Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

CAMEO XXXVIII. BANNOCKBURN. (1307-1313.)

_King of England_.

1307. Edward II.

_King of Scotland_.

1306. Robert I.

_King of France_.

1285. Philippe IV.

_Emperor of Germany_.

1308. Henry VII.

_Pope_.

1305. Clement VI.

While the son of the Hammer of the Scots wasted his manhood in silken ease, the brave though savage patriots of the North were foot by foot winning back their native soil.

Lord Clifford had posted an English garrison in Douglas Castle, and reigned over Douglasdale, which had been granted to him by Edward I. on the forfeiture of Baron William. It sorely grieved the spirit of James Douglas to see his inheritance held by the stranger, and, with Bruce's permission, he sought his own valley in disguise, revealing himself only to an old servant, named Thomas Dickson, who burst into tears at the first sight of his young lord, and gave him shelter in his cottage.

Here Douglas lay concealed, while Dickson conducted to him, one by one, his trusty vassals, and measures were concerted with total disregard to the sacred holiday. Once, all Passion-tide would have been peaceful for the sake of the Truce of God; but the wrongs of the Scots had blotted out all the gentler influences that soften war, and in their eyes justified treachery and sacrilege. On the Palm-Sunday of 1307, when the English troops would come forth in procession to the Church of St. Bride, carrying willow boughs in memory of the palm-branches at Jerusalem, the adherents of Douglas intended to attack and beset them on all sides, and Douglas, by way of encouragement, made a grant to Dickson of the lands of Hisleside. Dickson and the other secret friends of the Scots mingled in the procession, with their arms concealed, and entered the church with the English, and no sooner had they disappeared within the low doorway, than the loud slogan of "Douglas! Douglas!" was heard without. Dickson drew his sword and ran upon the English, but the signal had been given too soon, and he was overthrown and slain before Sir James came up. The English bravely defended the chancel, but Douglas and his armed followers prevailed, killed twenty-six, took twelve prisoners, and set out for the castle, which, in full security, had been left with all the gates open, with no one within but the porter, and the cook dressing the dinner, which was eaten by very different guests from those whom they expected. Douglas had not men enough to hold the castle, and had a great dislike to standing a siege. "I had rather hear the lark sing, than the mouse squeak," was his saying, and he therefore resolved to return to his king on the mountains, and carry off all the treasure and arms that could be transported from Douglasdale. As to the remainder, he showed that French breeding had not rooted the barbarian even out of the "gentil Lord James." He broke up every barrel of wheat, flour, or meal, staved every cask of wine or ale among them on the floor of the hall, flung the corpses of dead men and horses upon them, slew his prisoners on the top of the horrible compound, and finally set fire to the castle, calling it, in derision, the Douglas Larder.

Clifford, enraged at this horrible foray, came in person to Douglasdale, cleansed the fire-scathed walls, built a new tower, and entrusted the defence to a captain named Thirlwall. Him Sir James deluded by sending fourteen men to drive a herd of cattle past the castle, when Thirlwall, intending to plunder the drovers, came forth, fell into the ambush laid for him by Douglas, and was slain with all his men.

It went forth among the English, that Black Sir James had made oath that, if he abode not within his father's castle, neither should any Englishman dwell there. The knights of Edward's court named it the "Perilous Castle of Douglas," and Lord Clifford found that even brave men made excuses, and were unwilling to risk the dishonor of the loss, or to run the chance of serving to furnish a second Douglas larder. At this juncture a young lady, enthusiastic in romance, bethought her of making her hand the reward of any knight who would hold out the Perilous Castle for a year and a day. The spirited Sir John de Walton took the damsel at her word, and shut himself up in Douglas Castle; but his prudence did not equal his courage, and he fell a prey to the same stratagem which had deluded Thirlwall, except that the bait, in this case, was sacks of corn instead of wandering cattle. The young knight was slain in the encounter, when his lady's letters were found in his bosom, and brought to Sir James, who was so much touched by this chivalrous incident that he spared the remainder of the garrison, and gave them provisions and money to return in safety to Clifford [Footnote: The wild adventures at the Perilous Castle derive a most affecting interest from the chord they never failed to touch in the heart of "The Last Minstrel." Seen by him when a schoolboy, the Dale of Douglas, the ruin of the castle, and the tombs at St. Bride's, aided to form his spirit of romance; the Douglas ballad lore rang in his ears through life, stirring his heart and swelling his eyes with tears; and the home of the Douglas was the last spot he sought to explore, in the land which he loved with more than a patriot's love. Castle Dangerous was the last tale he told; and though the hand was feeble, the brain over-tasked, and the strain faltering, yet still the same heart breathed in every word, and it was a fit farewell from Scott to the haunted castles, glens, and hills of his home.]

