I became something of an adept in an astonishingly short time, once I had conquered the difficulty of believing that I really had a natural acuity in such things. I soon found myself becoming increasingly aware, from day to day, of the subtle pressure being applied on all sides in normal daily commerce by the clerical community within which I lived and worked, and by the swarms of influence seekers who flocked to the cathedral as a centre of both spiritual and temporal power. More than that, though, I became acutely attuned to the predominantly malignant activities of the influence brokers who pandered to the wishes of all the others. To the Bishop alone I reported everything that came to my attention, and he reciprocated with an openness he rarely showed to others, discussing privately with me matters that he would seldom entrust to others of higher rank.
Thus I was able to observe at close range, from the earliest days of his reign, the inconsistency and the tragic need to please and to be liked that doomed John Balliol’s kingship and brought about the events that followed his removal from the throne after less than four years.
The rot had set in as early as the spring of 1293, when William Douglas and young Robert Bruce were swearing their allegiance to him, for that was the year when the common folk everywhere in southern Scotland really began to suffer widespread injustice and indignity at the hands of the “visiting” soldiery, and when the constant English presence was generally accepted as a fact of life. No one had the slightest doubt that the former was caused by the latter, yet even then no one would have thought of applying the word occupying to the English forces that were everywhere in the land.
No one would have thought, that is, of saying it aloud. But the truth was that the arrogance and intransigence of the English soldiery, fostered by their commanders and allied with the indifference of the Scots nobility, gave rise that spring to widespread injustices against the Scots folk, abuses that stirred up local unrest that was put down in turn by ruthless military reprisals.
Men and women—cottagers and householders—were dragged from their homes and hanged out of hand, with no one ever being called to account. With increasing frequency, community leaders and solid, successful farmers had their lands and holdings confiscated after they were accused of heinous crimes by blatantly unscrupulous “witnesses.” Such evidence was too often ludicrous, most particularly so when it was tendered—and accepted—in denial of verifiable testimony to the contrary offered by more reputable witnesses. In defiance of all sanity, and making a total mockery of Scotland’s laws, those spurious accusations continued throughout the summer and autumn, and large accumulations of land and assets that had been held by local folk for generations were snatched up by heavily armed outsiders.
In the spring of the year that followed, petty Scots leaders began to emerge throughout southern Scotland, driven to inconsistently organized self-defence, and to aggressive resistance, out of frustration and desperation. Reports of bands of outlaws and rebels began to circulate widely. The English made no formal complaint to King John, however, since to do so would have drawn attention to what was really going on in the countryside. They chose instead to increase their troop concentrations in the troubled areas and to deal more and more harshly with the local people. King John himself heard nothing of the increasingly urgent reports of these reprisals from the people in the southern half of his kingdom, or if he did hear of them, he chose to remain deaf to the problems of his poorest subjects.
One particular band of outlaws came into prominence soon after Easter that year. It began quietly, making its presence known in its own small area by the end of April, but it seized the attention of everyone in the southern half of the country towards the middle of June. Tales of this band’s activities began to be repeated along with the latest reports of atrocities against the people, and they seemed to offer hope in the face of despair: wherever the most blatant outrages of condoned robbery occurred—the perpetrators called it confiscation by the military administration, but it was barefaced pillaging—there occurred, too, sudden and unattributable instances of retribution.
Men who had sworn false testimony against their neighbours were found dead, with their tongues cut out and reinserted backwards; men who had seized houses and property rightfully belonging to others were found hanged within the charred ruins of the buildings they had stolen; and soldiers who had taken part in these dispossessions, beating and whipping innocent men and ravishing their women, met swift justice on the trails and pathways through the forest surrounding the places where such crimes had occurred. Most often, they were shot down from ambush and left to rot where they fell, but at other times, in deeply wooded areas where bows were ineffectual and death by a blade or club was not always assured, they were taken on the march, gathered together under stout trees, and dispatched with cut throats, and any survivors were hanged directly above them, lest anyone miss the significance of what had happened.