The Price of the King's Peace

So they assembled and embarked at Loch Ryan, in Galloway, in late

November-the same place where Thomas and Alexander Bruce had landed

ten years before in their ill-fated attempt to aid their brother’s

reconquest of Scotland, an attempt which ended in their betrayal and

their shameful executions. Angus of the Isles had landed them, and, however reluctantly, once again he was cooperating;

but only because Bruce himself was going on the expedition.

He certainly would not have done it for Edward. For he was not just acting the transporter, this time; he was taking part with his friend, if not his monarch, and a thousand of his Islesmen with him. Indeed, most of the transporting was being done otherwise, in a vast and heterogeneous fleet of slower vessels drawn from all the SouthWest, under the pirate captain, Thomas Don-for the narrow, fast, proud galleys were hardly suitable for the carrying of great numbers of horses and fodder and stores.

It was not all just what Edward had asked for, of course. There was a considerable array of knights and captains, yes; some heavy chivalry, some bowmen, and much light cavalry; in all perhaps 7,000. Also many spare horses, largely captured from England, grain, forage and money.

All went under King Robert’s personal command. Edward indeed was not

present, having returned to Ireland weeks before, with his court of

kinglets and chiefs, and in a very uncertain frame of mind. He was

getting men and aid-but scarcely as he had visualised. Although he

could hardly object to his brother’s attendance he was obviously less

than overjoyed. But at least it had all had already had one excellent

result; for Edward, put out and concerned to prove his prowess, had

managed to reduce the important English base at Carrickfergus, which

had long been a thorn in Ulster’s side, in a great flurry of activity

on his return. Oddly enough, though Ireland’s new monarch would have

been the last to admit it, he had to thank his brother’s father-in-law

mainly for this. Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, sent home by Edward

of England to take command of the military side of the reconquest of

Ireland, had made a peculiar start by diverting the convoy of ships

sent to Drogheda, farther south, for the relief of Carrickfergus, using

their stores and arms to ransom his own kinsman, William Burke, or de

Burgh, captured by Turlough O’Brien, King of Thomond. Apart altogether

from the consequent fall of Carrickfergus, a most strategic port on the

north side of Belfast Lough, in Antrim, all this added a hopeful

flavour to the venture, the hope of divided loyalties amongst the

English and the Anglo Irish.

Bruce was leaving James Douglas behind, with Walter Stewart, to see to the protection of Scotland, while William Lamberton, Bernard de Linton and the other clerics looked to its administration.

Jamie would dearly have liked to accompany them-and Bruce to have had him. But there was no one on whom he could rely so completely in matters military-save Thomas Randolph, who had already returned to Ireland with Edward.

Moreover the Douglas had become a legend in the North of England, by his brilliant and unending raiding, so that fathers used his name as a warning for unruly children, and mothers hushed their offspring to sleep with assurances that the Black Douglas would not get them. The young idealist of a dozen years before had become worth an army in himself.

Douglas, then, and the Steward, with the Queen and her ladies, were

there at Loch Ryan to sec the expedition sail. Elizabeth herself would

have accompanied them had it been possible; not only had she a taste

for camp-following, but Ulster, after all, was her home, and she had

brothers and sisters there. Bruce’s intended programme was not one

into which a woman with a new-born babe would fit, however tough; and

with her father a leader of the enemy, complications would be likely.Actual sailing was held up, in the end, by the non-arrival of Sir Neil Campbell and his contingent from Argyll. These had by no means the furthest to come, and there was some wonder at this, for Campbell, although in poor health, was not the man to be behindhand in any adventure. When, at length, with the King ordering no further delay and the Campbells to follow on their own later, the famed black and gold gyronny-of-eight banner did appear on the scene, it was at the masthead of a single galley, not a squadron, coming from the north. And the man who stepped ashore at Stranraer and came hastening to Bruce was not Sir Neil but his son by a mother long since dead, Colin Campbell, a young man in his early twenties, darkly handsome.

“My sorrow, Sire, that I come late,” he cried.

“But I needs must bury my father!”

“Bury …? By the Rude-do you mean …? Mean that Neil Campbell… is dead?”

“Dead, yes. He died the day after Your Grace’s summons arrived at Innischonnel. The Lady Mary, your sister, found him. In the water. At the edge of the loch.”

“Drowned! Neil Campbell drowned? I’ll not believe it! I have seen him swim a hundred lochs and rivers …”

“Not drowned, Sire. He had fallen there. Dead where he fell.

Alone. He was a sick man. Had been failing…”

“Dear God-Neil! Neil, my friend.” Bruce was shaken, and showed it. Not all had loved the Campbell chief, an abrupt, secretive man of few graces, tending to be quarrelsome-who yet had captured Mary Bruce’s heart thus late in their lives. But he was a mighty warrior, loyal to a fault, and the King loved him well. One of the original little band of heroes who had shared their lord’s trials and perils when he was a hunted fugitive, who indeed had saved them all time and again by his hillman’s skill in the desperate Highland days after Strathfillan, he had become the first to die.

A thousand dangers, battles, ambushes, treacheries, he had survived-to die thus on the edge of his own Highland loch, a done man. The shock to Bruce, his friend, was partly for himself; for they were of a like age, both in their forty-third year, and the cold hand of the Reaper, in clutching one, momentarily brushed the other’s heart also. In that instant the King felt old.

But he pulled himself together, as he must ever do, and put on the stern calm face of the monarch.

“I am sorry, my friend,” he said.

“Beyond telling. Sorry for you and for my sister. Especially for her, who has suffered too much already. Some, it seems, are fated to suffer more than their share in this life. In the next, it may be, they wall have their recompense. As for you, you are your father’s son. And he ever lived with death, as any knight of mine must. Duly ready to entertain him. Neil Campbell was a noble knight, and many times held my life in his strong hands. Not for you to grieve him. Only to emulate.”

“That is my humble prayer, Highness. That I may serve you as he did.

To that end I would come with you on this sally to Ireland.

In whatever lowly office.”

“And so you shall. But in no lowly office, sir. You are a Highland chieftain now, head of a great clan. And an earl’s son, in all but the name. I had intended to belt your father Earl of Atholl, in room of my kinsman, David de Strathbogie, traitor. The good Neil is gone to higher honour than I might give him. But to provide for his wife and my sister, I shall appoint her Countess thereof, and endow her with the lands of the earldom. As for you, friend-kneel you!”