The Complete Kingdom Trilogy (97 page)

As ever, treat this as an uncovered cache of monkish scribblings which, when read by a flickering tallow candle, reveal fragments of lives lost both in time and legend.

If any mistakes or omissions jar – blow out the light and accept my apologies.

ADDAF the Welshman

Typical soldier of the period, raised from the lands only recently conquered by Edward I. The Welsh prowess with the bow and spear was already noted, but the true power of the former – the massed ranks of Crecy and Agincourt – was a strategy still forming during the early Scottish Wars. Like all the Welsh, Addaf's loyalty to the English is tenuous, especially since, in the years since his involvement in the craft of war, he has become a contract captain – a mercenary.

BADENOCH, Lord of

The Badenochs were of the Comyn family and known as Red Comyn, because they adopted the same wheatsheaf heraldry as the Buchan Comyns, but on a red shield instead of blue. Sir John, second Lord of Badenoch, died in 1302 – of what had happened to him while a prisoner in the Tower, it is alleged – leaving the title to his son. Despite being married to Joan de Valence – sister to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke – John the Red Comyn was a driving force in early resistance to Edward I – and truer to the Scots cause than Bruce at the time. Despite the fact that the Earl of Buchan was, in the hierarchy of the time, ranked higher in stature than the Lord of Badenoch, it was the Red Comyn who held the bloodline claim of the Comyn to the throne. His murder by Bruce and his men in Greyfriars Church, Dumfries in February 1306 spurred the Bruce lunge for the throne – and all that followed.

BANGTAIL HOB

Fictional character. One of Hal of Herdmanston's retainers, a typical Scots retinue fighter of the period – Chirnside Rowan, Sore Davey, Ill-Made are names of others, the common men of Lothian and the Border regions, the March, who formed the bulk and backbone of the armies on both sides.

BELLEJAMBE, Malise

Fictional character, the Earl of Buchan's sinister henchman and arch-rival of Kirkpatrick.

BEVERLEY, Gilbert of

A real character, though I have maligned him here. Mentioned in the 15th century epic poem on William Wallace by Blind Harry – which is one of the main ‘source' documents for this period – Gilbert is probably Gilbert de Grimsby, whom Wallace's men rechristened Jop. Described as a man ‘of great stature' and already ‘some part grey', he was a Riccarton man by birth and had travelled far in Edward's service as ‘a pursuivant in war' – though Harry says he consistently refused to bear arms. No doubt he was the ‘Gilbert de Grimmesby' who carried the sacred banner of St John of Beverley in Edward's progress through Scotland after Dunbar, a distinguished service for which Edward directed Warenne to find him a living worth about twenty marks or pounds a year. Whether he was a Wallace relation is unknown, though I have intimated that because of his stature, the fact that he came from Riccarton, a Wallace stronghold, and that he quit the army shortly after his twenty marks had been confirmed (on October 13 1296) and supposedly joined the rebels.

BISSOT, Rossal De

Fictional character, though I have made him a descendant of the family who helped found the Templar order. Aware of the secret machinations to undermine and destroy the Order, he is attempting to prevent this.

BRUCE, Edward

Eldest of the Bruce siblings and the most reckless, with ambitions of his own. Impatient and impulsive, he was the strongest and most loyal right hand Robert Bruce had, though his ambition was eventually his undoing. His other brothers – second oldest Niall and the youngest, scholarly Alexander – did not survive the struggle to put brother Robert on the throne and, of Bruce's sisters, only Mary and Christina make an appearance here. Edward Bruce was eventually given the task of invading Ireland in the year after Bannockburn, a task he succeeded in, becoming High King of Ireland. However, in true rash style, he overreached himself once too often and died in the Battle of Faughart, 1318.

BRUCE, Robert

Any one of three. Robert, Earl of Carrick, later became King Robert I and is now known as Robert the Bruce. His father, also Robert, was Earl of Annandale (he renounced the titles of Carrick to his son when they fell to him because, under a technicality, he would have had to swear fealty to the Comyn for them and would not do that). Finally, there is Bruce's grandfather, Robert, known as The Competitor from the way he assiduously pursued the Bruce rights to the throne of Scotland, passing the torch on to his grandson.

