leave his friend for security, while he went on to raise his standard
at York. Few obeyed the summons, and Pembroke hastened to besiege
Scarborough. It was impossible to hold out, and Gaveston surrendered,
Pembroke and Henry Percy binding themselves for his safety to the King,
under forfeiture of life and limb. Gaveston was to be confined in his
own castle of Wallingford, and the Earl proceeded to escort him thither.
But at Dedington Pembroke left the party to visit his wife, who was in
the neighborhood, and, on rising in the morning, Gaveston beheld the
guard changed. They bore the badge of Warwick, and the grim black dog
of Ardennes rode exulting at their head. The unhappy man was set upon
a mule, and carried to Warwick Castle, where Lancaster, Hereford, and
Surrey, were met to decide his fate in the noble pile newly raised by
Earl Guy, to whom the loftiest tower owes its name.
They set Piers before them, and gave him a mock trial. At first there
was a reluctance to shed blood, but a voice exclaimed, “Let the fox
go, and you will have to hunt him again.” And it was resolved that, in
defiance of law and of their own honor, Piers Gaveston should die.
He flung himself on his knees before Lancaster, and implored mercy; but
in vain he called him “Gentle Count.” “Old hog” rankled in the mind of
the Earl, who, with his two confederates, rode-forth to Blacklow Hill,
a knoll between Warwick and Coventry, and there, beneath the clump of
ragged pine-trees, they sternly and ruthlessly looked on while, on June
19th, 1312, the head of the unfortunate young Gaveston was struck off, a
victim to his own vanity and the inordinate affection of his master.
Pembroke, regretting either his carelessness or his treachery, when he
saw the dreadful consequences, went to the King, and satisfied him of
his innocence. Poor Edward was at first wild with grief and rage, but
his efforts to punish the murderers were fruitless; and gradually his
wrath cooled enough to listen to the mediation of the Pope and King of
France, and he consented to grant the Barons a pardon. They wanted to
force him, for their own justification, to declare Gaveston a traitor;
but weak as Edward was, his affection could not be overcome. He could
forgive the murderers, but he could not denounce the memory of the
murdered friend of his youth. And the Barons were forced to content
themselves with receiving a free pardon after they had come to profess
their penitence on their knees before the King enthroned in Westminster
Hall.
Gaveston had been buried by some friars at Oxford; but, twelve years
after, Edward showed how enduring his love had been, by transporting the
corpse to the church he had newly built at Langley, and placing with his
own hands two palls of gold on the tomb.
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.