Hal of Herdmanston, of course, is also fiction – though the Sientclers (or St Clairs, St Clares, Sinclairs or any other variant spelling you care to dream up) are not. They and Roslin became renowned, not least for Rosslyn Chapel – but Herdmanston, though it existed, is now no more than a rickle of unmarked stones in a field in Lothian. The other Sientclers are real enough, save for the Auld Templar, who rode into my head at the start of this tale and was just too magnificent to wave on.
Why the Sientclers at all? Because I needed a powerful Lothian family who could be opposed to the dominant force in the area, Patrick of Dunbar, who, with his son, was a committed supporter of the English right up until the aftermath of Bannockburn. Why Lothian? Because that was the battleground of the Wars of Independence, more so than any other part of Scotland.
There are other lights, lesser or greater, who may or may not be fictional – I hope I have written this well enough to leave the reader guessing most of the time.
Lastly – Edward I was never known as Hammer of the Scots in his lifetime. That name was given to him in the sixteenth century when it was carved on the unsubtle square slab of his tomb. Yet I prefer to believe that it did not spring, full-formed at the time, but came from all the whispers that had gone before.
The start of this is purportedly written by an unknown monk in February of 1329, three months before Robert the Bruce is finally acknowledged as king of Scots by the Pope – and four months before his death.
Think of this as stumbling across a cache of such hidden monkish scribblings which, when read by a flickering tallow candle, reveal fragments of lives lost both in time and legend.
If any interpretations or omissions jar – blow out the light and accept my apologies.
List of Characters
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 Crecy and Agincourt massed ranks, was a strategy still forming during the early Scottish Wars. Like all of the Welsh, Addaf’s loyalty to the English is tenuous.
BADENOCH, Lord of
Any one of two, father and son. Both called Sir John and both members of a powerful branch of the Comyn, they were favoured because, after John Balliol, they had a legitimate right to claim Scotland’s throne as good if not better than the Bruce one. The Badenochs were known as Red Comyn, because they adopted the same wheatsheaf heraldy as the Buchan Comyns, but on a red shield instead of blue. Sir John, second Lord of Badenoch, was also referred to as the Black Comyn because of his grim demeanour – a former Guardian of Scotland, he died in 1302, leaving the title to his son who was known as the Red Comyn. 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. He was murdered by Bruce and his men in Greyfriars Church, Dumfries in February 1306.
BALLIOL, King John
A member of one of the more powerful families of Scotland and backed by an equally powerful one, the Comyn, John Balliol was elected to the vacant throne of Scotland by a conclave of Scotland’s nobility and prelates, a conclave chaired by King Edward I of England. By the time the Scots discovered they had been duped by Edward, it was too late and subsequent attempts to exert their independence resulted in invasion, defeat and the stripping of the regalia of the kingdom – the Stone of Scone, the Black Rood and the Seal – and also the public humiliation of King John Balliol. His royal coat of arms was torn from his tunic, leaving him with the name that still resonates down through history – Toom Tabard, or Empty Coat. The Balliol and Comyn were arch-rivals of the Bruces.
BANGTAIL HOB
Fictional character. One of Hal of Herdmanston’s retainers, a typical Scots retinue fighter of the period. Mounted on garrons – small, shaggy ponies – they are armed with Jeddart staffs, a combination spear, pike and hook, and are not cavalry, but mounted infantry. The English counterparts are called ‘hobilars’ because they are mounted on small ponies known as ‘hobbies’ (hence the term hobby-horse). Bangtail and the likes of Tod’s Wattie, Ill Made Jock, Will Elliott and others are the common men of Lothian and the Border regions – the March – who formed the bulk and backbone of the armies on both sides.
BEK, Anthony, Bishop of Durham
Commander of one of the four knightly ‘hosts’ at Falkirk, he led some 400-plus heavy horse.
BELLEJAMBE, Malise
Fictional character, the Earl of Buchan’s sinister henchman and arch-rival of Kirkpatrick.
BISSET, Bartholomew
Fictional character. Notary clerk to Ormsby, Edward’s appointed justiciar of Scotland. His information leads Hal and others on the trail of the mysterious murderers of a master mason found near Douglas.