BUCHAN, Countess of

Isabel MacDuff, one of the powerful, though fragmented, ruling house of Fife. She acted as the official ‘crowner' of Robert Bruce in 1306, a role always undertaken by a MacDuff of Fife – but the only other one was her younger brother, held captive in England. In performing this, she not only defied her husband but the entire Comyn and Balliol families. Captured later, she was imprisoned, with the agreement of her husband, in a cage hung on the walls of Berwick Castle. Her character here is almost certainly maligned – most of the claims for her affair with Bruce were later Comyn propaganda – and the reality is that she probably never survived her imprisonment, since she vanishes from history after this point.

BUCHAN, Earl of

A powerful Comyn magnate, cousin to the Red Comyn Lord of Badenoch, he was the bitterest opponent of the Bruces. His wife, Isabel MacDuff, outraged her husband with her alleged affairs – and, worse still, betrayal of the Comyn cause in favour of the Bruce.

BURGH, Elizabeth de

Daughter of the powerful Red Earl of Ulster and Bruce's wife – and so Queen of Scotland. Captured by the treachery of the Earl of Ross, she was sent into captivity in the south of England for eight years, until ransomed following the Scottish victory at Bannockburn – where her father's forces fought for Edward II. She and Bruce subsequently had three children who reach adulthood, one of whom became David II, King of Scots.

CAMPBELL, Sir Neil

In Gaelic, his name is
Niall mac Cailein
– Neil, son of Colin – and historians originally tagged him as the eldest son of Sir Colin Campbell, the famed
Cailean Mór
(Black Colin) of Clan Campbell. Latterly, it is thought Colin Campbell's eldest was Neil's unsung brother Domnhall. Sir Neil was a trusted Bruce adherent from the earliest years – sent to Norway in 1293 with personal items for Robert the Bruce's sister, Isabella who was queen there. By 1296, however, he had sworn fealty to Edward I and stayed that way until Bruce was crowned when he became one of the first adherents of the new king. Both Neil and Domnhall stayed loyal to Bruce in the depths of defeat and fought at Bannockburn. Sir Neil died in 1316.

CRAW, Sim

A real character – though Sim of Leadhouse is mentioned only once in history, as the inventor of the cunning scaling ladders with which James Douglas took Roxburgh by stealth in 1314. Here, he is Hal of Herdmanston's right-hand man, older than Hal, powerfully built and favouring a crossbow as a weapon.

DOG BOY

Fictional character, a peasant of age with the young James Douglas, with whom he was brought up in Douglas Castle. It is becoming clear to them both that the lowly Dog Boy is in fact a bastard son of Sir William Douglas and that Jamie is his half-brother. War has brought a sense of his own worth to the Dog Boy – and will elevate him further in the service of the Bruce.

DOUGLAS, James

Son of Sir William ‘The Hardy' Douglas by his first wife, a Stewart whom he simply sent off to a convent in order to marry his second, Eleanor de Lovaigne. After the capture and death of his father, James went to Paris under the auspices of Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews. He returned as a young man in the retinue of Lamberton, trying to persuade Edward I to restore his lands, now held by Clifford. Impatient, impassioned and angry, he joined Bruce's rebellion, rising to become one of Robert the Bruce's most trusted commanders. A slim, dark youth with a lisp, his courtly manner is at odds with the near-psychotic rage that possesses him in battle, fuelled by an undying hatred for the English.

DUNS, John

A Franciscan priest, known as Duns Scotus, he was one of the more important theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages, nicknamed
Doctor Subtilis
for his penetrating thought. His involvement with the emergent Bruce and Church-fomented rebellion is pure fiction on my part – but he was expelled from the University of Paris for siding with then Pope Boniface in his feud with Philip the Fair of France over the taxation of church property. He died in 1308; the date of his death is traditionally given as November 8 and the same tradition has it that he was actually buried alive following a lapse into a coma. In the sixteenth century, his teachings were dismissed as ‘sophistry' and gave rise to the word ‘dunce', meaning someone incapable of scholarship. The typical dunce's hat came from his own conical monk's cap. See Bernard of Kilwinning, below.

