Flowers of Chivalry

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction; War & Military

Synopsis

Set in Scotland, this is a historical novel by the author of Black Douglas, The Bruce Trilogy, Lord of Isles, The Captive Crown, The Courtesan, Pastmasters, A Folly of Princes, Rough Wooing, Margaret the Queen and Lords of Misrule.

Release date: January 6, 1994

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

The men who stood by the bedside eyed each other and shook their heads. It would not be long now was their unspoken assessment. The Earl’s breathing was growing irregular and shallower.

The youngest there, Alexander Ramsay, biting his lip, moved over to the window and looked out and down to the street. The wide market-place of the old town of Musselburgh was packed with folk, standing amongst the stalls and booths, men and women, even children. Most were staring up at these windows, silent, waiting, an extraordinary sight. They had been there almost since first light, as indeed they had been the day before, and the day before that. Ramsay wagged his head at them and over them helplessly – and he was not a helpless man by nature, nor any head-shaker.

He was joined by another man, not much older but compared with the slender, fair-haired Ramsay seeming so, tall, massively built with great breadth of shoulder, dark, swarthy enough to be known as the Black, the Black Knight of Liddesdale. Suitable enough to be thus dark, for he was the son, even though illegitimate, of the late and legendary Black Douglas himself, the Good Sir James, closest of all the Bruce’s close friends and lieutenants: Sir William Douglas, also known as The Flower of Chivalry.

Douglas did not look down at the waiting crowd but peered sideways and upwards through the window, to the right, to where he could just see the Tolbooth tower rising high above the roofs of the town. Up there on that precarious platform, two men-at-arms stood, clutching whatever they could for support and gazing seawards. They had a flag to wave but were not waving it.

“Nothing!” Douglas growled, but low-voiced for him. “Still no word. This is damnable! This idle waiting, when all hangs in the balance.”

Ramsay did not answer. For three days and nights they had been facing this grievous situation and problem.

“Mar will heed me nothing,” the dark man went on, almost below his breath, which sounded the odder in a man whose voice normally rang out loud and clear and vehement. “We ought to be on our way. All could be lost. Moray himself would be the first to order it – were he able to speak, to command.”

The other nodded, but at the same time made a little cancelling motion of his hand, as though he both agreed and disagreed. “Soon, now,” he murmured. “And there is no signal. It seems the enemy waits also.”

“But they have the choice, man! The ships can land where they will. We are hamstrung! We . . .”

A choking sound from behind them turned them about, and they moved back to the others around the bed. The figure thereon was in some sort of convulsion now, feeble enough but the first real movement for long hours. All there feared that it was the last, the end; but out of its so evident hurt the man opened eyes which had been closed for days and nights. Panting, lips moving soundlessly, he looked up, but blankly. Then the eyelids closed again, and the watchers held their breaths. But the fine eyes reopened, and this time they slowly focussed on the faces around him, pausing at each for a moment or two, until they reached Donald, Earl of Mar. There they lingered.

The lips moved again, in more than the fluttering breathing, and after a false start, formed words, faint, laboured but clear. “Cousin . . . it now . . . is for you. The . . . task. Go. God . . . help you! And . . . and . . . go!”

However uncertain the message intended by those penultimate words, the last was sufficiently positive, a command. And there was no more. The effort had exhausted the remaining tiny vestige of strength, the final effort on this earth of a man whose life had been all effort. The body on the bed heaved up and then subsided, still.

Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, nephew of the Bruce and Regent of Scotland, was gone to join his hero and friend, the late King.

For long the group round the bed gazed down at the man who had led them since the hero-king’s death three years before, Moray the just and good, a man loved as well as respected, and feared by evil-doers. It was the end of an era, they all recognised, as well as of a ruler and tower of strength. This was the last of that most renowned band of Bruce’s devoted paladins, who had helped him to save and free Scotland. Sir Neil Campbell of Lochawe had died before the King. The Good Sir James Douglas had fallen carrying Bruce’s heart on crusade. Angus Og MacDonald, Lord of Islay and the Isles, had perished in a Hebridean storm the year after his king. And now Sir Thomas Randolph of Moray, to whom Bruce had entrusted his five-year-old son David, Prince of Scotland, as Regent and Governor. None of them had made old bones, like their master; too many wounds, too many huge exertions, too many nights spent wet and cold in caves or under the stars. Not that Moray had died of his many wounds or worn out by fatigue; he had long suffered the painful affliction of the stone, refusing to let it restrict his running of the child-king’s realm – but it had won in the end.

