Читать книгу Scotland: The Story of a Nation - Magnus Magnusson - Страница 62

They met in the church of the Minorities in that town, before the high altar. What passed betwixt them is not known for certainty; but they quarrelled, either concerning their mutual pretensions to the crown, or because Comyn refused to join Bruce in the proposed insurrection against the English … It is, however, certain, that these two haughty barons came to high and abusive words, until at length Bruce, who I told you was extremely passionate, forgot the sacred character of the place in which they stood, and struck Comyn a blow with his dagger.

TALES OF A GRANDFATHER, CHAPTER VIII

There is nothing left now, above ground, of the ‘Greyfriars Church’ where Robert Bruce murdered the Red Comyn. The killing took place in the church of the old Franciscan priory which had been established in 1262 on the left bank of the River Nith in the centre of the old burgh. Bruce, to expiate his guilt, gave the Franciscans a generous annuity; but during the Reformation the priory disappeared.

The precise spot, masked by a row of glass bus-shelters, is now identified by a plaque on the wall between two windows of the yellow-and-red ‘£-stretcher’ shop at 9–13 Castle Street, almost opposite the present Greyfriars Church. It was erected by ‘the citizens of Dumfries and the Saltire Society’ in 1951:

Here stood the monastery

of the GREY FRIARS where

on Thursday 10th February

1306 ROBERT THE BRUCE

aided by

SIR ROGER KIRKPATRICK

slew THE RED COMYN and

opened the final stage

of the war for

SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE

which ended victoriously on

the FIELD of BANNOCKBURN,

1314.

‘I Mak Siccar’

The words ‘I mak siccar’ (I make certain) are said to have been spoken not by Bruce but by one of his companions, Sir Roger de Kirkpatrick. The story goes that Bruce, after the stabbing, had rushed from the church, saying that he thought he had killed Comyn. Kirkpatrick was appalled that he had not finished the job, and ran into the church where he delivered the coup de grâce to the stricken Comyn.

Ironically, that was the one way in which Bruce would not ‘mak siccar’ his attempt on the throne. Some commentators have claimed that the killing of Comyn was premeditated, in order to get him out of the way of Bruce’s ambitions; but Bruce knew that he had to have Comyn support for his bid for the throne – and nothing could have been more disastrous for his chances than to antagonise the most powerful family in the land, not just by murder, but by sacrilegious murder at that.

But the deed was done, and the die was now cast – much sooner than Bruce could have wanted, and in much worse circumstances than he could have envisaged. If he was to have any chance of success he had to act, and act fast. Whatever contingency plans he might have discussed with Bishop Lamberton and others had to be brought forward in a hurry.

There was no time to lose. The Comyn castles in the south-west were seized, while Bruce went to Glasgow to try to make peace with the Church. He made his confession to Bishop George Wishart and received absolution for his sin; in exchange he swore an oath that, as king, he would be obedient to the clergy of Scotland. Then he rode off to be proclaimed king.

Six weeks after the murder, on 25 March 1306, Robert Bruce was inaugurated as King of Scots at Scone. It was a symbolic, simple and obviously makeshift ceremony. There was no Stone of Destiny on which to be enthroned – that had been removed by Edward I as part of his subjugation of Scotland in 1298. There were no royal robes, no sceptre, no royal sword and no bishops (although Bishop William Lamberton arrived two days later to celebrate High Mass for Bruce).

The traditional role of leading the new king to the throne should have been taken by the Earl of Fife, but he was only sixteen years old and still a ward of King Edward; in his place his aunt, Isabella of Fife, the Countess of Buchan, claimed her familial right to enthrone the king. She led Bruce to the throne and set a simple gold circlet on his head. The Earl of Buchan, who was in England at the time, was a cousin of the murdered Comyn, and Isabella’s defection to the Bruce cause was a terrible blow to him. It was to cost her dear: when she was captured by the English later that year she was imprisoned for four years in an open wooden cage which was suspended from the battlements of Berwick Castle.

