Insurrection (19 page)

For six months, Edward had pursued Montfort and his supporters across the realm and into  Wales, challenged by the mountains and shadowed by the menace of Llywelyn. Bruce, who had been in the king’s service since the start of the year, aiding in a victory over Montfort’s forces at Northampton, had heard much of Edward’s exploits. Despite reservations about the young man’s impetuous and aggressive temperament, Bruce had been impressed. He had never seen a man so confident before battle. King Henry had ordered one of his barons to lead the left flank in the charge and the Earl of Cornwall had chosen his eldest son to direct the centre’s attack. But Edward would lead his own men. The Earl of Leicester might have the advantage of the high ground, but that was all. The royal army, ten thousand strong, outnumbered his rebel forces by more than two to one. Montfort was in his middle years and had never fought a pitched battle. Edward was twenty-five, filled with determination and a youthful sense of immortality, blooded all last summer on French tournament grounds.

On both sides shield straps were tightened, helms drawn down over padded coifs, stirrups adjusted, girths checked. Knights took their lances from their squires, gripping the ash shafts. There were no coronels to spread the force of impact, no dulled tips. These were lances of war. Behind the front lines of the royal cavalry the smaller contingents, Bruce’s among them, readied themselves, but didn’t yet pull on their helms. They would form part of a second wave. Behind them the foot soldiers covered the slopes in a thicket of spears and swords. Their part too was yet to come. First, the knights.

The horn blew again from Henry’s ranks, followed by a deeper, answering call from the enemy lines; two beasts roaring at one another across the green hills. The knights of the royal army set out. They started at a walk, riding knee to knee. On the hillside, Montfort’s forces remained motionless, keeping tight control over their horses. These men wore the white crosses of crusaders; a sign that theirs was a holy cause, as proclaimed by their leader. The royalists leaned forward in their saddles to aid their destriers on the slope. The walk turned into a trot, bells on caparisons ringing. As they neared the enemy the breaks between the three companies became more apparent, Henry’s left flank driving towards Montfort’s right, centre towards centre. Still, Montfort’s forces waited. Battle cries sounded from the royalists, tearing from throats; feral sounds made by men who knew this charge could be their last. Now, trot turned to canter and the earth began to shudder. At the last moment, so as to preserve as much energy for the fight as possible, Montfort unleashed his cavalry. His knights spurred their chargers and plunged hard down the hill to meet the incoming force. Horses struck white wounds in the grass as hooves scuffed the chalk beneath. Lances swung down to level at the enemy as hundreds of tonnes of steel and muscle raced towards one another.

As the armies clashed, the Lord of Annandale, watching with the remainder of the king’s flank, knew the awe of an English heavy cavalry charge. Lances shattered, horses reared, men tumbled from saddles. Blood flew, flesh opening beneath edges and points of iron that punctured padding and mail. The unhorsing, wounding and capture of the enemy was sought, for corpses fetched little ransom, but in the blind chaos of the charge, death was a whore who did not care who she drew into her darkness, veteran knight or callow bachelor.

Edward’s company punched through the enemy’s left flank like a fist through parchment, tearing great holes in their lines. Lances, spent or smashed, were thrown aside as the ranks closed in, drawing swords and hacking at one another. The crack of steel on shields and screams of men and horses rose in a mad clamour. More knights fell, those unhorsed pulling at those still mounted, dragging them down into the crush beneath. Down here, swords were knocked from hands and daggers were drawn, the battle close and grim. All notions of chivalry were swept aside in the rough press. Weapons jabbed and slashed, seeking openings in defences. Arms and fingers were broken under hooves, spines cracked, groins gashed.

The reek of blood swelled in the stew of the mêlée as Edward’s company pushed against the rebels, half his men locking the left flank into the vicious brawl, while the others circled to outflank them. Montfort’s men fought on bitterly, but were soon surrounded. Those still in their saddles found their horses attacked, the beasts toppled by the slash of blades across hind legs. Edward’s men sounded his battle cry; a cry that had called so many ambitious bachelors to his banner, from the tournament grounds of France to the wars in Wales. Slowly, but surely, the enemy’s lines began to break apart under the determined onslaught of Edward’s forces. Horns rang out in encouragement as the young lord and his knights surged deep into the ragged left flank of Montfort’s army.

