“What?” he growled, looking directly at Wishart. “What’s happened?”
“We are at war with England.”
“What? We’re at war? Sweet Jesus, has Balliol gone mad? We are not fit to fight among ourselves, let alone go to war with England! What happened?”
Wishart was shaking his head. “John had little to do with it, Will. It was Edward who declared war, on us. He’s had an army gathering at Newcastle for months. We all knew that, but we assumed he was merely flaunting his displeasure, threatening us. We didn’t seriously think he would invade.”
“But he did. What caused him to?”
Wishart glanced at Lamberton and nodded to him to respond, and the younger man straightened up and sucked in a quick breath. “Displeasure with King John,” he said quietly. “John summoned an assembly of nobles to Dunfermline to ratify the French alliance.”
“A parliament? Then he must have done it in secrecy. We would have heard of such a thing even here in Selkirk.”
“It was not a parliament,” Wishart muttered. “It was an assembly, far less formal.”
“Formal enough yet to involve the nobility and offend Edward of England sufficiently to launch a war. What happened at this assembly that prompted such a response?”
Lamberton cleared his throat discreetly. “Perhaps I can answer that. His Grace is correct, this was not a parliament. Those who were there referred to it as a gathering of the community of the realm. But the truth is that in certain respects it proved to be more noteworthy, and perhaps more important in terms of influence, than a true parliament might have been.”
“Evidently so, given the result.” Will’s voice was redolent of disgust.
“It achieved what it was intended to achieve, and quickly. In a matter of hours, the new treaty with France was ratified and a marriage proposal between King John’s son Prince Edward and the Princess Jeanne de Valois of France was approved and witnessed in writing by all present, including four earls of the realm, eleven barons, four bishops, and five abbots. All of which is well and good, but something far more significant occurred in Dunfermline. This truly was a gathering of the community of the realm. For the first time official representatives of the burghs of Aberdeen, Berwick, Edinburgh, Perth, Roxburgh, and Stirling were invited to participate, and for the first time the voice of the burgesses was officially added to the public record.”
Will nodded. “And Longshanks responded with war.”
“Almost instantly,” Wishart said. “He must have had a spy there, because the word went back to him as though on wings. His reaction was spectacular, I’m told. He upended his table and cried upon God to witness that these ingrate Scots upstarts had finally exhausted his long-suffering patience. He declared war on us then and there and summoned his dukes and barons to invade.”
“Hmm …” Will crossed the room to the nearest chair and sank into it, his eyes gazing into nothingness, and the silence stretched, broken only by the sounds of movement as the rest of us seated ourselves, too, each one of us momentarily lost in his own thoughts.
Finally Will straightened up again. “So what happens next? Where are my people to go? We’re practically astride the main invasion route.”
Wishart glanced at Lamberton. “Father William, you might like to answer that, since you and I were talking about it on the way here.”
Lamberton nodded, solemn faced, then spoke directly to Will. “The honest answer is that we don’t know. You might be perfectly safe here—and by you I mean, of course, your womenfolk and children. You are a mile or two off the main road, and that might be enough to safeguard your settlements. The English armies will be moving quickly—at least through the thickest parts of the forest here—so they won’t have much temptation to stray from the high road. And it’s safe to say that the English commanders will be taking precautions against desertion, so they won’t be letting their people into the woods, for fear of losing them. So your distance from the road certainly makes your situation quite promising. But it is also precisely the kind of situation than no one can judge in advance.” He paused.
“Were I in your shoes, Will, I would prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. I would get the women and children safely away from these settlements and into defensible, out-of-the-way areas, and I would set up a strong but mobile screen of bowmen between them and the road. That way, if the English pass by without stopping, you will be able to move back into your homes in a matter of hours, and if anyone does come into the woods looking for you, the bowmen can deal with them.”