As usual it was the urgent and impatient Sir William Douglas who spoke first. “God rest his soul!” he exclaimed. “We shall not see his like again. But – we must be doing! We have delayed already too long. Balliol and the English lie but a mile or two off, in their ships. They could land at any time. And any place. We must catch them then, at their landing, when they are weakest.”

“Yes, yes. To be sure, Douglas. But we must needs pay our respects to our leader and Governor first, surely. My good cousin, Moray. And the people must be told.” That was Donald, Earl of Mar, the only other earl present, another nephew of the Bruce, his sister Christian’s son, but no great warrior this one, a man of moods and tempers, able enough but erratic.

“The people can wait!” the dark man declared shortly. “The realm’s safety can not, my lord. You heard him, the Regent? He said to go. Go now, to your task. He knew. The best respects to pay are to do what he said, commanded!”

They all looked at Mar, all soldiers, campaigners, leaders of men, except himself – yet they all accepted that it was Mar’s decision, one of the great earls of Scotland and kin to the monarch, however much they might doubt his military qualities.

Frowning, he glanced towards the window. “Is there any word from the watchers? Any sign?”

“None, my lord,” Sir Alexander Ramsay answered him. “They keep good look-out, but the flag is not raised. So the English must still remain undecided, their ships beating up and down the Forth.”

“Then there is no great haste. They are undecided because they cannot see our army, what it does and just where it is. This town hides our men. Move out from this Musselburgh and they will see us, see where we go. And our strength. They can then move, decide where to land, up-firth or down. We are well enough here. No need for haste yet, Douglas.”

There was sense in what the Earl said, but not enough for Will Douglas. “An army, my lord, takes a deal of time to make move from camp. In especial when at a town. This is our fourth day here. The men have settled in. Gone drinking in the town. Found women. If Balliol decided to make for Leith, to disembark there and try to capture Edinburgh, he could be landed and marching before we could marshal our force to assail him. Or the same at Dunbar behind us. The army should have been kept standing to arms, not encamped. The Lord Regent would never have allowed that.”

“Watch how you speak, sir! I do not require your preachings! The men were weary, the horses also, after our forced march from Colbrandspath. They required rest and sustenance if they were to fight.”

More tactfully, Ramsay came to his friend’s assistance. “True, my lord. But they are well rested now. They should perhaps be readied, at least sufficient of the horse to ride at short notice.”

There was a murmur of agreement from some of the others, especially Sir Colin Campbell, son of the great Sir Neil, who tended to find the Douglas too strong meat.

“Very well,” Mar acceded. “Go you and ready the horse. I will down and tell the good folk of this honest town of the loss they, and we all, have suffered. They must have loved him well to wait there, these days . . .”

Distinctly doubtful about having this dispute over the body of their respected leader, and the propriety of leaving him there to go about their duties, the group broke up, some touching the still-warm hands in a sort of homage, others bowing the head.

Douglas and Ramsay hurried downstairs and slipped out by the back door, to avoid the crowd. The former was heading for the open area of Pinkie Braes, a little way to the south, where most of the Scots army was encamped, to order immediate readiness to move; but Ramsay said that he would climb the Tolbooth tower to see for himself the situation as to the English fleet.

Musselburgh’s Tolbooth, comprising the townhouse, burgh court-room and jail, was no noble edifice, but it did possess a quite lofty bell-tower, the highest viewpoint of the ancient town. Pushing his way through the throng around the door, Ramsay mounted the twisting turnpike stair to the narrow ledge at its summit, to join the two watchers and stare seawards across the mouth of the River Esk.

The enemy position was reasonably clear, at least. A sizeable fleet of large sea-going vessels – he counted twenty-seven ships in all – were tacking about in the ten-mile-wide firth perhaps some two miles from this shore, obviously waiting there, but not anchored and under partly furled sails. The look-outs informed that there had been no change in the situation during their tour of duty, except that two vessels had detached themselves from the main fleet some hours previously and sailed off almost directly northwards, across Forth for the Fife coast opposite. Sir Alexander would just see their white sails against the loom of the Fife land, if he looked. They seemed to be beating up and down that other seaboard. Why, who could tell? Seeking provisioning, it might be?

