David the Prince - Scotland 03 (53 page)

In the summer they heard that the Empress Maud had had a son to Geoffrey Plantagenet, whom she was calling Henry after her father, a male heir to the throne of England. And only months later came the word that the proud grandfather had died, suddenly, totally unexpectedly, at Gisors in Normandy, after eating too much of his favourite dish, lamprey pie. Henry Beauclerc had gone on, in his sixty-eighth year, David's friend and enemy for so long. Nothing
would be quite the same again.

27

N
othing was the
same indeed, thereafter, in England - and it did not take long for that to become evident to all. Stephen of Boulogne might be weak and headstrong, but he was not dilatory. No sooner had he heard of his uncle's death than he took ship to England, called on all the many dissident nobles of Norman extraction to join him, and had himself proclaimed King, despite his reluctant oath of support for his cousin Maud. The Empress, in the early stages of motherhood, was a deal less prompt. She issued a proclamation that she was true and legitimate monarch, and called upon all leal men to rally to her standard, naming Robert of Gloucester, her half-brother, as her general, to lead her cause. She also called upon al
l who had sworn support to rede
em their oaths - including the Earl of Huntingdon. But she herself remained in Aquitaine meantime.

David, of course, was put in a quandary. His oath was sacred to him, and he had every intention of turning his promised support into fact. But unfortunately Maud's delay in making any move enabled Stephen to stage a fairly convincing coronation. He even managed to get William of Canterbury to do the crowning, through the expedient of arranging for the Steward of the royal household, Hugh Bigod, to swear that on his death-bed Henry had turned against his daughter the Empress and declared that he left the throne to Stephen. Whether William believed this or not, he allowed himself to be convinced by the other bishops, led by Stephen's brother of Winchester, and Roger of Salisbury, and the thing was done - no doubt, as he claimed afterwards, to avoid civil war in England. So, however much of a usurper, Stephen could claim to be lawful and anointed King of England — w
hich meant that any positive acti
on against him by the King of Scots could be construed as an act of war against England. This had to be very carefully considered. He might have wriggled out of his dilemma by asserting that his oath was sworn only as Earl of Huntingdon and that he was no longer that, having been succeeded by his son Henry - and Henry had taken no such oath. But David was no wriggler, and rejected this device, however strongly advised.

Weighing it all up, he decided that his honour left him without option but to answer his niece's appeal. He did not particularly like her, did not even feel that she would make a satisfactory monarch. But an oath was an oath . . .

There was, of course, another aspect of the situation, and one which appealed to his lords and lieutenants where the oath-and-honour conception did not. This was the Northumbrian dimension. His father had always claimed that his realm should extend right down to the Tees - and had spent much of his time and energies trying
to enforce this belief- Northum
bria being the southern portion of the ancient Kingdom of Bernicia, of which Lothian, the Merse and Tweeddale wer
e the northern sector. The late
Cospatrick's father, had been Earl of Northumbria, under Scots overlordship, until William the Conqueror took it from him by force and gave it to Siward the Strong; whose son, Waltheof, Matilda's father, in due course inherited it, and was himself later dispossessed by the Conqueror and executed. So both as overlord and father of Matilda's son, David could make claim to that great province-and had reminded all of the fact when he had declared Henry as claimant at the same time as naming him Earl of Huntingdon. He had done nothing more about it. But now there was a new situation. With Stephen usurping the throne of England, Northumbria, possibly even Cumbria also, could well come back to Scotland. David was not a man for territorial aggression; but he recognised that there were distinct advantages to be gained here. It gave him an excellent excuse to marshal an army and march over the border, without actually having to declare war; also, the recovering of Northumbria was much more the sort of thing to rally his people to action than any mere declaration of redeeming a royal promise regarding a woman.

So, despite the unsuitable winter conditions, David mustered a force of some five thousand, deliberately not a major army but with a great display of lords, chiefs and knights, under a forest of banners and his own Boar Standard of Scotland, and marched from Rook's Burgh into Northumberland, his first deliberately warlike gesture as King.

Almost at once they come t
o the late Flambard's castle of
Norham - which surrendered after the merest token resistance. David had decided upon his policy in this respect, and ordered the place's demolition. Then he moved on southwards up the Till valley.

He was, as ever, concerned with good discipline, leaving his people in no doubt as to his royal wrath at any unprovoked attacks on the local populati
on, as was almost normal procee
dure once a border was crossed. This was, of course, unpopular; but fortunately the Northumbrian folk all but welcomed the Scots, esteeming David, son of a Saxon queen with no Norman blood in his veins, as something like a deliverer from the excesses of the Norman barons who had taken over the province since the Conqueror's time, their hatred of de Vesci and the late Flambard notable - this despite the large numbers of Norman knights in the Scots train.

Castles were a different matter, however, Norman stone keeps which had arisen and were still building, all over
North
umbria, centres of oppression in the main. These the local people all but pleaded with the Scots to take and destroy. David was nothing loth, recognising that these would be thorns-in-the-flesh in any eventual administration of the province by himself. Although they were strongholds, minor fortresses, they were built to withstand small raids and petty warfare, not armies of thousands, and they all either yielded after a token defence, like Norham, or else were prudently abandoned in the face of the advancing Scots. All except Bamburgh itself, that is, the principal seat of the former Earls of Northumbria, and now de Vesci's headquarters, a massive and powerful strength set on top of a sea-girt rocky cliff, which defied them and which would have required siege-engines and much time to reduce or starve out. This they left behind unassailed.

