The Scottish Chiefs
Chapter LXXXIX.
Bannockburn.
The generality of his prisoners Bruce directed should be kept safe inthe citadel; but to Mobray he gave his liberty, and ordered every meansto facilitate the commodious journey of that brave knight whom he hadrequested to convey the insane Lady Strathearn to the protection of herhusband.
Mowbray accepted his freedom with gratitude, and gladly set forth withhis unhappy charge to meet his sovereign. Expectation of Edward'sapproach had been the reason of his withdrawing his herald from thecamp of Bruce, and though the king did not arrive time enough to saveStirling, Mowbray yet hoped he might still be continuing his promisedmarch. This anticipation the Southron's loyalty would not allow him toimpart to Bruce, and he bade that generous prince adieu, with the fullbelief of soon returning to find him the vanquished of Edward.
At the decline of day Bruce returned to his camp, to pass the night inthe field with his soldiers, intending next morning to give his lastorders to the detachments which he meant to send out under the commandof Lennox and Douglas, to disperse themselves over the border counties,and there keep station till that peace should be signed by Englandwhich he was determined, by unabated hostilities, to compel.
Having taken these measures for the security of his kingdom and theestablishment of his own happiness, he had just returned to his tent onthe banks of the Bannockburn when Grimsby, his now faithful attendant,conducted an armed knight into his presence. The light of the lampwhich stood on the table, streaming full on the face of the stranger,discovered to the king his English friend, the intrepid Montgomery.With an exclamation of glad surprise Bruce would have clasped him inhis arms; but Montgomery dropping on his knee, exclaimed, "Receive asubject as well as a friend, victorious and virtuous prince! I haveforsworn the vassalage of the Plantagenets; and thus, without title orland, with only a faithful heart, Gilbert Hambledon comes to vowhimself yours and Scotland's forever."
Bruce raised him from the ground, and welcoming him with the warmembrace of friendship, inquired the cause of so extraordinary anabjuration of his legal sovereign. "No light matter," observed theking, "could have so wrought upon my noble Montgomery!"
"Montgomery no more!" replied the ear, with indignant eagerness; "whenI threw the insignia of my earldom at the feet of the unjust Edward, Itold him that I would lay the saw to the root of the nobility I hadderived from his house, and cut it through; that I would sooner leavemy posterity without titles and without wealth, than deprive them ofreal honor.** I have done as I said! And yet I come not without atreasure, for the sacred corpse of William Wallace is now in my bark,floating on the waves of the Forth!"
**This event is perpetuated in the crest of the noble family ofHamilton in Scotland.
The subjugation of England would hardly have been so welcome to Bruceas this intelligence. He received it with an eloquent thoughunutterable look of gratitude. Hambledon continued: "On the tyrantsummoning the peers of England to follow him to the destruction ofScotland, Gloucester got excused under a plea of illness, and I couldnot but show a disinclination to obey. This occasioned some remarksfrom Edward respecting my known attachment to the Scottish cause, andthey were so couched as to draw from me this honest answer; my heartwould not, for the wealth of the world, permit me to join in theprojected invasion, since I had seen the spot in my own country where amost inordinate ambition had cut down the flower of all knighthood,because he was a Scot who would not sell his birthright! The king leftme in wrath and threatened to make me recant my words--I as proudlydeclared I would maintain them. Next morning, being in waiting on theprince, I entered his chamber, and found John le de Spencer (the cowardwho so basely insulted Wallace on the day of his condemnation); he wassitting with his highness. On my offering the services due from myoffice, this worthless minion turned on me, and accused me of havingdeclined joining the army for the sole purpose of executing some plotin London, devised between me and my Scottish partisans for thesubversion of the English monarchy. I denied the charge. He enforcedit with oaths, and I spurned his allegations. The prince, who believedhim, furiously gave me the lie, and commanded me as a traitor to leavehis presence. I refused to stir an inch till I made the base heart ofLe de Spencer retract his falsehood. The coward took courage on hismaster's support, and drawing his sword upon me, in language that wouldblister my tongue to repeat, threatened to compel my departure. Hestruck me on the face with his weapon. The arms of his prince couldnot then save him; I thrust him through the body, and he fell. Edwardran on me with his dagger, but I wrested it from him. Then it wasthat, I reply to his menaces, I revoked my fealty to a sovereign Iabhorred, a prince I despised. Leaving his presence before thefluctuations of so versatile a mind could fix upon seizing me, Ihastened to Highgate, to convey away the body of our friend from itsbrief sanctuary. The same night I embarked it and myself on board aship of my own, and am now at your feet, brave and just king!--nolonger Montgomery, but a true Scot in heart and loyalty."