Douglasdale, Ettrick Forest, and Jeddart, were thus made too terrible to be held by the English; but Bruce himself was for a long time disabled by a severe illness which gave slight hope of recovery. At Inverary, the Earl of Buchan made an attack on him when he was still so weak as to be obliged to be supported on horseback by a man on either side of him; but he gained a complete victory, and followed it up by such a dreadful devastation, that "the harrying of Buchan" was a proverb for half a century. The oaks sunk deep in the mosses bear marks of fire on their trunks, as if in memory of this destruction.

Another victory, a "right fair point of chivalry," was gained in Galloway by Edward Bruce, who in one year, 1308, took thirteen fortresses in that district. Robert might well say that "he was more afraid of the bones of Edward I. than of the living Edward of Caernarvon, and that it was easier to win a kingdom from the son than half a foot of land from the father." Edward II. was always intending to come to Scotland in person, and wasting time in preparations, spending subsidies as fast as he collected them, and changing his governors. In less than a year six different rulers were appointed, and, of course no consistent course could be pursued by nobles following each other in such quick succession.

At a lonely house near Lyme Water, Sir James Douglas captured the King's sister's son, Thomas Randolph, and led him to Bruce.

"Nephew" said Bruce, "you have forgotten your allegiance."

"Have Done nothing of which I have been ashamed," returned Randolph. "You blame me, but you deserve blame. If you choose to defy the King of England, why not debate the matter like a true knight in a pitched field?"

"That may be hereafter," replied Bruce, calmly; "but since thou art so rude of speech, it is fitting thy proud words should be punished, till thou learn my right and thy duty."

Whatever was, strictly speaking, Bruce's _right_, his nephew learnt in captivity to respect it, gave in his adhesion to King Robert, was created Earl of Moray, and became one of the firmest friends of his throne. The world was beginning to afford the successful man countenance, and the cunning Philippe le Bel wrote letters which were to pass through England under the address of the Earl of Carrick, but, within, bore the direction to King Robert of Scotland.

A vain march of Edward II into Scotland was revenged by a horrible inroad of the Scots into Northumberland, up to the very gates of Durham. On his return, Robert tried to surprise Berwick, but was prevented by the barking of a dog, which awakened the garrison. He next besieged Perth. After having discovered the shallowest part of the moat, he made a feint of raising the siege, and, after an absence of eight days, made a sudden night-attack, wading through the moat with the water up to his neck, and a scaling-ladder in one hand, while with the other he felt his way with his spear.

"What," cried a French knight, "shall we say of our lords, who live at home in ease and jollity, when so brave a knight is here risking his life to win a miserable hamlet?"

So saying, the Frenchman rushed after the King and his men, and the town was taken before the garrison were well awake.

About the same time Douglas came upon Roxburgh, when the garrison were enjoying the careless mirth of Shrovetide. Hiding their armor with dark cloaks, Sir James and his men crept on all-fours through the brushwood till they came to the very foot of the battlements, and could hear a woman singing to her child that the Black Douglas should not touch it, and the sentries saying to each other that yonder oxen were out late. Planting their ladders, the Scots gained the summit of the tower, killed the sentinels, and burst upon the revelry with shouts of "Douglas! Douglas!" The governor, a gallant Burgundian knight, named Fiennes, retreated into the keep, and held out till he was badly wounded, and forced to surrender, when he was spared, and retreated to die in England, while the castle was levelled to the ground by Edward Bruce.