If the capture of most of these castles did not take so very long, the destruction and demolition of them afterwards did, ten-foot-thick walling being difficult to cast down. Squads had to be left behind to work at each, a delaying process, again less than popular with the troops. However, as far as David was concerned, there was no hurry, at this stage. The expedition was a gesture in support of Maud. He had sent word of it, before starting, to Robert of Gloucester at Arundel, and anticipating suitable reaction, some co-ordinated move by the Empress's forces, he hoped that Stephen would be caught between two or more armies and be forced to retreat or negotiate. So until he heard from the south, David could afford to dawdle - and to strengthen his hold on Northumbria.

In due course they reached the Tyne, still without any word from the Earl Robert. Here Rufus's great castle, which guarded the first suitable and sheltered ferrying-place above the estuary, again yielded after an exchange of pleasantries. If many of the Scots could scarcely credit their good fortune, and the ease with which they won these strengths, David reminded them that it was an expression of the unpopularity of the usurping Stephen, here in the North at least, indicating that most in the land, Normans as well as Saxons, were in fact faithful to the Empress. It was not all some vaunted prowess of the Scots, however much they might like to think so.

But the said Empress seemed notably slow to move in her own cause - or to see that her supporters in England did so, if she was still in Aquitaine. David began to get seriously concerned at the
lack of any sign of positive acti
on against the usurper, other than his own. So much for Henry Beauclerc's oath-swearing at Windsor.

They moved on towards Durham. Northumbria stopped at the Tees, where York commenced. They would go no farther meantime.

But before they reached Durham, information at last reached them - although it was not the news they looked for. Stephen himself was on the way north to meet them, and allegedly with the largest army ever to have been seen in England. He was no farther off than York.

Decis
i
on had to be swift. The Scots gesture looked like changing character drastically. It was no part of David's strategy at this stage to fight any major battle, especially not against what sounded like a vastly superior force, and with no least indication that there was any support in the offing. He plumped for discretion meantime. He would forego any idea of taking Durham as warning to Thurstan, and move back to the Tyne, to put himself behind that easily defendable water-barrier. And he would send out scouts to try to ascertain the true strength of Stephen's array, and his intentions as far as was possible.

So retiral was made to the Tyne, and David took up his quarters in Rufus's castle. There was now a feeling of tension in the Scots force.

In due course the scouts returned with what they had gleaned. Stephen's army was indeed large, if not perhaps quite so large as suggested. They reckoned it as perhaps between twenty and thirty thousand, mainly foreign mercenaries from Brittany and Flanders, with no large proportion of chivalry. It seemed that, like Henry before him, Stephen's first act had been to seize the royal treasure chests, in which he had found no less than three hundred thousand marks in silver and gold, it was alleged. He was spending this like water, to consolidate his hold on the throne; granting bribes and subventions left and right and large pensions of as much as three and five thousand marks to powerful men who should have supported Maud; buying the clergy with gifts and grants of land to the Church; above all hiring fighting men by the score of thousands from overseas, to make up for the lack of enthusiasm in England. He and his vast host were now approaching Durham.

Digesting this news David, whilst agreeing with his lieutenants that it was serious indeed, did not accede that it warranted immediate retiral on Scotland, as some urged. He saw more than a gleam of hope in it all. A would-be monarch who was reduced to importing many thousands of mercenaries to support his cause, must be markedly unsure of his position in the country. Stephen therefore was treading on thin ice, and would know it all too well. He would be aware of marching through a land ready to rise behind him, always an unnerving experience for any commander - and Stephen was young, inexperienced, save in jousting and the like, at which he was an expert performer. And he was of an unstable character. David guessed that he would be in a very uncertain state - which must be exploited, if possible. Five thousand Scots, solidly ranked behind the Tyne, with a Northumbria hostile to the usurper all round, and a sullen Middle England behind, would be apt to give any commander pause. Stephen, at the end of a long forced march from the South, might well be prepared to temporise meantime.

Reasoning thus, David sent a deputation forward, under Hugo de Morville, Deputy Constable, to propose a meeting, midway between their armies, say at Chester-le-Street, where they might discuss their differences.

In due course Hugo came back with an indeterminate response. Stephen would consider the matter.

There was much debate as to what this meant. Hugo said that the size of the opposing army certainly had not been exaggerated; but it was also true that it was very obviously composed mainly of mercenaries, and of the roughest type. He had seen very few Norman English lords. Stephen had seemed uneasy, irritable as well as arrogant. His brother Henry, the Bishop, was with him, and Hugo had the impression that he was influential and counselling caution.

It looked then as though Stephen preferred to wait. For what? Reinforcements? Surely that should be unnecessary. He would certainly have scouts out who would have told him that he had four or five times the numbers of the Scots in front. Then, either he did not trust his own troops, dreaded putting all to the test of war; or else was afraid of what might be going on in his rear, of England perhaps rising behind him. David judged this to be the most likely reason for the uncertainty and delay. In which case waiting was unlikely greatly to benefit him -whilst it might help the Scots, strongly-placed behind the unfordable Tyne. If they could rouse the Northumbrian folk to rise, all over, not actually to fight but to display their sympathy with the Scots and their hostility towards the usurper, especially to disorganise, if not cut off, the necessary food supplies for his large host, which had to live off the country, then the waiting period might well prove to their advantage.

So David sent out emissaries all over the province, urging local musters and marchings, and especially rough handling of Stephen's foraging bands - in all of which the Northumbrians were well content to co-operate. He considered sending for reinforcements from Scotland, but decided against it. Larger numbers of Scots might in the end be counter-productive.

They waited for two whole weeks, the two armies facing each other at a distance of about fifteen miles, inactive - although the folk of Northumbria were busy enough with demonstrations and the like. Many of David's people grew very impatient, especially the Normans, declaring that this was no way to conduct a campaign, arguing that if the enemy was sufficiently scared not to move, it was up to themselves to take advantage, to strike first and keep on striking. Timorousness would avail them nothing. Hervey de Warenne was of this persuasion, needless to say. But David was not to be moved.