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 …