The two other contingents of the royal forces were engaged in more sober, rooted battles against Montfort’s right and centre. The rebels had used less energy in the initial charge, allowing the high ground to do its work in tiring the royal forces on the upward assault. Montfort himself, along with his seasoned knights, was concentrated in the centre, against the Earl of Cornwall. Cornwall’s son had led a rather loose charge, his men splitting at the crucial point of impact. Montfort, by contrast, had kept his ranks tight, forming an indomitable barrier against which Cornwall’s knights had dashed themselves, like waves upon rocks. The battle for the centre had since spread out across the hillside. Several times Cornwall’s forces tried to outflank the rebels, but Montfort’s horns had called his bowmen to repel the knights with a rain of arrows that blinded and disorientated them.

King Henry and his barons, at the head of the left flank, fought a slower, more entrenched campaign. Having called up the smaller contingents, they were making some progress against Montfort’s right wing, but unlike Edward’s ferocious attack which had smashed through the enemy lines, they were only able to chip away at the determined rebels, who refused to give quarter.

Across the hillside, above the chaos of Montfort’s left flank, a scarlet banner was raised by Edward’s men, the dragon at its centre a terror wreathed in golden flames, a sign that there was to be no mercy. The noblemen who survived the battle would be taken prisoner and ransomed, but no such chivalry awaited the foot soldiers beyond. Mostly made up of labourers from London, they would fetch no payment. They were nothing but an opportunity for the slaking of blood lust, nothing but fodder for worms. Edward’s knights, bypassing the straggling remains of the cavalry, crashed straight through them. As the infantry, unable to withstand such brute force, turned and raced for the safety of the woods at their back, Edward’s men followed. Rushing up the hillside, they thundered away down the other side to vanish from view.

Ahead was a mass of moving spears as Montfort’s right flank pushed doggedly against King Henry’s company. The Lord of Annandale gripped his lance, holding it steady as his horse was knocked and jostled. His helm channelled his vision into two slits of chaos and his knee was being crushed, wedged between his saddle and another man’s destrier. The sweltering heat inside his helm and the stink of his own sweat were suffocating. Every now and then, when an opening appeared, Bruce roared at his men, still pressed tight around him and, together, they urged their horses forward to block it, jabbing and thrusting at any who attempted to push through. Edward’s company was long gone, as were the foot soldiers they had been pursuing. Only Montfort’s centre and right flank remained, but although their numbers were inferior, their resolve was anything but. Edward’s disappearance had left Cornwall’s company open to attack from the side and Montfort was using that advantage to full effect, leading his veteran knights to outflank the earl’s forces.

The mob ahead of Bruce parted again and another of Montfort’s men broke through. He was blood-spattered, his shield buckled and splintered in the centre. He came straight at Bruce, faceless in steel, only the arms on his surcoat and ailettes offering any clue to his identity. Both were unknown to Bruce as he lunged with his lance. It collided with the side of the man’s helm. Iron tip screeched along metal cheek, then punched on past. The man reeled with the blow and lashed out with his sword, striking Bruce in the head. The Lord of Annandale felt the blow like a hammer on his brain. His head thudding with the concussion, he snarled against the pain and struck out, but the knight was already gone, pulled from his charger by one of Bruce’s men to be trampled into the sludge of mud and blood welling up beneath the hooves. Bruce could hear cries all around him, punctuated by the squeals of horses. More of Montfort’s men were pushing through, spearing holes in Henry’s lines.

A horse reared up beside Bruce, sending its rider tumbling into him, clouting his lance out of his grip. Hauling on the reins as his mount panicked, refusing to let it turn, Bruce recovered his balance and wrenched his sword from his scabbard as another rebel came at him. Despite the fact that his horse was bucking beneath him, he caught the man in the neck with a crushing blow, the man’s mail snapping with the force. The blade stuck in flesh, before the lord wrenched it free with a mist of blood. Somewhere, a horn was blaring.