"And as a kinsman, generous Hambledon!" returned Bruce, "I receive andwill portion thee. My paternal lands of Cadzow, on the Clyde, shall bethine forever; and may thy posterity be as worthy of the inheritance astheir ancestor is of all my love and confidence."
Hambledon, having received his new sovereign's directions concerningthe disembarkation of those sacred remains, which the young kingdeclared he should welcome as the pledge of Heaven to bless hisvictories with peace, returned to the haven, where Wallace rested inthat sleep which even the voice of friendship could not disturb.
At the hour of the midnight watch, the trumpets of approaching heraldsresounded without the camp. Bruce hastened to the council-tent toreceive the now anticipated tidings. The communications of Hambledonhad given him reason to expect another struggle for his kingdom, andthe message of the trumpets declared it might be a mortal one.
At the head of a hundred thousand men, Edward had forced a rapidpassage through the Lowlands, and was now within a few hours' march ofStirling, fully determined to bury Scotland under her own slain, or, byone decisive blow, restore her to his empire.
When this was uttered by the English herald, Bruce turned to Ruthvenwith an heroic smile:
"Let him come, my brave barons, and he shall find that Bannockburnshall page with Cambus-Kenneth!"
The strength of the Scottish army did not amount to more than thirtythousand men against this host of Southrons. But the relics of Wallacewere there! His spirit glowed in the heart of Bruce. The youngmonarch lost not the advantage of choosing his ground first, andtherefore, as his power was deficient in cavalry, he so took his fieldas to compel the enemy to make it a battle of infantry alone.
To protect his exposed flank from the innumerable squadrons of Edward,he dug deep and wide pits near to Bannockburn, and having overlaidtheir mouths with turf and brushwood, proceeded to marshal his littlephalanx on the shore of that brook till his front stretched to St.Ninan's Monastery.
The center was led by Lord Ruthven and Walter Stewart; the right ownedby the valiant leading of Douglas and Ramsay, supported by the braveyoung Gordon with all his clan; and the left was put in charge ofLennox, with Sir Thomas Randolph, a crusade chieftain, who, likeLindsay and others, had lately returned from distant lands, and nowzealously embraced the cause of his country.
Bruce stationed himself at the head of the reserve; with him were theveterans Loch-awe, and Kirkpatrick, and Lord Bothwell with the true DeLongueville, and the men of Lanark, all determined to make thisdivision the stay of their little army, or the last sacrifice forScottish liberty and its martyred champion's corpse. There stood thesable hearse of Wallace, rather than yield the ground which he hadrendered doubly precious by having made it the scene and the guerdon ofhis invincible deeds! When Kirkpatrick approached the side of his deadchief, he burst into tears, and his sobs alone proclaimed hisparticipation in the solemnity. The vow spread to the surroundinglegions, and was echoed, with mingled cries and acclamations, from thefurthest ranks.
"My leader, in death as in life!" exclaimed Bruce, clasping hisfriend's sable shroud to his heart; "thy pale corpse shall again redeemthe country which cast thee, living, amongst devouring lions! Itspresence shall fight and conquer for thy friend and king!"
Before the chiefs turned to resume their martial stations, the abbot ofInchaffray drew near with the mysterious iron box, which Douglas hadcaused to be brought from St. Fillan's Priory. On presenting it to theyoung monarch, he repeated the prohibition which had been given withit, and added, "Since, then, these canonized relics (for none can doubtthey are so) have found protection under the no less holy arm of St.Fillan, he now delivers them to your youthful majesty, to penetratetheir secrets, and to nerve your mind with redoubled trust in thesaintly host."
"The saints are to be honored, reverend father, and on that principle Ishall not invade their mysteries till the God in whom alone I trust,marks me with more than the name of king; till, by a decisive victory,he establishes me the approved champion of my country--the worthysuccessor of him before whose mortal body and immortal spirit I nowemulate his deeds. But as a memorial that the host of heaven do indeedlearn from the bright abodes to wish well to this day, let these holyrelics repose with those of the brave till the issue of the battle."