The destruction of these strongholds was matter of great joy to the surrounding peasantry, who had been cruelly despoiled by the English soldiers there stationed; and a farmer, named Binning, actually made an attempt upon the great fortress of Linlithgow, which was well garrisoned by the English. He had been required to furnish the troops with hay, and this gave him the opportunity of placing eight strong peasants well armed, lying hidden, in the wagon, by which he walked himself, while it was driven by a stout countryman with an axe at his belt, and another party were concealed close without the walls.

The drawbridge was lowered, and the portcullis raised to admit the forage, when, at the moment that the wagon stood midway beneath the arch, at a signal from the farmer, the driver with his axe cut asunder the yoke, the horses started forward, and Binning, with a loud cry, "Call all! call all!" drew the sword hidden under his carter's frock, and killed the porter. The eight men leaped out from among the hay, and were joined by their friends from the ambush without; the cart under the doorway prevented the gates from being closed, and the pile of hay caught the portcullis as it fell. The Englishmen, surprised and discomfited, had no time to make head against the rustics, and were slaughtered or made prisoners; the castle was given up to the King, and Binning received the grant of an estate, and became a gentleman of coat-armor, with a wagon argent on his shield, and the harnessed head of a horse for a crest.

Jedburgh, Stirling, and Edinburgh, were the last castles still in the hands of the invaders. The Castle of Edinburgh, aloft on the rock frowning above the town, had been held by the English full twenty years, and, when Randolph was sent to besiege it, was governed by a Gascon knight named Piers Luband, a kinsman of Gaveston. In hatred and suspicion of all connected with the minion, the English soldiers rose against the foreigner, threw him into a dungeon, and, electing a fresh captain, made oath to hold out to the last. The rock was believed to be inaccessible, and a blockade appeared to be the only means of reducing the garrison. This had already lasted six weeks, when a man named Frank, coming secretly to Randolph, told him that his father had formerly been governor, and that he, when a youth, had been in the habit of scrambling down the south face of the rock, at night, to visit a young damsel who lived in the Grass-market, and returning in the same manner; and he undertook to guide a party by this perilous ascent into the very heart of the castle.

Randolph caught at the proposal, desperate as it was, and, selecting thirty men, chose an excessively dark night for the adventure. Frank went the first, climbing up the face of the precipice with hands and feet; then followed Sir Andrew Grey; thirdly, Randolph himself; and then the rest of the party. The ascent was exceedingly difficult and dangerous, especially in utter darkness and to men in full armor, fearing to make the slightest noise. Coming to a projecting crag, close under the wall, they rested to collect their breath, and listen. It was the moment when the guards were going their rounds, and, to their horror, they heard a soldier exclaim, as he threw a pebble down on them, "Away! I see you well!" A few more stones, and every man of them might have been hurled from the cliff by the soldiers merely rolling down stones on them. They dared not more, and a few moments' silence proved that the alarm had been merely a trick to startle the garrison-a jest soon to turn to earnest.

When the guard had passed on, the brave Scots crept to the foot of the wall, where it was only twelve feet high, and fixed the iron hook of their rope-ladder to the top of it. Ere all had mounted, the clank of their weapons had been heard, shouts of "Treason!" arose, and the sentinels made a brave resistance; but it was too late, and, after some hard fighting, the survivors of the garrison were forced to surrender. Sir Piers Luband, on being released from his dungeon, offered his services to King Robert, whereupon the English laid all the blame of the loss of the castle upon him, declaring that he had betrayed them. Randolph's seizure of Edinburgh was considered as the most daring of all the many gallant exploits of the Scots.