EDWARD I

King of England and the oldest ruler with the longest reign so far. At the time of this novel he is facing the prospect of failure: failing to become ruler of a united Britain, and above all failing to achieve his true amibition, a Crusade to free the Holy Land. He is also aware that his son and eventual heir is terribly flawed. Yet there is still power and cunning in the old pard …

EDWARD II

A tragic figure in many ways, overshadowed by his father – whom he seems to have loved and hated in equal measure – and ignored by him save when it mattered. Probably as a direct result of that tortured relationship, his character was deeply flawed, the main fault being a tendency to become obsessively possessive with others, the favourites and promoting them at the expense of others. At this time, the favourite was Piers Gaveston.

KILWINNING, Bernard of

A Tironensian abbot in the time of the Scottish wars, he first appears as Abbot of Kilwinning in 1296, then vanishes for a decade before re-emerging as Bruce's Chancellor, then Abbot of Arbroath. There is no evidence that he was clerk to John Duns – but he is the one generally credited with drafting the Declaration of Arbroath and later became Bishop of the Isles. He died in 1331.

KIRKPATRICK, Roger

Fictional character, but based on the real Sir Roger Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, whom I have as kin to the fictional one. This is because my Kirkpatrick is a staunch Bruce supporter from the outset and the real Sir Roger was not – he even fought for Clifford in the English retinue at Falkirk. In later years, he adopted the words ‘Mak' siccar' (make sure) as a motto and a bloody hand holding a dagger as his heraldic device.

LAMBERTON, Bishop

Bishop of St Andrews and now thought to be one William Cunningham from Kilmaurs, he owed his elevation to Wallace and supported both him and Robert the Bruce. Chosen as the third Guardian, to stand between Bruce and Red John Comyn in 1299, he was used as a diplomat and envoy, while diverting the funds from his vast diocese to help the Cause.

LAMPRECHT

Fictional character, a relic-seller and pardoner from Cologne, who speaks
lingua franca
, that mix of common Latin, French, Spanish and other Mediterranean languages originally used by crusaders to make themselves understood. Lamprecht pretends to be a pilgrim who has travelled to Jerusalem – but he has only ever been into Moorish Spain and has learned
lingua franca
while moving around the countries bordering the Mediterranean. A sometime spy and agent of those who pay most, he becomes involved in the Buchan plot against Hal of Herdmanston.

MALENFAUNT, Sir Robert

Real family, fictional character – a knight of dubious renown who is smarting over being duped by Bruce, Hal and others into releasing Isabel MacDuff, captured at Stirling Bridge, to what he assumes is her husband. This makes him a suitable tool for use by the Comyn and Buchan.

MONTAILLIOU, James of

Montailliou is a real place, but this is a fictional character – a physicker of dubious standard, who professes to be a doctor but is probably no better than a barber-surgeon. Nevertheless, he is Bruce's physician and seemingly loyal because he is a Cathar, a heretical Christian whose sect is being persecuted in Langue D'Oc, and owes his safety to his position. He is also party to the Bruce fears of leprosy, a dangerous secret to hold …

SEGRAVE, Sir John

Black John, appointed Governor of Scotland at one time and, with his son Stephen, much hated English commander who was responsible for taking Wallace back to London in chains.

SIENTCLER, Sir Henry of Herdmanston

Fictional character. Known as Hal, he is the son and heir to Herdmanston, a lowly tower owing fealty to their kin, the Sientclers of Roslin. He is typical of the many poor nobles of Lothian who became embroiled in the wars on both sides of the divide. Hal himself is torn by doubts as to who he can trust, even between Wallace and Bruce, in a kingdom riven by family rivalries and betrayals. The Sientclers of Herdmanston are a little known branch of that family, appearing prominently for one brief moment in 15th century history. Herdmanston is now an anonymous pile of stones in a corner of a ploughed field and any descriptions of it are pure conjecture on my part.

SIENTCLER, Sir Henry of Roslin

In reality, held as a hostage for ransom by the English, with his father also held in the Tower. Eventually ransomed he later fought in the Battle of Roslin Glen alongside Red John Comyn and Sir Simon Fraser and against the English of Segrave and others, a famous victory for the Scots in 1303, when victories were scarce.