Bruce, having placed his array, disposed the supernumeraries of hisarmy, the families of his soldiers, and other apparently uselessfollowers of the camp, in the rear of an adjoining hill.
By daybreak the whole of the Southron army came in view. The van,consisting of archers and men-at-arms, displayed the banner of Earl deWarenne; the main body was led on by Edward himself, supported by atrain of his most redoubted generals. As they approached, the bishopof Dunkeld stood on the face of the opposite hill between the abbots ofCambus-Keneth and Inchaffray, celebrating mass in the sight of theopposing armies. He passed along in front of the Scottish linesbarefoot, with the crucifix in his hand, and in few but forcible wordsexhorted them by every sacred hope, to fight with an unreceding stepfor their rights, their king, and the corpse of William Wallace! Atthis abjuration, which seemed the call of Heaven itself, the Scots fellon their knees, to confirm their resolution with a vow. The suddenhumiliation of their posture excited an instant triumph in the haughtymind of Edward, and spurring forward, he shouted aloud, "They yield!They cry for mercy!"
"They cry for mercy!" returned Percy, trying to withhold his majesty,"but not from us. On that ground on which they kneel, they will bevictorious or find their graves."
The king contemned this opinion of the earl, and inwardly believingthat, now Wallace was dead, he need fear no other opponent (for he knewnot that even his cold remains were risen in array against him), heordered his men to charge. The horsemen, to the number of thirtythousand, obeyed; and, rushing forward, with the hope of overwhelmingthe Scots ere they could rise from their knees, met a differentdestiny. They found destruction amid the trenches and on the pikes inthe way, and with broken ranks and fearful confusion, fell or fledunder the missive weapons which poured on them from a neighboring hill.De Valence was overthrown and severely wounded, and being carried offthe field, filled the rear ranks with dismay; while the king's divisionwas struck with consternation at so disastrous a commencement of anaction in which they had promised themselves so easy a victory. Bruceseized the moment of confusion, and seeing his little army distressedby the arrows of the English, he sent Bothwell round with a resolutebody of men to drive those destroying archers from the heights whichthey occupied. This was effected; and Bruce coming up with hisreserve, the battle in the center became close, obstinate, anddecisive. Many fell before the determined arm of the youthful king;but it was the fortune of Bothwell to encounter the false Monteith inthe train of Edward. The Scottish earl was then at the head of hisintrepid Lanarkmen.
"Fiend of the most damned treason," cried he, "vengeance is come!" andwith an iron grasp, throwing the traitor into the midst of the faithfulclan, they dragged him to the hearse of their chief, and there, on theskirts of its pall, the wretched villain breathed out his treacherousbreath, under the strokes of a hundred swords.
"So," cried the veteran Ireland, "perish the murderers of WilliamWallace!"
"So," shouted the rest, "perish the enemies of the bravest, the mostloyal of Scots, the benefactor of his country!"
At this crisis the women and followers of the Scottish camp, hearingsuch triumphant exclamations from their friends, impatiently quittedtheir station behind the hill, and ran to the summit, waving theirscarfs and plaids in exultation of the supposed victory. The English,mistaking these people for a new army, had not the power to recoverfrom the increasing confusion which had seized them on King Edwardhimself receiving a wound, and panic-struck with the sight of theirgenerals falling around them, they flung down their arms and fled. Theking narrowly escaped; but being mounted on a stout and fleet horse, heput him to the speed and reached Dunbar, whence the young Earl ofMarch, being as much attached to the cause of England as his father hadbeen, instantly gave him a passage to England.
The Southron camp, with all its riches, fell into the hands of Bruce.But while his chieftains pursued their gallant chase, he turned hissteps from warlike triumph, to pay his heart's honors to the remains ofthe hero whose blood had so often bathed Scotland's fields of victory.His vigils were again beneath that sacred pall--for so long had beenthe conflict, that night closed in before the last squadrons left thebanks of Bannockburn.
At the dewy hour of morn Bruce reappeared upon the field. His helmetwas royally plumed, and the golden lion of Scotland gleamed from underhis sable surcoat. Bothwell rode at his side. The troops he hadretained from the pursuit were drawn out in array. In a brief addresshe unfolded to them the solemn duty to which he had called them--to seethe bosom of their native land receive the remains of Sir WilliamWallace.
