Читать книгу The Three Edwards: The Pageant of England - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 28

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Edward lost no time in moving to the invasion of Scotland. He raised an army of five thousand horse and thirty thousand foot and shoved northward to the Tweed. The palatine Bishop of Durham had collected the armed levies of the north and with them he crossed the Tweed near Norham while Edward was crossing at the ford of Coldstream with the main part of the army.

Berwick was the first point of attack, lying on the other side of the Tweed in Scottish territory. It was the great port of Scotland, being the funnel through which the trade of the nation flowed. It is sometimes claimed that Berwick was the richest seaport in the whole island; at any rate, the customs receipts were one fourth of the total revenue of all English ports. The Tweed had cut a deep channel where the city perched on the north bank behind its fortifications. The inhabitants of the city, with the arrogance of their wealth and their vast trade alliances, believed themselves safe from aggression. This opinion grew when the English fleet, which sailed in to attack them from the sea, was repulsed with a loss of many ships. William the Douglas, a stout fighting man, commanded the garrison. The defenses consisted of a stockade surrounded by a ditch. The stockade was not high and it was not in good condition, and the ditch was not wide. Nevertheless, when Edward moved up to the assault, the citizens lined the top of the stockade and jeered at him, chanting a bit of doggerel at his expense:

What meaneth King Edward, with his long shanks,

To win Berwick and all our unthanks.

It seems rather trivial, but Edward was infuriated. It is probable that the name of Longshanks, which history elected to apply to him, dates from this episode. His legs were not unnaturally long. He stood six feet two in his prime, but when his tomb was opened long after his death it was found that he had been perfectly proportioned.

The confidence of the burghers was sadly misplaced. Enraged by the loss of his vessels and the taunts from the walls, Edward led the attacking party in person. The stockade was so low at one place that the king on his great stallion Bayard leaped over the ditch and then over the stockade. The foot soldiers followed in such numbers that the defenders were easily scattered.

The garrison of the castle surrendered on terms that permitted them to march out, but the poor citizens were less fortunate. The fighting rage in the English king had been increased by the death of his nephew, Richard of Cornwall, in the struggle, and he gave orders that all the men of the town were to be put to the sword. Sitting in the great hall where he had announced the result of the arbitration, Edward turned a deaf ear to all appeals to stop the slaughter. It was not until a procession of priests came into his presence, carrying the Host, that his mood changed. When the eyes of this strangely contradictory man rested on the Host, he burst into tears and gave orders that the carnage was to stop.

The number of the victims of the butchery of Berwick has been placed at different figures, but the lowest estimate is eight thousand, so it may be assumed that at least that number perished.

The Scottish people retaliated in kind. The Earl of Buchan, constable of Scotland, was leading a foray into the English territory in the west. When the news of Berwick reached these levies, they proceeded to sack the towns that fell into their hands with equal ferocity, and a mutual hatred was engendered which was to last for centuries.

Before proceeding deeper into Scottish territory, the English king set his troops the task of rebuilding the fortifications of Berwick, raising the walls higher and deepening the ditch. To set an example of industry, he himself wheeled out the first barrow, piled high with mortar and stones. He proceeded also to put the affairs of the city on a better basis, improving the laws and appointing capable men to administer them. The citizens, who hated him for his cruelty, were compelled to say later that he had done them a service in the model administration he gave them.

Before attacking Berwick, Edward had sent a summons to the new Scottish king and his lords to meet him at Newcastle. While still engaged in restoring the fortifications of the captured city, an answer was received in which John renounced his fealty and defied the invaders.

“The false fool!” cried Edward, the royal anger rousing again. “What folly is this? If he will not come to us, we will go to him.”

So the English army, horse and foot, reinforced with Welsh bowmen and levies from Ireland, moved up from the Tweed. They crossed the Blackadder and the Lammermuir Hills and met the Scottish army, fresh from its invasion of Cumberland, and defeated it at Spottswood without any difficulty. The castle at Dunbar capitulated, and through the month of May the way to Edinburgh was cleared, Haddington, Roxburgh, and other towns falling to the invaders. On a day in early June, Edward came within sight of the capital city of Edinburgh.

That solid and admirable city, which the inhabitants themselves would later call Auld Reekie, was a mixture of splendor and wretchedness at this stage of its history. The castle, which topped an abruptly high hill, was not only a strong fortress but a residence of royal magnificence by the standards of the day. The city, clustering at the base of the hill, had been described some generations before as a small cluster of thatched and mean houses. David I had laid the groundwork for better things, however, by founding the Abbey of Holyrood on the edge of the town. A connecting link of houses began to grow along a spine of high land, and in time this new section, which was to be known as Canongate, became a prosperous commercial center. When the first Parliament was held in 1215 in Edinburgh during the reign of Alexander II, there was a High Street leading up to Castle Rock, on which clustered busy shops, and there was a section around Candle-makers Row where the artisans found employment. The peaked spires of churches, the swinging signboards of taverns, and the crenelated tops of manorial houses were beginning to lend dignity to the old town.

The English marched into Edinburgh without encountering opposition, but the castle held out for eight days. Edward moved on then to Stirling, where the castle had been deserted on his approach, and from there he progressed to Perth. At the latter place he received notice of King John’s submission, that most spineless of rulers lacking the heart for protracted resistance. Edward received from him at Montrose the white rod, symbol of surrender, and promptly deposed him. Baliol was sent under armed guard to England and took no further part in the dramatic struggle between the two countries. At first he was a prisoner in the Tower of London, but the Pope interceded for him and he was allowed to go into exile on the continent. Here he lived in obscurity on his small French estates, not dying until 1315 and so knowing of the efforts of two brave leaders who rose after him to direct the resistance of the Scots.

After marching as far north as Elgin, receiving the submissions of the gentry everywhere, Edward returned to Berwick. He brought with him the Coronation Stone of Scone and the cross of Holyrudhouse, which was called the Black Rood. Nothing he could have done was more certain to create lasting enmity than his removal of the Coronation Stone. It remained an issue down through the centuries; and it is a sore point with the Scottish people at the present time, as witness the daring seizure of it, and its temporary removal to Scotland, in 1950.

At Berwick the English king received the submission of most of the Scottish leaders, the list filling thirty-five skins of parchment. This historic document was called the Ragman Roll for reasons not entirely clear, unless it was a term of contempt coined by the Scottish people. For an equally obscure reason the name became corrupted to the word “rigmarole,” which has made a permanent place for itself in the English language.

Edward had needed less than twenty-one weeks to bring about the submission of the country.