the eyes
of the world upon his behaviour. To do that, and to maintain my feudal duty to him, I will remain close to him, as will my son and grandson. Young Robert’s presence in England will provide us with a listening post. Edward thinks highly of him, and I believe that esteem might serve us well in the days ahead.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Your part, old friend, will be to ensure that the other powers in this realm—the community of which you are so proud—work together diligently to ensure we do not suffer at Edward’s hands in the time ahead. Every man of them, magnates and mormaers and the earls and nobles of the land, must work with Church and commons to ensure the realm’s welfare comes first, ahead of their own. Will you do that?”

The bishop pursed his lips and tilted his head to one side, gazing back at Lord Robert through narrowed eyes. “Aye,” he murmured eventually. “I will. And I’ll be watching closely from now on, for I confess you’ve given me much to think about. And so … Supposing for the moment you alone, in all of Scotland, have the right of this, how much time is left to us, think you?”

Lord Robert shrugged. “Years, but not many. Five years, perhaps six. Edward himself will see to that. He’s growing old like the rest of us.”

“But no more than that? Six years?”

“No, no more. Balliol will have shown his weakness by then, or Edward will have shown his strength to the same effect. The magnates will not tolerate it, no matter which be true, and there will be trouble. But what about you and Mother Church? What will you do if you see things moving as I predict?”

Wishart sniffed, and then in a subdued voice he responded, “We will do what we have to do for the protection of the realm and its community.”

Rob noted the words and the tone of them but had little time to think more of it at the time, for Lord Robert rose to his feet immediately.

“Grand,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to hear. And now we must—I must—make haste. There’s much to do before tomorrow.”

He called for Bellow, and from the moment the factor came in, all was urgent activity. The talking had all apparently been done, and the arrangements to flesh it out and make it real would be set in place thereafter.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SILVER SPURS

R
ob Bruce would remember that month, November of 1292, because it was the second consecutive month in which his life changed entirely, transforming him, when he looked back on it, into another creature altogether, enabling him to see that his first eighteen years had been the caterpillar stage, the formative and vulnerable years that had moulded him towards manhood and had ended with the death of his mother in October. November, and the months that followed hard on its heels, on the other hand, encased him in the drab and protective shell of a chrysalis, enabling him to stay hidden in plain sight and to remain relatively insignificant during the following four years, while steadily increasing storms and political upheavals threatened to bring the free kingdom of Scotland to an ignominious end.

On the seventh day of the month, Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, one of Scotland’s greatest and most active magnates for more than half a century, formally renounced his claim to the Crown of Scotland on the grounds of advanced age. At the same time he transferred to his son, Robert Bruce, the sixth of his name, Earl of Carrick, and to his heirs the right to pursue that claim in future. He presented himself in person to Edward of England in Norham Castle that day, renewing his feudal oath of loyalty and fealty to the monarch as a vassal of the English Crown, beholden to Edward for the vast territories he held there at the King’s pleasure. Edward, despite his surprise at this unanticipated turn of events, was mollified by the dignity and propriety of the veteran lord’s behaviour and deigned to accept the Bruce capitulation, assuring Lord Robert that
his lands in England would continue to be at his disposal whenever he so wished.

Two days later, in an informal ceremony that was duly witnessed by a number of distinguished observers, the younger Robert Bruce, now the legitimate Lord of Annandale, resigned his own title to the earldom of Carrick in favour of his son Robert, the seventh consecutive Bruce of that name.

For Rob, that day brought some of his life’s most enduring memories, uniquely his own, though they involved his grandfather Lord Robert.

The first of them began in the late afternoon of the previous day, when Rob presented himself, slightly out of breath, at the den in answer to a summons from Lord Robert. He stopped at the threshold, though, seeing that his grandfather had company and wondering if he should interrupt, but as he hovered there the patriarch looked up and beckoned him inside, and the three churchmen he had been speaking with all turned to look at Rob. He recognized one of them as the young priest he had last seen accompanying Bishop Wishart, less than a week earlier, but he had seen neither of the other men before. His grandfather quickly made all three known to him.

The young priest was Father William Lamberton, of Glasgow Cathedral. He was here representing Bishop Wishart, who was detained in Norham, Lord Robert explained. The delegation of authority to represent a senior bishop was not idly bestowed, and Rob knew the young priest must have earned Bishop Wishart’s trust, but Lamberton looked barely older than Rob himself. The other two men were both mitred abbots, John de Morel of Jedburgh Abbey and Robert de Selkirk of Melrose Abbey, two of the most august religious houses in the realm.

When they had all exchanged solemn greetings, Lord Robert explained that their purpose here, at his personal invitation, was to escort Rob through the rituals of the knightly vigil, which he would undertake immediately. He would go with the visitors directly to a private chamber where they would lead him through the steps of ritual bathing and purification before dressing him in the full suit of
heraldic armour that had been made for him three months before, in preparation for his knighthood ceremony in England that was then postponed. Rob was justifiably proud of that armour, for it was a masterpiece tailored in steel and mail to fit him perfectly, but he had never worn it since the day he had taken delivery of it from the English master armourer who had made it for him. Tradition, and superstition, demanded that it must not be worn until his knightly initiation. Now he would dress in it and be conducted by the three churchmen to Lochmaben’s private chapel at nightfall, and there he would spend the night as a supplicant, standing before the altar in ritual prayer and supervised at all times by one of the invigilating clerics, beseeching God to grant him the strength of character he would require to be a worthy, devout, and dedicated knight.

The next morning, moving as though in a dream from lack of sleep, Rob followed the robed trio of clerics in a haze of incense as they led him to Lochmaben’s main hall, into the presence of the two Lords of Annandale, past and present, and the close-packed assembly of the Annandale knights with whom he had marched to Perth in his grandfather’s train and who called themselves the lairds of Lochmaben. It was an all-male gathering, but as he looked about him, slightly bewildered, Rob saw his mother’s face in his mind’s eye, wearing a tremulous but proud smile and hovering between him and the armoured ranks facing him. He was aware of kneeling between the two abbots, with the bishop’s young representative standing attentively at his back, and hearing the words his grandfather pronounced over him, but they barely penetrated his mind until a sharp double blow, once on each shoulder, snapped him back to reality and Lord Robert’s voice, commanding now, barked out, “Rise up, Sir Robert Bruce, knight of Turnberry.”