The Earl of Cornwall had been outflanked by Montfort’s forces. Finding himself caught in a sea of enemy soldiers, his knights unable to reach him, the king’s brother fought his way free in desperation. Spurring his horse out of the mêlée, he fled across the fields. As his household troops followed, their horns ringing a retreat, the battle for the centre disintegrated. The rest of Cornwall’s forces, leaderless and panic-stricken, began to scatter, the rebels roaring in elation as they gave chase. The centre, breaking apart across the hillside, left the king’s flank wide open to attack. Seeing the royal forces in disarray encouraged Montfort’s men to an ever more determined assault and all along the front lines of King Henry’s company gaps appeared as his knights were beaten back. Simon de Montfort had proclaimed this a holy war against the king. Now, it appeared, God was on his side.

A cry went up. Retreat! Retreat!

King Henry and his royal knights led the flight, the king’s banner trailing red behind him as he urged his destrier down from the high ground, back towards Lewes. Retreat turned into stampede. The Lord of Annandale found himself swept up and carried from the hillside in the blind tumult. One man went down in front of him, his horse smashing to the ground in a cloud of dust. Bruce kicked his charger and vaulted up and over, iron-shod hooves striking the chalk as it came down hard on the other side. His banneret was to the side of him. Some of his men were close behind. He could just glimpse them through the slits of his helm. All else was confusion, the king’s infantry scattering across the hillside before the knights.

All around the town of Lewes, torches were burning. The flames billowed in the evening, giving off a haze of acrid smoke that drifted over the rooftops. Around one building, some distance from the castle and set in its own grounds, the torches formed a dense constellation in the gathering shadows.

In a cell in Lewes Priory, four men were waiting. One sat on the room’s single pallet, his head in his hands, another leaned against the wall by the door, eyes closed, and one was on the floor, knees drawn up to his chest. The fourth stood by the window, staring out across the dark silhouettes of the priory’s outbuildings to the flickering points of fire that lit a mass of men.

On the air, Bruce could hear screams as horses, too badly injured in the battle to be saved, were despatched. Above the pitiful noises rose the sound of raucous laughter and song. Montfort’s men had not been slow to celebrate their victory. Bruce could see them through the cobweb-strung window of the cell. He glanced round, hearing a sniff. John Comyn, over by the door, still had his eyes closed and Balliol his head in his hands. Bruce guessed the sound had come from the third figure, huddled on the floor. The squire couldn’t have been more than eighteen; not much younger than his eldest son, back in Scotland. His eyes were pools in the gloom. Bruce grunted, glancing at Balliol, the squire’s master, who hadn’t looked up. After a moment, he turned back to the window, unwilling to offer words of reassurance to someone else’s man. Besides, he had none to offer, for what comfort was there in the face of capture and defeat?

Hours earlier, after the battle on the Downs turned into a rout, King Henry’s forces had fled to the safety of the monks’ precinct, which had formed the king’s camp since his arrival in Lewes. Other cavalry made it into the town, but had holed up elsewhere. The infantry wouldn’t have been so fortunate. Unable to match the swift retreat of the knights, they would have been easy targets for Montfort’s pursuing forces. Their passing, although brutal, would at least have been quick. The humiliation of imprisonment, waiting for another man to decide his future, seemed, to Bruce, a worse fate. In battle a man had choices, in how he fought and how he died. He was still free. Here, all choice was suspended. He hated the death of his own control, fearing it more than the death of the flesh.

It wasn’t long after the king and his men barricaded themselves in the priory that Montfort’s forces stormed the town. The priory was surrounded and Montfort paraded some of the captives from the battlefield, including the Earl of Cornwall, outside. Montfort clearly took pleasure in shouting to Henry that his cowardly brother had fled the battle and hidden in a windmill. He then threatened to execute the earl in front of the priory, if the king refused to agree to his terms of surrender. Such a threat seemed impossible, for no earl had been executed in England for almost two centuries and it went against every code of war. But Montfort wasn’t engaged in any normal battle: he was waging war on his king and trying to take control of the realm. Henry, Montfort demanded, would deliver himself into his mercy and agree to allow a council of barons to rule in his stead. He would remain king in name alone, almost all of his authority stripped from him and handed to this council.