"He gave to you your homes and your liberty!--grant, then, a grave, thepeace of the tomb to him, whom some amongst you repaid with treacheryand death!"
At these words a cry, as if they beheld their betrayed chief slainbefore them, issued from every heart.
The news had spread to the town, and with tears and lamentations a vastcrowd collected round the royal troop. Bruce ordered his bards toraise the sad coronach, and the march commenced toward the open tentthat canopied the sacred remains. The whole train followed thespeechless woe, as if each individual had lost his dearest relative.Having passed the wood, they came in view of the black hearse, whichcontained all that now remained of him who had so lately crossed theseprecincts in all the panoply of triumphant war, in all the graciousnessof peace, and love to man! The soldiers, the people rushed forward,and precipitating themselves before the bier, implored a pardon fortheir ungrateful country. They adjured him, by every tender name offather, benefactor, and friend, and in such a sacred presence,forgetting that their king was by, gave way to a grief which, mosteloquently, told the young monarch that he who would be respected afterWilliam Wallace must not only possess his power and valor, but imitatehis virtues.
Scrymgeour, who had well remembered his promise to Wallace on thebattlements of Dumbarton, with a holy reference to that vow now laidthe standard of Scotland upon the pall. Hambledon placed on it thesword and helmet of the sacrificed hero. Bruce observed all insilence. The sacred burden was raised. Uncovering his royal head,with his kingly purple sweeping in the dust, he walked before the bier,shedding tears, more precious in the eyes of his subjects than the oilwhich was soon to pour upon his brow. As he thus moved on, he heardacclamations mingle with the voice of sorrow.
"This is our king, worthy to have been the friend of Wallace! worthy tosucceed him in the kingdom of our hearts."
At the gates of Cambus-Kenneth, the venerable abbot appeared at thehead of his religious brethren; but without uttering the grief thatshook his aged frame, he raised the golden crucifix over the head ofthe bier, and after leaning his face for a few minutes on it, precededthe procession into the church. None but the soldiers entered. Thepeople remained
without, and as the doors closed they fell on thepavement, weeping as if the living Wallace had again been torn fromthem.
On the steps of the altar the bier rested. The bishop of Dunkeld, inhis pontifical robes, received the sacred deposit with a cloud ofincense, and the pealing organ, answered by the voices of thechoristers, breathed the solemn requiem of the dead. The wreathingfrankincense parted its vapor, and a wan but beautiful form, claspingan urn to her breast, appeared stretched on a litter, and was bornetoward the spot. It was Helen, brought from the adjoining nunnery,where since her return to these once dear shores, now made a desert toher, she had languished in the gradual decay of the fragile bonds whichalone fettered her mourning spirit, eager for release.
All night had Isabella watched by her couch, expecting that eachsucceeding breath would be the last her beloved sister would draw inthis calamitous world; but as her tears fell in silence from her cheekupon the cold forehead of Helen, the gentle saint understood theirexpression, and looking up:
"My Isabella," said she, "fear not. My Wallace is returned. God willgrant me life to clasp his blessed remains!"
Full of this hope, she was borne, almost a passing spirit, into thechancel of Cambus-Kenneth. Her veil was open, and discovered her facelike one just awakened from the dead; it was ashy pale, but it bore acelestial brightness, which, like the silver luster of the moon,declared its approach to the fountain of its glory. Her eye fell onthe bier, and, with a momentary strength, she sprung from the couch onwhich she had leaned in dying feebleness, and threw herself upon thecoffin.
There was an awful pause while Helen seemed to weep. But so was nother sorrow to be shed. It was locked within the flood-gates of herheart.
In that suspension of the soul, when Bothwell knelt on one side of thebier and Ruthven bent his knee on the other, Bruce stretched out hishand to the weeping Isabella; "Come hither, my youthful bride, and letthy first duty be paid to the shrine of thy benefactor and mine! Somay we live, sweet excellence; and so may we die, if the like may beour meed of heavenly glory!"
Isabella threw herself into his arms and wept aloud. Helen, slowlyraising her head at these words, regarded her sister with a look ofawful tenderness, then turning her eyes back upon the coffin, gazed onit as if they would have pierced its confines, and clasping the urnearnestly to her heart, she exclaimed, "'Tis come! the promise--Thybridal bed shall be William Wallace's grave!"