Ramsay, shading his eyes in the July sunshine, gazed, pondering. Two ships only, out of twenty-nine . . .?

That fleet represented not only dire menace but grievous disappointment and resentment for the Scots. Since Bannockburn, eighteen years before, there had been no major English invasion of Scotland; the Bruce had seen to that. Indeed, since 1328, the year before King Robert died, there had been actual peace, signed and sealed at Edinburgh and confirmed at Northampton the following year. But now, with Bruce gone and a five-year-old on his throne, Edward the Third of England, having reached man’s estate, and militarily ambitious, like his grandsire, had torn up that peace treaty, on the ridiculous pretext that he had been under full age when he had signed it, and the clauses returning the lands in Scotland of certain disinherited English lords had not been complied with. Using as convenient cat’s-paw Edward Balliol, son of the late and unlamented King John Balliol – the Toom Tabard of Scotland’s shame, whom Edward the First had caused to be made King of Scots and then scornfully dethroned and banished to France when he proved less co-operative, and whom Bruce had succeeded on the throne – this third Edward had given Balliol an army, plus the levies of the said disinherited lords, and sent him north to win back his father’s kingdom, on condition that he swore fealty for it to the King of England and made it a vassal state. On hearing of this dastardly about-face, the Regent Moray, although sick, had promptly assembled a Scots army and marched south for the Border to offer suitable opposition to invasion. They had reached Colbrandspath, where the Lammermuir Hills came down close to the cliff-girt shore, offering the best defensive site in the East March north of Berwick. Waiting there, they had learned the alarming news that, presumably hearing of the Scots defensive move, Balliol and his force had embarked in a fleet of ships provided by King Edward, at Holderness in Yorkshire, and were sailing north to attack from the sea. Hastily the Regent, leaving only the small party of Borderers to hold the Pease Dean passes, in case of a subsidiary land attack, had turned back and forced-marched northwards, to try to be in a position to confront the invaders before they disembarked in, presumably, the Edinburgh or Stirling vicinity. Both English and Scots had arrived in the Firth of Forth area about the same time. But the horseback haste had been too much for the pain-racked Earl of Moray. And now Scotland was direly threatened, and without a ruler.

Ramsay turned from eyeing the seaward situation to look down into the market-place below, where he could see Donald of Mar addressing the Musselburgh citizenry, informing them of the death of their good Regent, so admired and trusted by the people. Who would succeed Moray was uncertain; but unfortunately this Mar looked the most likely candidate, that rather than choice, as nephew of Bruce and cousin of the child-monarch. Moray had a son, but he was not yet twenty years, too young and inexperienced to be Regent. Mar clearly was assuming the responsibility already.

Descending to street level, Ramsay made his way through the sorrowing throng and past the houses of the newest part of the town, called the Newbigging, for the open ground of Pinkie. Here, below the minor ridge of Inveresk, the army was encamped, some five thousand strong, a great concourse, stirring and colourful, with innumerable infantry cantonments, horse-lines, a few lords’ and knights’ pavilions and tents, flags, banners and pennons fluttering everywhere and cooking-fires sending up their blue smokes into the summer air.

Making for the section of the main cavalry lines where his own troop of eighty Dalwolsey men were settled, he found them already astir and preparing to move, so urgently authoritative had been Will Douglas. All around, the horsemen were seeing to their mounts and saddling up. He doubted whether quite so much haste was necessary, with the enemy still evidently undecided as to procedure. Already the grim news of the Regent’s death, although expected, was casting its shadow over all.

Douglas was not hard to find, his blue and white banner with the scarlet Bruce’s heart in the centre larger than most and on a higher staff. He was not chief of the Douglasses, there being a young earl thereof, but as tutor of Douglas he acted as though he was. Ramsay was telling him of the two ships which had left the fleet and made for the Fife coast, and conjecturing whether they could be scouting for a possible landing-place there, seeking provisions, or what, when a man came at a run through the camp, shouting breathlessly for Sir Alexander Ramsay. It was one of the Tolbooth watchers.

