The plunder had been phenomenal-this area was rich, and had never before been ravaged, the County Palatine, Fumess, Amoundemess, almost down to the Welsh marches. For all that, they were not weighed down, as so often, and dangerously, with booty; for Angus Ogs galley-fleet had kept them company, offshore, and now lay in the Ribble estuary nearby, laden with treasure, hostages and prisoners for ransom. They had had to fight nothing like a pitched battle throughout-Bruce had seen to that; but such skirmishes as had developed, they had won with ease. This was coolly planned, strategic warfare, with a vengeance, and no mere rough raiding.
Prestons smoke was intended to blow eastwards indeed, right across the Pennines, to York itself, where King Edward was mustering hugely; and to Teesdale, where Douglas and Moray waited, left in dangerous isolation when Thomas, Earl of Lancasters revolt collapsed at Boroughbridge, yet reluctant to retire on Scotland while they might yet menace Edwards flank and hinder his advance.
For the entire strategic and military situation had changed, these past three months of 1322. It had all come about by what might seem utterly irrelevant happenings. King Edwards new favourite, Sir Hugh le Despenser, had finally become so obnoxiously arrogant and greedy that many of the old aristocracy had been driven to take arms against him and his father, led by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and the same Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Pembroke, who had played a less than glorious part at Bannockburn. In this civil warfare, Lancaster, who was of English royal blood and had an eye on his unpopular cousins throne, got in touch with the King of Scots, seeking his support, with promises of peace and friendship when he won the crown. Bruce, who neither admired nor trusted traitors, however much he had been forced to work with them, did not rate Lancasters chances highly; but it suited his tactics meantime to fish in troubled waters, and the moment the Popes two year truce expired, he sent Douglas, Moray and the Steward south, not so much to aid the revolt as to take advantage of King Edwards preoccupation- always with the objective of bringing that obstinate weakling to a peace-treaty at last.
After Hereford had won a victory over the Despensers on the Welsh marches, he marched north to effect a junction with Lancaster, in Yorkshire. Now it was outright rebellion against their King. Edward mustered a loyalist army at York, and was fortunate indeed in that Sir Andrew Harcla, recently made Earl of Carlisle, decided to switch his allegiance. Harcla was a fine soldier if an unreliable man, and had hitherto worked in cooperation with Lancaster, his patron. In March, he moved south with the levies of Cumberland and Westmorland, caught the rebel army by surprise and in the rear, at Boroughbridge, where they were penned against the River Ure with the Kings forces in front, and defeated them entirely, with great slaughter. Hereford was slain in the battle, and Lancaster captured, with many other lords. For once, thereafter, Edward acted decisively. Lancaster and the others were summarily beheadedLancaster, who had slain Piers Gaveston.
Douglas, Moray and the Steward, operating independently in Cleveland
to the north, with a force of about 4,000 only, found themselves in a potentially dangerous position.
The King of England, for his part, suddenly was in a stronger position than any he had known since Bannockburn, at the head of an enormous and victorious army, with the defeated rebels anxious to flock to his banner and prove their new loyalty, and his main internal opposition discomfited, the Despensers carrying all before them. Out of the blue Edward announced that he would proceed north, to punish the rebellious Scots at last and wipe out the stain of Bannockburn.
In this abruptly transformed and unexpected situation, Bruce flung aside all his preoccupations, and acted with his old dash and verve. He sent couriers to order Douglas and the others to remain as a threat to the English host on the northeast, but to retire discreetly before it; he himself would make shift to pose another threat on the west.
Fortunately Angus Ogs fleet was mobilised, indeed at its old game of
raiding the Antrim coast. Bruce sent urgent pleas to his friend for
help, and offered vastly richer pickings on the North-West coast of
England than anything he could gain in Ireland. Himself, with a
hastily-raised light cavalry force of about 8,000, raced south by
west.
West indeed they had raced, in a fashion never before attempted, Bruce using knowledge gained as a youth in wild fowling expeditions on the Solway marshes and coasts. At low tide, the great shallow West Coast estuaries, in North England as well as South Scotland, all but dried out; and the King now risked a great series of gamble with sea and tides. Avoiding all the normal and necessarily slow routes by the Border passes and the Cumberland mountains, he had led his galloping horsemen splashing across the successive daunting shallows of the Solway estuary, then south round the West Cumberland coastline by Silloth, Workington and Whitehaven, across the estuarine sands of the Esk, at Ravenglass, and the Duddon at Millom, into Fumess. Then on over the levels of Leven-mouth near Ulverston and so into Cartmel, finally thundering over the Kent-bank sands of wide Morecambe Bay and down upon Lancaster itself. By taking enormous risks with racing tides, quicksands and mud-banks, and the fording of innumerable channels, by the most skilful calculations of tidal-timing, the Scots force had descended, totally without warning and at an almost unbelievable speed, upon an area in the heart of England thought to be entirely immune, more than one hundred miles south of Car lisle-and, at Preston, slightly south even of York. All this in the course of a few hectic days.
So now Preston burned and Robert Bruce watched it, sitting like a hunched eagle in his saddle. He hoped that he had come as far as need be, that Edward would take fright at this brazen intrusion on his right flank, and would call off the declared invasion of Scotland.
With any true soldier and sound commander, he could have wagered on it; but this Edward Plantagenet was none such, an unpredictable law unto himself. Before the Scots the land lay soft, green and open to the Mersey -the late Lancasters territories, lord less now and in confusion. There was nothing to stop Bruce between here and Wales. But he had not come south for such conquest. He awaited couriers from Douglas. He had indeed been waiting for three days, since Lancaster burned. Preston was as much a filling in of time as added warning for King Edward.
There are rich towns on the Mersey, Sire, Sir Alexander Fraser, his sister Marys husband, suggested hopefully.
The King said nothing.
Give me but a thousand men and I will burn them all for you, my liege! That was Sir Andrew Moray, his sister Christians latest spouse, fiercer fire-eater than his father.
No.
His third brother-in-law, Sir Hugh Ross, Matildas husband, was more diplomatic.
If we turned east here, Sire, and made for the passes between Ribble and Aire, and so into mid-Yorkshire, we would meet Douglass messengers, and also save our time.
To no advantage, the King replied.
Our purpose is to make Edward of Carnarvon call off his plans to invade Scotland. That only. We shall do it better by remaining a threat of unknown strength here in his West. The nearer we move to him, the more like he is to learn our true numbers. He has ten times our forces, man. We wait here until we hear from Douglas. The further south we drive, the greater danger of being cut off. Remember that we are dealing with Harcla now-a shrewd and able captain. If Edward heeds Harcla, we must needs watch our every step.
An up sprung Cumberland squire! the Chamberlain snorted.
I do not see the Despensers touching their caps to him!
He fought Boroughbridge as I fought Bannockburn -and won.