ISABELLA, Queen of England
Seen here briefly on an actual and vital mission to her father on behalf of her husband, one of the many she undertook. Still a teenager, her son – the future Edward III – is already two years old. I almost certainly malign the woman with the ‘She Wolf’ image she was handed by history. Despite her later betrayal of her husband and her desposing him to rule with her lover, Mortimer, I don’t actually think she was as vicious or calculatingly clever as that makes her appear.
KILWINNING, Bernard of
Bruce’s Chancellor in 1314, former Abbot of Kilwinning and later Abbot of Arbroath from 1310 to 1328, he served as Chancellor until 1328 and died two years after his king, in 1331. More importantly, he is generally considered to be one of the chief authors of the Declaration of Arbroath, the stirring document asserting independence in general and Scotland’s in particular, which includes the famous and much-quoted lines:
… for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
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. My Kirkpatrick assumes the mantle of Bruce’s henchman, prepared for any dirty work on behalf of his master’s advancement, including murder. By 1314, Kirkpatrick has been elevated to Closeburn’s barony and knighted, but he owes Hal of Herdmanston a great debt and feels bound to repay it. The Greyfriars murder both elevated and haunted the Kirkpatricks: in 1357, another Sir Roger Kirkpatrick of Closeburn was murdered by Sir James Lindsay in ‘a private quarrel’. Sir James was the son of the man I have with Kirkpatrick and Hal and Dog Boy in Greyfriars the day Red Comyn was murdered.
MACDUFF, Isabel
She is a real character whose life I have shamelessly stolen, investing her with a love affair with Bruce, which was almost certainly scurrilous propaganda of the time, and another with the fictional Hal of Herdmanston, which forms the cornerstone of this and the other books of the series. Their love affair, hagged by the vengeful husband, the Earl of Buchan, is also dogged by war and great events. A member 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 husband died in 1308, harried and broken by Bruce’s ethnic cleansing of the Buchan lands and the Buchan title passed to another, which means that, in between, the Earl had divorced his wife, or she had died. In my version, Isabel has hung in a cage from the Hog Tower of Berwick Castle, under the watchful eye of Malise Bellejambe, for seven years, waiting for the day of rescue …
PIMENTAL, Do?a Beatriz Ruiz de Castor y
Fictional character, sister of a Knight of Alcántara, the Order which took over Templar commanderies in Castile and Leon and which was, at this time, commanded by the shrewd Ruy Vaz. Treacherous and beautiful, she is based – with absolutely no foundation other than the splendid name – on Do?a Leonor Ruiz de Castro y Pimental, wife of Prince Felipe, who was the younger brother of King Alfonso the Wise of Castile and Leon – and a Knight Templar (clearly celibacy was not part of the Spanish Knights’ tradition).
RANDOLPH, Sir Thomas
A Bruce supporter, he was captured at Methven and changed sides. Captured by the Scots later, he promptly changed sides again and, in 1314, he has just been raised to Earl of Moray. He is always described as a ‘nephew’ of Robert the Bruce, though the exact relationship is uncertain. By this point, he and Sir James Douglas are great rivals, a fact Bruce promoted to his great advantage: no sooner has Douglas taken Roxburgh Castle by daring and stealth than Randolph takes Edinburgh Castle by subterfuge. He commanded one of the great spear blocks – Battles – at Bannockburn and, on the death of Bruce, became Regent for his young son, David II. He died three years later, ostensibly of poisoning, though this is now thought unlikely.