Bruce and Isabella, not aware that she repeated words which Wallace hadsaid to her, turned to her with portentous emotion. She understood theterrified glance of her sister, and with a smile which bespoke herkindred to the soul she was panting to rejoin, she answered, "I speakof my own espousals. But ere that moment is--and I feel it near--letmy Wallace's hallowed presence bless your nuptials! Thou wilt breathethy benediction through my lips," added she, laying her hand on thecoffin, and looking down on it as if she were conversing with itsinhabitant.
"O, no, no," returned Isabella, throwing herself on her knees before thealmost unembodied aspect of her sister; "let me ever be the sharer ofyour cell, or take me with you to the kingdom of Heaven!"
"It is thy sister's spirit that speaks," cried Dunkeld, observing theawe which not only shook the tender frame of Isabella, but hadcommunicated itself to Bruce, who stood in heart-struck venerationbefore the yet unascended angel, "holy inspiration," continued thebishop, "beams from her eyes, and as ye hope for further blessings,obey its dictates!"
Isabella bowed her head in acquiescence. As Bruce approached to takehis part in the sacred rite, he raised the hand which lay on the pallto his lips. The ceremony began--was finished! As the bridal notesresounded from the organ, and the royal pair rose from their knees,Helen held her trembling hands over them. She gasped for breath, andwould have sunk without a word, had not Bothwell supported her shadowyform upon his breast. She looked round on him with a grateful thoughlanguid smile, and with a strong effort spoke:
"Be you blessed in all things as Wallace would have blessed you! Fromhis side I pour out my soul upon you, my sister--my being--and, withits inward-breathed prayers to the Giver of all good for your eternalhappiness, I turn, in holy faith--to my long looked-for rest!"
Bruce and Isabella wept in each other's arms. Helen slid gently fromthe boom of Bothwell prostrate on the coffin, and uttering, in a lowtone:
"I waited only for this! We have met--I unite thy noble heart to theeagain--I claim my brother--at our Father's hands--in mercy!--inlove--by his all-blessed Son!"
Her voice gradually faded away as she murmured these broken sentences,which none but the close and attentive ear of Bothwell heard. But hecaught not the triumphant exclamation of her soul, which spoke, thoughher lips ceased to move, and cried to the attending angels:
"Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?"
In this awful moment the Abbot of Inchaffray, believing the dying saintwas prostrate in prayer, laid his hand on the iron box, which stood atthe foot of Wallace's bier. "Before the sacred remains of the oncechampion of Scotland, and in the presence of his royal successor,"exclaimed the abbot, "let this mysterious coffer of St. Fillan's beopened, to reward the deliverer of Scotland, according to its intent!"
"If it were to contain the relics of St. Fillan himself," returned theking, "they could not meet a holier bosom than this!" and resting thebox on the coffin, he unclasped the lock, and the regalia of Scotlandwas discovered! At this sight, Bruce exclaimed, in an agony ofgrateful emotion, "Thus did this truest of human beings protect myrights, even while the people I had deserted, and whom he had saved,knelt to him to wear them all!"
"And thus Wallace crowns thee!" said Dunkeld, taking the diadem fromits coffer, and setting it on Bruce's head.
"My husband, and my king!" gently exclaimed Isabella, sinking on herknee before him, and clasping his hand to her lips.
"Hearest thou that, my beloved Helen?" cried Bothwell, touching theclasped hands which rested on the coffin. He turned pale, and lookedon Bruce. Bruce, in the glad moment of his joy at this happyconsummation of so many years of blood, observed not his glance, but inexulting accents exclaimed, "Look up, my sister; and let thy soul,discoursing with our Wallace, tell him that Scotland is free, andBruce's king indeed!"
She spoke not, she moved not. Bothwell raised her clay-cold face."That soul has fled, my lord!" said he; "but from yon eternal sphere,they now together look upon your joys. Here let their bodies rest; for'they loved in their lives, and in their deaths they shall not bedivided!"
Before the renewing of the moon, whose waning light witnessed theirsolemn obsequies, the aim of Wallace's life, the object of Helen'sprayers, was accomplished. Peace reigned in Scotland. The discomfitedKing Edward died of chagrin in Carlisle; and his humbled son andsuccessor sent to offer such honorable terms of pacification, thatBruce gave them acceptance, and a lasting tranquility spread prosperityand happiness throughout the land.