“They sail, sir – they sail!” he panted. “They’re awa’. The hale fleet o’ them. They’re off.”

“Off where, man? Which way?”

“North. Ower the Forth. After yon other twa . . .”

“Fife! Making for Fife?” Ramsay turned to Douglas, but that man was already in action. He strode to grab the nearest horse, and vaulting up shouted down, “The Tolbooth!” and was off.

Ramsay found another mount and clattered after.

Cleaving a way through the alarmed crowd, they dismounted and hurried up the Tolbooth stair. On the summit ledge, they stared seawards. There was no doubt about it. The entire fleet was heading due northwards, under full sail, the leading ships already nearly halfway across the ten-mile firth.

“Fife – they have decided on Fife!” Douglas cried. “A landing there, and we are left here! We cannot reach them over there, with this host, in under three days. God’s curse on them; they have us outwitted!”

“Or . . . it could be but a ruse?” Ramsay suggested. “To head over there, so that we go from here, chasing round by Stirling, eighty, ninety miles. And then they turn and sail back when we are gone. To land on this side.”

The other gazed at him, nibbling his lip. “Aye – it could be, it could be so. With those devil-damned ships they are able to fox us! It could be either: a ruse or a Fife landing, unopposed. What to do? What to do?” He banged clenched fist on the stonework. It was not often that that man was at a loss.

“We can wait,” the younger man said. “Wait here, until we know what they intend. Send fishing craft from this Musselburgh haven to watch them. Balliol can do no great harm in Fife, save harry the Fifers!”

“He can drive west for Stirling. Or north for Perth. East for St Andrews would serve him little. But Perth, now . . .? The Highlands? Atholl? David of Atholl is in England, Bruce’s enemy. Or was. He may well be with Balliol, and with the other dispossessed lords. Aye, it could be Perth. Based there, with the southern Highlands and Atholl at his back . . .?”

“Or no more than a device, a ruse.”

“Come . . .”

They ran down the twisting stairs and back to the house, the best in that town, where the dead Regent lay and where Mar and some of the other lords and knights were lodging. Bursting in on these as they sat at wine discussing the future, the two young men announced their news, without ceremony.

Its effect was dramatic. All there rose to their feet exclaiming, gesticulating, questioning. Most, Mar included, dismissed the notion of a ruse. It could be a Fife landing, and thence to the north to capture Perth. If Balliol had been for Stirling, he could have sailed up Forth in those ships to near the town. Perth. And Atholl – aye, Atholl, that traitor. And Angus – English d’ Umfraville was Earl of Angus, through his mother. Another of the disinherited.

So the talk went to and fro, with Douglas, as usual, growing impatient. If it was Fife, he shouted above the din, they should be on the move, not blethering here.

The need for an accepted leader was never more apparent. Douglas would have led, nothing surer; but he was only a knight, however distinguished a one, and the lords present would be loth indeed to follow him.

Donald, Earl of Mar did not fail to see the need, nor the opportunity. He rapped on the table. “Sir William is right,” he declared. “We must be doing. We move, forthwith. I will take the cavalry and ride fast, by Stirling, for St John’s Town of Perth. My lord Constable, you will bring on the foot, so swiftly as you may, by forced-march. It will take some time for the English to land their men and be fit to march, after days cooped up in their ships. They will carry no horses aboard, so they will require to scour Fife for mounts. That will take more time. We could get between them and Perth, I say.”

“If you hasten!” Douglas growled. “But – what if all this is but a ruse? And the ships turn and come back to this side?”

“I judge that to be unlikely. But, if so, then let Dunbar see to it. Send to Patrick, Earl of Dunbar and March, on the Middle March. He could be here in a day, with his mosstroopers.”

“If he will!” Hay, the Constable demurred. “That one is not to be trusted, any more than was his father. The Regent had little faith in him, nor did King Robert, even though he is now wed to Moray’s daughter.”

“An old story,” Mar said. “Dunbar has got over his weakness for the English, since he wed! Black Agnes wears the breeks now in that house, I swear! Forby, he accepted the duty of Chief Warden of the March. He has some thousands of men watching the Tweed crossings. Douglas, you are a Middle March man. Ride you south to the Earl of Dunbar and command him to come here to Lothian, with much of his strength and at his best speed, to counter any English landing here, if such there should be. And if not, to come on to me at Perth.”

