by Robert Low
The Templars ended in Scotland, just as they did everywhere else, but there is no doubt that disinherited Templars were treated with more leniency in Scotland, as they were in Ireland. There is some evidence that both those countries were backwaters for Templar commanderies, a sort of retirement home for aged servitors of the Order. No one was too concerned to punish old men in a care home.
Was there a Templar treasure, taken from France to the north of Scotland? Possibly – define treasure. If the Templars thought they possessed the Grail, the Shroud of Christ and other such holy artefacts, which was their speciality after all, it may be that kings and popes spent a long time looking for the wrong fortune.
There may not, however, have been a fabled Treasury at all; most accounts of commanderies taken over reveal very little in the way of loot. If there was a Templar treasure for Bruce it would be in the weapons and harness he needed – constant war, raids and English domination is not conducive to garnering the money needed to trade or create the amount of weapons and armour, simple though it was, with which the Scots army was equipped.
So where did he get them? Probably not as I have stated, using Templar money to buy Templar weapons from the beneficiaries of the fallen Order in northern Spain, the new Order of Alcántara. But it gave an adventure for Hal and Kirkpatrick while the events leading up to Bannockburn warped and wove themselves into a bloody tapestry of Midsummer’s Day, 1314.
Incidentally, the Glaissery Castle I have Bruce handing to the ‘simple Benedictine monks’ in exchange for their help is now known as Fincharn Castle, a former MacDougall stronghold on Loch Awe and not more than a prayer away from Kilneuair Church, a sadly neglected ruin with Templar symbols on gravestones. Loch Awe is the place where the Templars from France brought their fabled treasure, if you believe the many theories.
All of it is too good for a novelist to pass up. Historians would be wiser to treat tales of the secret continuation of the Templars in Scotland with a huge saline pinch.
The salient points of the battle at Bannockburn are fairly well confirmed, source to source: the arrival of the English, weary and exhausted; their hasty and ill-conceived assault; the death of Sir Henry de Bohun at the hands of Bruce personally; the belief that the Scots would not stand for a second day and the shock of them not only still being in situ but actually attacking.
The victory was the culmination of Bruce’s struggle to ensure that Scotland recognized him as king. It would take fifteen more years before the rest of the world recognized it as well.
The start of this book 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, ravaged and ruined by ‘an unspecified illness’.
Think of this as stumbling across a cache of 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. By this time, however, Addaf is a contract captain – leader of a band of mercenary Welsh archers, well armed, mounted and time served in the wars in France. The Welsh prowess with the bow and spear was already noted, but the true power of the former, the Crécy 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 and, as a captain of mercenaries, he is aware that some of his own men have a loyalty to him which is just as threadbare.
ARGENTAN, Sir Giles d’
Shadowy character save for his appearances, like a bright flame, beside the pale light of Edward II. He was one of the many knights present at the famous Feast of the Swans, when Edward I knighted his son and many other gilded youth in an attempt to bind them to the young prince. D’Argentan chased Bruce at the Battle of Methven and, if his horse had not foundered, history might well have seen an epic struggle: he was considered the third-best knight in Christendom, the second being Robert the Bruce and the first being Heinrich, Holy Roman Emperor. Not long after, d’Argentan is mentioned as one of the knights a furious Edward I ordered arrested for leaving his son’s army during campaign in Scotland to attend a tourney in France. In 1314 Edward II, in the middle of his acute financial constraints, found time and money to ransom d’Argentan from prison in Salonika – he had gone to Rhodes to join the Knights Hospitaller and fight the Saracens. Knights of his calibre and chivalric fame were clearly needed by Edward II, if only for the morale value – certainly d’Argentan’s heroic, if typically rash, death at Bannockburn brought him considerable renown.
BADENOCH, Lord of
Here, it is the son of the Red Comyn murdered in Greyfriars. John IV, lord of Badenoch, was a youth when his father met his death and thereafter was firmly in the English camp – his mother was Joan de Valence, sister of Aymer de Valence (see below). He was killed at Bannockburn, though the actual circumstances of it are unknown.
