DALTOUN, Thomas
Technically, a real character. A Thomas was Abbot of Inchaffray in 1296 and I have found references to Thomas Daltoun as Bruce’s chaplain. Since the Bruce chaplain in 1314 was supposedly Maurice, the abbot who came after Thomas, I fancy there has been a confusion somewhere and that Thomas, resigning as abbot in favour of Maurice, then became the Bruce chaplain. Consequently, I have arbitrarily decided that it was he who famously blessed the army at Bannockburn with the arm of St Fillan.
DOG BOY
Fictional character, the lowest of the low, a houndsman in Douglas and of age with the young James Douglas. By 1314, the skinny youth has grown into a formidable warrior and the very image of the equally fierce Sir James. It is clear to most folk that they are sprung from the same sire. However, while the long years of brutal warfare have simply honed the hate of Sir James, the Black Douglas, they are beginning to tell on Dog Boy.
DOUGLAS, Sir James
Lord of Douglas Castle in south-west Scotland, son of Sir William the Hardy, he was known both as the Black Douglas (if you were his enemy and demonizing him with foul deeds) and the Good Sir James (if you were a Scot lauding the Kingdom’s darling hero). In the years between his return to Scotland – just as Bruce became king – and 1314 he has become a byword for vicious cruelty. Particularly memorable is the Douglas Larder, where he famously slaughtered the garrison and collaborators of his own castle, then held by the Cliffords, put them in the storehouse and burned the place. His implacable hatred of the English is matched only by his daring and, save for one slight hiccup, his loyalty. Following Bannockburn, Sir James Douglas made the Border area uniquely his own, and the form of warfare – fast raiders on light horses – a lasting legacy for that region. In 1327, he surprised and destroyed an army led by yet a third Edward, almost capturing the young King. In 1329, following the death of Bruce, he famously took the royal heart on Crusade, to Spain to fight the Saracens. At Teba in Granada the following year, he took part in a battle where the Scots pursuit of the broken enemy led them too far and some were surrounded. Attempting a rescue, Douglas himself was surrounded and, taking the casket with Bruce’s heart, flung it forward into the enemy, yelling that, as always, he would follow Bruce. He and all the men with him were killed. Ironically, the knight Douglas originally went to rescue was a certain Sir William Sientcler of Roslin.
EDWARD II
King of England. At the time of this novel he has spent seven years being frustrated in his attempts to secure Scotland – each campaign he has led there has resulted only in an increase of Robert the Bruce’s power. Finally, facing the constrictions of the Ordainers, his own rebellious barons, he seizes the chance to finally bring the Scots to a decisive battle in 1314. The result was, arguably, the worst defeat for the English since Hastings in 1066. It plunged Edward into a vicious struggle with the Ordainer barons and, eventually, with his own queen (see below) and her lover, Roger Mortimer. Deposed and imprisoned, he was subsequently murdered, according to some accounts, by having a red-hot poker shoved into his anus. Historian Ian Mortimer argues a decent case for Edward II actually having survived, the death being faked by Mortimer and Isabella – but other historians disagree with his methodology.
GRAFTON, Sir William de
Real character whose life I have stolen and fictionalized. He is listed as one of the Preceptors of Templar commanderies in Yorkshire, arrested in 1308 and then released to the care of Henry, Baron Percy of Alnwick, in 1313, who was at odds with Edward II over the murder of Piers Gaveston. Here I have shamelessly used de Grafton as a recusant Templar sent to spy on Bruce’s Spanish adventure by Henry Percy – who then does not inform his king of the vital findings. De Grafton, of course, then decides to make his own profit on the affair with ruthless murder and villainy. I chose Henry Percy as the baron betraying the English at Bannockburn with his omissions simply because he died at age forty-one of unknown cause – and rumoured poison – in October 1314 …
GRAY, Sir Thomas
Real character, whose quarrel with Henry de Beaumont led him to a rash charge at Bannockburn and his unhorsing and imprisonment. Ransomed and freed, he returned to the family lands at Heaton, where he died circa 1344. Ironically, his son, also called Sir Thomas, was captured by the Scots in 1355 and also held for ransom, whiling away the hours in Edinburgh Castle by writing the Scalacronica, a history of Britain from the Creation. The portion concerning Edward I and onwards is based on what he learned from his father and so is an interesting and near-contemporary record – allowing for a son’s bias regarding his father’s exploits, of course.