“Command, my lord? On whose authority?”

“On mine, Douglas, on mine! Until the Council can meet and appoint a new Regent, I will bear that burden. As is my duty, I think – aye, and my right. Will any gainsay that?”

None there did, although there was no cheering nor acclaim either.

“I could do better, I think, than run courier for Dunbar!” Douglas objected.

Having established his position, Mar was prepared to be patient. “It must be someone goes whom Dunbar will heed and respect,” he asserted, tactfully. “One who can advise him, with some standing. Who better? If there is to be fighting here, on this coast, Douglas’s aid will serve well. Forby, Dunbar’s Border mosstroopers will respect the Knight of Liddesdale.”

Mollified, Douglas accepted all that as his due, although Ramsay, for one, suspected that Mar’s main aim was to rid himself of his awkward critic.

As Douglas led a move towards the door, Ramsay spoke up. “My lords, two matters which might serve,” he suggested. “A small fast force to ride at once for Queen Margaret’s Ferry. To cross Forth there and hasten up the other shore. Such could much hinder any English landing, harass and delay. Even four score horse, not over-difficult to ferry across, could make much trouble for Balliol over there. By the ferry, they could be at Aberdour or Kinghorn by midnight. A dozen miles, or thirteen, to the Queen’s Ferry from here; two hours. The same on the other side. Two hours crossing in the ferry-scows. Six or seven hours in all.”

Men paused, nodding.

“The other, have Musselburgh fishermen sail their craft across to keep watch on the English. Many small boats, to send back word.”

There was general agreement. Ramsay offered himself for the former task, with his Dalwolsey contingent.

But Mar had other plans for him than leading a sortie to Fife. Another could do that. Sir Alexander Seton perhaps – older and more experienced a captain. Ramsay of Dalwolsey was a great laird in these parts of Lothian. The Esk valleys and around could produce many more men than Ramsay’s and Seton’s troops of horse. All were going to be needed. Let Ramsay see to it. Quickly gather more men, especially horsed men. Bring them here, to this Lothian coast, in case Balliol turned back. If he did not, join Dunbar and Douglas and march north.

There was obvious sense in that, although Ramsay, like Douglas, would have relished a more active role.

There was no more delay, as all headed for the camp. The dead Regent must be left meantime in the Musselburgh folk’s care.

Leaving his troop of horse in the care of one of his small lairds, Ramsay of Redheuch, Sir Alexander bade farewell to Douglas and rode off up Eskside with his esquire and cousin, Pate Ramsay of Cockpen, a cheerful youth of eighteen. They had only seven miles to go up the fertile valley, halfway to the town of Dalkeith where the river branched into two, and thereafter up the South Esk’s windings to Dalwolsey. At Dalkeith he left Pate to summon the town’s magistrates to collect, arm and horse the couple of score of men it was their feudal duty as a burgh of barony to provide, and thereafter to go on to Newbattle Abbey and demand the churchmen’s dozen of the Abbot’s guard. He himself pressed on for his castle.

Dalwolsey was a fair heritage to have been left. Although the castle had been savaged more than once by the occupying English during the late Wars of Independence, his father, Sir William, in the years of freedom from invasion which had followed Bannockburn, had repaired and restored and extended it, so that now it was one of the finest fortalices in all Lothian. Sir William, like so many of the Bruce’s active supporters, had not lived long after signing the famous Declaration of Independence at Arbroath in 1320, another victim to long years of campaigning. Alexander, the elder son, had inherited at the age of seventeen. Now it looked as though he too might have to fight to defend his birthright. Hitherto he had won his spurs, and knighthood, only in minor paramilitary duties for the Regent, in keeping order in the unruly Borders and on the Highland Line; also in tourneys and joustings, where he had made quite notable mark.

As always he was apt to do, he reined in his horse at the sharp bend in the gut of the green valley, which gave the place its name in the Gaelic, dal-a’-h’oisinn, the dale at the corner, where suddenly the castle came into view, although that was but a poor description of its impact. Soaring proudly high, massive and dominant on a thrusting rock-base round which the river circled protectively, its rich redstone towers, battlements, bastions and curtain walls, punctuated with arrow-slits and shot-holes, seemed to challenge all comers. Below, on a slight widening of the valley floor, almost a meadow before the steep rock-face and close-running river, the castleton crouched, its cot-houses and cabins humble, yet assured, in the fortalice’s protection.