Bruce forayed Cumberland, and threatened Berwick, so that the poor Countess of Buchan was removed from thence to a more secure place of captivity. He also pursued his enemies, the Macdougals of Lorn, up the passes of Cruachan Ben, and even hunted them into the Isle of Man, where he took Rushyn Castle, and conquered the whole island. In his absence, Edward Bruce took Dundee, and besieged Stirling, until the governor, Philip Mowbray, was reduced to such straits by famine, that he begged for a truce, in which to go and inform the King of England of the state of affairs, promising to surrender on the Midsummer Day of the following year, if he were not relieved before that time. Edward Bruce granted these terms, and allowed Mowbray to depart. Robert was displeased at such a treaty, giving a full year to the enemy to collect their forces: but his brother boldly answered, "Let Edward bring every man he has; we will fight them-ay, and more too!" King Robert saw more danger than did the reckless prince, but he resolved to abide by his brother's word, though so lightly given. It was, in fact, a challenge to the decisive battle, which was to determine whether Bruce or Plantagenet should reign in Scotland.

Mowbray's appeal met with attention at court. Edward II. had newly recovered from the loss of Gaveston, and hoped by some signal success to redeem his credit with his subjects. He sent his cousin, the Earl of Pembroke, who was well experienced in Scottish wars, to the North; despatched writs to ninety-three Barons to meet him with their retainers at Newcastle, three weeks after Easter, 1313; summoned all the Irish chiefs under his obedience to come with Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster; called in Gascon troops, placed a fleet under the charge of John of Argyle, and took every measure for the supply of his army with provisions, tents, and every other necessary. For once the activity and spirit of his father seemed to have descended upon him, and, as the summer of 1313 drew on, he set out with Queen Isabel, and their infant son the Prince of Wales, to St. Alban's Abbey, where, amid prayers and offerings for the success of his enterprise, he bade her farewell.

At Berwick he met his host, and, to his disappointment, found that four of the disaffected earls, Lancaster, Warwick, Arundel, and Warrenne, had absented themselves; but they had sent their vassals in full force. Edward's troops, at the lowest computation, could not have been less than 100,000, of whom 40,000 were mounted, and 3,000 of these were knights and squires, both men and horses sheathed in plate-armor.

To meet this force, Bruce could only muster 40,000 men, poorly armed, and few of them mounted, and those on small, rough mountain steeds, utterly incapable of withstanding the shock of the huge Flemish chargers ridden by the English knights. The fatal power of the English long-bow was like wise well known to the Scots; but Bruce himself was a tried captain, and the greater part of his followers had been long trained by succession of fierce conflicts. They had many a wrong to revenge, and they fought for home and hearth; stern, severe, savage, and resolute, they were men to whom defeat would have brought far worse than death-unlike the gay chivalry who had ridden from England as to a summer excursion.

The army met in the Torwood, near Stirling, and were reviewed with cheerfulness by King Robert. He resolved to compensate for the inferiority of his cavalry by fighting on foot, and by abiding the attack in a field called the New Park, which was so covered with trees and brushwood, and broken by swamps, that the enemy's horse would lose their advantage; and on the left, in the only open and level ground near, he dug pits and trenches, and filled them with pointed stakes and iron weapons called calthorps, so as to impede the possible charge of the knights.

The little burn, or brook, of Bannock, running through rugged ground covered with wood, protected his right, and the village of St. Ninian was in front. He divided his little army into four parts: the first under his brother Edward; the second under Douglas and young Walter, High Steward of Scotland; the third under Randolph; and the fourth body, the reserve, under his own command. The servants and baggage were placed on an eminence in the rear, still called Gillies Hill.

By this time it was the 23d of June, and early on Sunday morning the soldiers heard mass and confessed as dying men, then kept the vigil of St. John by fasting on bread and water. Douglas and Sir Robert Keith rode out to reconnoitre, and came back, reporting to the King that the enemy were advancing in full force, with banners displayed and in excellent array; but warily spreading a rumor among the Scots that they were confused and disorderly.

In effect, Edward II. had hurried on so hastily and inconsiderately, that his men and horses were spent and ill-fed when he arrived in the neighborhood of Stirling. Two miles from thence, he sent 800 horsemen with Sir Robert Clifford, with orders to outflank the Scottish army, and throw themselves into the town. Concealed by the village of St. Ninian, this body had nearly effected their object, when they were observed by the keen eye of Bruce, who had directed his nephew to be on the watch against this very manoeuvre. Riding up on his little pony to Randolph, he upbraided him, saying, "Thoughtless man, you have lightly kept your trust! A rose has fallen from your chaplet!"