The hurried coronation at Scone was the signal for the outbreak of civil war in Scotland. Bruce did not enjoy much support; he did not represent the Community of the Realm in Scotland and, above all, the rightful king, John Balliol, was still alive, albeit in exile in France. Almost immediately after Bruce’s inauguration the Comyns started to gather their strength. Edward I appointed the Red Comyn’s able brother-in-law, Aymer de Valence (soon to be Earl of Pembroke), as his special lieutenant in Scotland with wide-ranging powers against Bruce – he was commanded to ‘burn and slay and raise dragon’, which meant unfurling the dragon standard which proclaimed that the normal conventions of war were in abeyance: captured knights would be treated as outlaws and executed. In addition, King Edward persuaded Pope Clement V to authorise the excommunication of the new King of Scots; this was pronounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 5 June 1306.

Bruce moved quickly to consolidate his power-base in the south-west of Scotland. From there he moved north, through Glasgow and via Perth to Aberdeen to raise support in the north – traditionally the chief power-base of the Comyns. He had some initial successes, taking the town of Dundee and the castles of Brechin and Cupar, but soon he came under formidable military pressure. An English army, led by Pembroke and supported by Comyn adherents, recaptured Cupar and the city of Perth. Bruce moved south to meet Pembroke. He had no siege engines with which to invest the city, so instead he issued a challenge to Pembroke to come out and fight, or else surrender. Pembroke apparently accepted the challenge to do battle the following day, while his Comyn allies (according to Barbour) were treacherously planning a surprise attack on the Scots that very night.

Bruce drew off his forces and encamped six miles away in Methven Wood; suspecting no treachery, they laid aside their weapons and set no watch. At dusk their enemies fell upon them, determined to take Bruce dead or alive. After a savage battle the Scots were routed, and many of Bruce’s lieutenants were taken prisoner. Bruce himself escaped, however, with some of his light cavalry, and took refuge in the wild hills of Atholl. He had been king for only four months, but was now a fugitive.

Before moving south, Bruce had left his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, and his ten-year-old daughter Marjory by his first wife, along with the other ladies of his court, in the care of the Earl of Atholl in Kildrummy Castle on Donside, which was held by his brother Neil. Early in September the castle fell to Pembroke (through treachery, it is said), and Neil Bruce was taken prisoner. The royal ladies, including Isabella, Countess of Buchan, had escaped, however, and were already on their way north with the Earl of Atholl to seek refuge in Orkney; from there they planned to make their way to Norway and the protection of Bruce’s sister Isabella, who had married Erik II after the death of his first wife and was now Dowager Queen of Norway. But before they could reach the relative safety of Orkney their party was intercepted at Tain, on the southern shore of the Dornoch Firth, by the Earl of Ross, a Comyn supporter, and they were all were handed over to the English.

The English revenge on the Bruces and their supporters was swift and terrible. Robert’s brother Neil was hanged, drawn and quartered at Berwick. His loyal lieutenants the Earl of Atholl and Simon Fraser were taken to London for execution: Atholl was hanged on a specially high gallows before being decapitated and burned, while Fraser had his head impaled on a spike beside that of William Wallace. Bruce’s sister Mary was suspended in a cage (like Isabella, Countess of Buchan) from the battlements of Roxburgh Castle where she, too, was to remain for four years. His daughter Marjory was sent to a Yorkshire nunnery. Another of his sisters, Christian, who was married to Christopher Seton (one of those who had been present at the death of the Red Comyn), was sent to a nunnery in Lincolnshire; Christopher himself was hanged, drawn and quartered in Dumfries, and his brother John was put to death in the same barbaric manner at Newcastle. Only Bruce’s wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, was treated with anything like leniency; because her father was the Earl of Ulster, who had always been loyal to Edward I, she was imprisoned (albeit in harsh conditions) in a royal manor at Burstwick-in-Holderness.

Robert Bruce’s position was now desperate. An English chronicler reported that his queen had prophesied to Bruce that he would only be king for the summer – ‘King of Winter you will not be’. That was certainly the way it looked now. In late July he was ambushed in a narrow defile known as Dalrigh (Field of the King), just south of Tyndrum, by John Macdougall of Argyll – son-in-law of the murdered Comyn and owner of Dunstaffnage Castle; he suffered heavy casualties, and only escaped with his life after a heroic rearguard action. With that he disappeared as far as his enemies were concerned, and disappeared, too, from the historical record for the winter.