The Steps to the Empty Throne

Wonderingly the younger man drew, and handed over the handsome weapon.

“Now, kneel.” He tapped each bent shoulder with the flat of the blade.

“I dub thee knight. Be thou a good and faithful knight until thy life’s end. Arise, Sir James!”

Quite stunned with the suddenness and proportions of the honour done him, Douglas stood at a loss.

Leaning a little in her saddle, Elizabeth, who had watched and listened interestedly, held out her hand, well aware of what this all meant to her husband.

“My felicities, Sir James. For the first knight of my lord’s creating.”

“Not the first,” Bruce said sombrely.

“I knighted Wallace. May you, sir, be more fortunate than he!”

“That is in God’s hands, Sire. But if I can strive to be one half so true a knight, I shall rejoice. I thank you, with all my heart, Your Grace.” Douglas took the Queen’s hand.

“Highness, I am yours, and the King’s, to command. Always. To the death.”

“This is too joyous a day to talk of death,” she told him.

”Live us.” And she smiled down on the lively, eager, almost

worshipping face.

“That too, Madam …”

“Aye, my friend-so be it,” Bruce said.

“This day we ride my realm without swords and lances and armour. For once! So take you mese fine Douglas blades of yours, and find Sir Christopher Seton. He rides some way to the west, holding our flank secure.

Leave them with him. He will use them well. Then come back to our side, my lord of Douglas. You shall be our good augury and fortune, on the way to Scone …”

The Abbey of Scone, a few miles North of Perth, above the cattle-dotted meadows of the silver Tay, was a fair place in a lovely setting. Admittedly it was not so fair as once it had been, for Edward had been here in 1296, and part-destroyed the Abbey when he took away its precious Stone, the symbol of Scotland’s sovereignty. And sent another punitive raid two years later. But there had been considerable rebuilding since then, much renewing of burned woodlands and a ravaged countryside in this the ancient Pictish capital and most hallowed spot in Scotland, where rose the Moot-hill that had been the centre of rule and the coronation-place of the most ancient kingdom of all Christendom.

For this day, at least, all traces of ruin and devastation were covered up and hidden. All was colour, flourish and acclaim.

A tented city had been set up, on the flats by the river, below the twelve acres of abbey buildings and the Moot-hill, furnished with the gorgeous silken pavilions of lords and bishops, the bowers of ladies, the lodges of lesser men, the canopied shrines of religious orders and holy relics, the booths of merchants and craftsmen, the enclosures for entertainers, tumblers, musicians and the like, the tourney-grounds, race-courses and playing-fields, stretching to the vast horse-lines and cattle-pens. Every sort of standard, flag, banner and pennon flew, ecclesiastical, heraldic, burg hal guild and purely decorative. Late March, it was scarcely the time of the year for such outdoor activities; but the weather was kind, and though a stiff breeze blew, the sun shone.

Robert Bruce had reason for some satisfaction. It was no feeble or humiliating affair, such as might have been. None could point the finger of scorn and claim that this was only a shameful pretence at a coronation. There were three earls present—four if young Donald of Mar was counted; John de Strathbogie, of Atholl; Malcolm of Lennox; and Alan of Menteeth—although be had been more or less dragooned, and his uncle, Sir John Stewart of Menteith not only was not present but had refused to yield up Dumbarton Castle to Bruce. There were three bishops-the Primate, Glasgow and Moray—with a number of mitred abbots and priors. Of lords, apart from Douglas, there were Hay of Erroll and his brother; Lindsay of Crawford; Somerville of Carnwath; Campbell of Lochawe; and Fleming of Cumberoauld.

James the Steward, aged and sick, had sent his surviving son Walter. And there were a great many barons, knights and lairds, the most prominent of whom were Sir Hugh, brother of the heroic Sir Simon Fraser of Oliver; Sir John Lindsay; Sir Robert Boyd, who had just captured Rothesay and Dunaverty Castles for Bruce; Sir David de Inchmartin and Sir Alexander Menzies. Alexander Scrymgeour, Wallace’s lieutenant, the Standard-Bearer, was there. The Bruce family itself made an impressive phalanx, with Seton and Sir Thomas Randolph, a nephew.

But, though all this was well enough, it was scarcely possible not to reflect on who was not present. Two-thirds of the earls and bishops and three-quarters of the lords had found it necessary or expedient to be elsewhere—although all had been summoned.

There was no overlooking this fact. Most significant, perhaps, for a coronation, was the absence of the young Mac Duff Earl of life, whose duty and privilege it was to place the new monarch on the fabled Stone of Destiny and to crown him thereafter. Some whispered indeed, with head-shakings, that without the magic symbol of the Stone, and lacking the Mac Duff presence, it could be no true crowning.

William Lamberton arrived at Scone within hours of the royal party’s coming, and it was Bruce who quickly thereafter sought the Bishop, in the Abbot’s quarters, not vice versa.

“My lord King!” the older man protested, as the other was shown into his chamber.

“This should not be! You should have let me seek audience. I was but preparing myself first, after my journeying …”

“Tush, man! Seek audience—you?” Bruce interrupted.

“Has it come to this, between us?”

“Conditions have changed, Sire,” the Primate said.

“Notably.”

“Changed, yes. But how much? Between us, my old friend?

That is what I came to discover. And at once.”

”They cannot be the same ever again, Sire, I fear. Since we are!

now master and subject.”

“Master and subject! That is for the ruck. Say what you mean man.”

“Mean, Your Grace? I do not understand …?”

“Have done, my lord Bishop! You know well what is between us. Blood I Murder! Say it.”

“If it is John Comyn you speak of, his blood does not lie between you and me. You have absolution, have you not?”

“Absolution, yes. And why granted? Because you so ordained?

That I might not be debarred the throne? Before the Pope in Rome excommunicates me!”

“In part true, Sire. But only in part. Your slaying of Comyn was a sin, yes. The manner of it. I do not gainsay it. But a sin meet for absolution. Given repentance. Since the man was evil.

Had plotted your own death. And would have done so again. It was Comyn, or Bruce! If ever a man ensured his own death, that man was John Comyn.”

“So… you are still my friend?”

“If Your Grace will still consent to name me so.”

“Thank God! This, I think, I feared most of all.” Bruce reached out to take the other’s hand.

“The excommunication I could have tho led God’s judgement hereafter I must await. But your estrangement would have been beyond all bearing.”

Much moved, the Bishop for once could find no words. He gripped the younger man’s hand for long moments before he raised it to his lips.

“This of the kingship,” Bruce went on, after a while.

“Having defied and fled from Edward, and slain Comyn, I had to move.

To take the throne, without delay. Before Edward could have the Pope excommunicate me. From a coronation. It was over soon, for our plans, for Scotland. But my hand was forced.”

“Think you I do not know it? It had to be. Over-soon, yes.

But better that than over-late. Now, we must set the crown on your brow, for all to see, in fashion that none can question. And to that end, Sire, I would have you speak with the Abbot here.

Abbot Henry.”

“I have already met the good Abbot.”