Randolph at once hurried off with a small body of his best men to repair his error; but presently his little party were seen so hotly pressed by the English, that Douglas entreated to be allowed to hasten to his rescue. "You shall not move," said the King. "Let Randolph free himself as he may. I will not alter my order of battle, nor lose my vantage of ground."

"My liege," cried Lord James, as the heavily-armed knights and horses closed in on the few Scottish foot, "I cannot stand by and see Randolph perish, when I can give him help! By your leave, I must go to his succor!"

Robert sighed consent, and Douglas hastened off; but at that moment he beheld the English troop in confusion, some horses rushing away masterless, and the rest galloping off, while the Scots stood compactly among their dead enemies.

"Halt!" then said Douglas, "they have won; we will not lessen their glory by seeking to share it."

By this time the foremost English battalions, with the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford, had come into the New Park, and were near enough to see King Robert, with a gold crown on his helmet, riding on his pony along the front of his lines. A relation of Hereford's, Sir Henry Bohun, upon this sight, rode impetuously forward to make a sudden attack on the leader, expecting to bear him down at once by the weight of his war-horse.

Bruce swerved aside, so as to avoid the thrust of the lance, and at the same moment, rising in his stirrups, with his battle-axe in hand, he dealt a tremendous blow as Sir Henry was carried past; and such was the force of his arm, that the knight dropped dead from his horse, with his skull cleft nearly in two.

The Scottish chiefs, proud of their King's prowess, but terrified by the peril he had run, entreated him to be more careful of his person; but he only returned by a tranquil smile, as he looked at the blunted edge of. his weapon, saying "he had spoilt his good battle-axe."

In revenge for this attack, the Scots pursued the English vanguard for a short distance, but the King recalled them to their ranks, and made a speech, calling on them all to be in arms by break of day, forbidding any man to break his line for pursuit or plunder, and promising that the heirs of such as might fall should receive their inheritance without the accustomed feudal fine.

All night there was the usual scene; the smaller and more resolute army watched and prayed, the larger revelled and slept. Edward, among his favorites and courtiers, had hardly believed that there would "be any battle, and had no notion of generalship, keeping his whole army compressed together, so that their large numbers were encumbering instead of being available. Five hundred horse were closely attached to his person, with the Earl of Pembroke, Sir Ingeltram de Umfraville, and Sir Giles de Argentine, the last a gallant knight of St. John. When he rode forward in the morning, Edward was absolutely amazed at the sight of the well-ordered lines of Scottish infantry, and turning to Umfraville, asked if he really thought those Scots would fight. At that moment Abbot Maurice, of Inchaffray, who had just been celebrating mass, came barefooted before the array, holding up a crucifix, and raising his hand in blessing, as all the army bent to the earth, with the prayers of men willingly offering themselves.

"They kneel! they kneel!" cried Edward. "They are asking mercy."

"They are, my liege," said Umfraville, "but it is of God, not of us. These men will win the day, or die upon the field."

"Be it so," said the King, and gave the word.

The Earls of Gloucester and Hereford rushed to the charge with loud war-cries. Each Scot stood fast, blowing wild notes on the horn he wore at his neck, and the close ranks of infantry stood like rocks against the encounter of the mailed horse, their spears clattering against the armor in the shock till the hills rang again. Randolph meanwhile led his square steadily on, till it seemed swallowed up in the sea of English; and Keith, with the five hundred horsemen of the Scots army, making a sudden turn around Milton Bog, burst in flank upon the English archery, ever the main strength of the army. The long-bow had won, and was again to win, many a fair field; but at Bannockburn the manoeuvre of the Scots was ruinous to the yeomanry, who had no weapons fit for a close encounter with mounted men-at-arms, and were trodden down and utterly dispersed.