Cantering past the little houses, scattering poultry, pigs and barking dogs and waving to the women and bairns who came to the doorways to stare and smile, he rode up the sharp ascent to the castle forecourt. The drawbridge was down and the portcullis up, this summer late afternoon, and he drummed in across the timbers over the moat, between the twin drum-towers and under the carven arms of a black eagle displayed on blue, through the gatehouse pend and into the inner courtyard.

A guard from the gatehouse came hurrying to take his horse, but Ramsay told him not. to stable the beast for he would be requiring it again shortly. Greeting the servitors who appeared at the arched doorway of the great L-shaped keep, he enquired for his brother William. He need scarcely have asked. Yes, his brother was up in his own room in the Well-tower, writing and studying books as usual. That was announced with a sort of patient compassion.

Grinning, he returned to cross the courtyard to the substantial round tower at the north-east angle of the parapetted curtain wall, which stood apart from the keep and gave strong flanking protection to the only approach to the castle, up which Ramsay had ridden. This almost detached tower was an unusual feature, containing the deep castle draw-well in its vaulted basement, and with a curious stairway, not the normal turnpike, winding its way up within the thickness of the walling, round and round, to give access to the two upper storeys and parapet-walk of what was almost a separate establishment, and William Ramsay’s private domain.

Clanking his way up this spiral ascent in his half-armour, Ramsay came to the topmost floor and flung open the door. The circular chamber, lit by narrow slit-windows facing all quarters, was nevertheless additionally illuminated by two oil-lamps on a great table so covered in papers and parchments, quills and ink-horns and the like, as to be itself hidden. The floor likewise was littered with paper, books and documents, so that it was barely possible to enter without treading on them; a strange apartment to find in so martial and defensive a fortalice.

The young man who sat at the table, quill in hand, was extraordinarily like his brother, and yet so very different. In feature and build and colouring they were not far from identical; but in expression, demeanour and bearing there was no similarity. Where Alexander was keen-eyed, firm-mouthed and strong-chinned, yet with laughter-lines apt to qualify any aspect of sternness, William looked gentle, studious, diffident almost, and apt to be abstracted, not weak but passive, as though habitually suspending judgment. Two years the younger, despite his reflective air, he managed to look still more junior.

“Still poring over papers. Will! On my soul, your eyes will drop out, one of these days! Can you not find something better to do, this fine July afternoon?” He said that affably, however, smiling, and tramped over the papers to clap his brother on the bent shoulders. They were good friends, these two.

“Better than what, Sandy? Better than dashing around the land in uncomfortable chain-mail, waving sword and lance? To what end?” the other asked mildly. “For all your flourished steel, you have never yet in fact slain anyone, I think? Whereas I, now, am reading and writing of our ancestors the Norsemen and the Picts, or Cruithne, who, I would have you to know, slew by the thousand! At least the Norsemen did. Are you aware that the Vikings, when they had despatched their enemies, used to cut off their heads, wash their faces and trim their hair and beards, to hang up in neat rows to be smoked and decently preserved, like kippered herrings? And we, as of our Norman blood, are their descendants.”

“Lord! Is that what you are at now? Here’s a fine way for a supporter of Holy Church to spend his day!” William Ramsay had wanted to be a priest, but their father, with only the two sons, and anxious that in dangerous times the Ramsay line should survive, had forbidden it, since churchmen might not marry.

“I am more interested in the Cruithne, our maternal ancestors, in truth. They were an extraordinary people, and admirable, although we think and know so little of them. Less bloodthirsty than the Norse or the Scots. They worshipped the Unknown God, through the sun – hence the stone circles, their temples. Did you know, Sandy, that cruithne, in the Gaelic, means wheat-growers?”

“No. But, see you, such splendid tidings must wait, I fear. Since they have waited near a thousand years already! Today we have less worthy but more pressing problems: Edward Balliol and the English!” He launched into an account of the military situation.

Will Ramsay listened, shaking his fair head.

“So today and tomorrow we must raise as many men as we may. We have little time. I wish to be back at Musselburgh by tomorrow night at latest, with a fair tail. Pate is seein