The ground was hotly contested by the two armies; banners rose and fell, and the whole field was slippery with blood, and strewn with fragments of armor, shivers of lances and arrows, and rags of scarfs and pennons. The English troops began to waver. "They fail! they fail!" was the Scottish cry, and as they pressed on with double vehemence, there rose a shout that another host was coming to their aid. It was only the servants on the Gillies Hill, crowding down in the excitement of watching the battle, but to the dispirited English they appeared a formidable reinforcement of the enemy; and Robert Bruce, profiting by the consternation thus occasioned, charged with his reserve, and decided the fate of the day. His whole line advancing, the English array finally broke, and began to disperse. Earl Gilbert of Gloucester made an attempt to rally, and, mounted on a noble steed-a present from the King-rode furiously against Edward Bruce; but his retainers hung back, and he was borne down and slain before his armorial bearings were recognized. Clifford and twenty-seven other Barons were slain among the pits, and the rout became general. The Earl of Pembroke, taking the King's horse by the bridle, turned him from the field, and his five hundred guards went with him. Sir Giles de Argentine saw them safely out of the battle, then, saying, "It is not my custom to fly!" he bade Edward farewell, and turned back, crying, "An Argentine!" and was slain by Edward Bruce's knights.

Douglas followed hotly on the King, with sixty horse, and on the way met Sir Laurence Abernethy with twenty more, coming to join the English; but finding how matters stood, the time-serving knight gladly proceeded to hunt the fugitives, and they scarcely let Edward II. draw rein till he had ridden sixty miles, even to Dunbar, whence he escaped by sea.

Bannockburn was the most total defeat which has ever befallen an English army. Twenty-seven nobles were killed, twenty-two more and sixty knights made prisoners, and the number of obscure soldiers slain, drowned in the Forth, or killed by the peasantry, exceeds calculation. The camp was taken, with an enormous booty in treasure, jewels, rich robes, fine horses, herds of cattle, machines for the siege of towns, and, in short, such an amount of baggage that the wagons for the transport were numerous enough to extend in one line for sixty miles. Even the King's signet was taken, and Edward was forced to cause another to be made to supply its place. One prisoner was a Carmelite friar named Baston, whom Edward of Caernarvon had brought with him to celebrate his victory in verse; whereupon Robert imposed the same task by way of ransom; and the poem, in long, rhyming Latin verses, is still extant.

The plunder was liberally shared among the Scottish army, and the prisoners were treated with great courtesy and generosity. The slain were reverently buried where they fell, except Lord Clifford and the Earl of Gloucester, whose corpses were carried to St. Ninian's kirk, and sent with all honor to England.

Bruce had not forgotten that the blood of the Clares ran in his own veins, and that Gloucester had warned him of his danger at King Edward's court: he not only lamented for the young Earl, but he released Ralph de Monthermer, the stepfather of Earl Gilbert, and gave him the signet-ring of Edward II. to bear home.

Gilbert was the last male of the stout old line of De Clares. Gloucester, and his estates descended to his three sisters-Margaret, the widow of Gaveston; Eleanor, the wife of Hugh le Despenser; and Elizabeth, who shortly after married John de Burgh, Earl of Ulster.

The Earl of Hereford had taken refuge in Bothwell Castle, but was unable to hold it out, and surrendered. He was exchanged for captives no less precious to Robert Bruce than his well-earned crown. The wife, daughter, and sister, who had been prisoners for eight years, were set free, together with the Bishop of Glasgow, now blind, and the young Earl of Mar. Marjory Bruce had grown from a child to a maiden in her English prison, and she was soon betrothed to the young Walter, Steward of Scotland; but it was enacted that, if she should remain without a brother, the crown should descend to her uncle Edward.

That midsummer battle of Bannockburn undid all the work of Edward I., and made Scotland an independent kingdom for three hundred years longer. Ill-government, a discontented nobility, and a feeble King, had brought England so low, that the troops could not shake off their dejection, and a hundred would flee before two or three Scottish soldiers. Bruce ravaged the northern counties every summer, leaving famine and pestilence behind him; but Edward II. had neither spirit nor resolution to make war or peace. The mediation of the Pope and King of France was ineffectual, and years of warfare passed on, impressing habits of perpetual license and robbery upon the borderers of either nation.