BALGOWNIE, Pegy
Fictional character, commander of the cog which takes Hal and Kirkpatrick to Spain on behalf of the King. Pegy is a nickname; it is the small, topmost portion of the mast used to fly a pennant from. I have made him an ex-privateer, one of the captains of the very real Red Rover, a French pirate called de Longueville who assisted Wallace back and forth to France. Also real is Jack Crabbe and when de Longueville gave up piracy in favour of a privileged life ashore, his captains made their own way. Pegy Balgownie, the fictional one, joined Bruce. Jack Crabbe continued on his own and, captured by the English in later life, became a firm adherent of Edward III for whom he used his expertise with the new-fangled ‘gonne’ to direct the ordnance in the 1333 siege of Berwick – which eventually fell.
BEAUMONT, Henry de
One of the most experienced warriors in Edward II’s retinue, he was also Earl of Buchan by his marriage to Alice Comyn, niece of the Earl married to Isabel MacDuff. The title of Countess of Buchan, clearly removed from Isabel, passed to Alice – though de Beaumont had the title ‘in parchment only’. He campaigned in Flanders, and then fought against Wallace at Falkirk, where he had a horse killed under him and was lucky to escape with his life. He returned to Scotland in 1302 and 1304, where he was at the English siege of the Scots-held Stirling Castle. His near-death experience and rescue by Sir Thomas Gray (see below) happened as described here, as did his quarrel with Gray at Bannockburn. De Beaumont accompanied Edward from the field and thereafter became an implacable supporter of the Disinherited, those English-supporting lords whose lands and titles in Scotland were confiscated by Robert the Bruce. From 1314 until his death in 1340, de Beaumont led assault after assault, both military and political, on Scotland – to no avail. He died never having achieved the Buchan lands and, when his wife, Alice Comyn, died in 1349, the title finally reverted to the Crown until bestowed on Alexander Stewart in 1382. He was known as the Wolf of Badenoch for his rapacity and cruelty.
BELLEJAMBE, Malise
Fictional character, the Earl of Buchan’s sinister henchman and arch-rival of Kirkpatrick. For years he has been the official gaoler of Isabel MacDuff in her tower cage in Berwick, first for the Earl of Buchan and then for the lord of Badenoch. His relationship with her is becoming increasingly psychotic, violent and sinister.
BERKELEY, Sir Maurice
Known as the Magnanimous, he was at the Siege of Caerlavrock with his father (see below), was made Warden of Gloucester (1312) and Captain of Berwick (1315). He was Chief Justiciar of South Wales in 1316, then became Seneschal of Aquitaine in 1320. Shortly after his father’s death he joined the Earl of Lancaster’s rebellion against Edward II, was captured and sent to Wallingford Castle (1322) where he died four years later.
BERKELEY, Sir Thomas
Known as Thomas the Wise, he was appointed Vice Constable
of England in 1297, fought at Falkirk against Wallace and was at the Siege of Caerlavrock in 1300. At Bannockburn he brought a mesnie (a personal following) of serjeants and mounted archers – I have placed Addaf and his men among them. Sir Thomas was unhorsed and captured; the subsequent ransom was crippling. He died at Berkeley, peacefully, in 1321.
BISSOT, Rossal de
Fictional character, descendant of Geoffrey de Bissot, one of the nine founding knights of the Templar Order. He is trying to rescue what remains of the disbanded Order while, at the same time, aware that the power and arrogance of the Poor Knights of the Temple are what has brought them to the brink. He and de Villers, Widikind von Esbeck and de Grafton are the last of the Templar Knights in Scotland, attempting to barter money and weapons with Bruce for a peaceful resting place for fleeing members who wish to remain as simple Benedictine monks.
BOHUN, Henry de
The Earl of Hereford’s nephew, probably no more than twenty-two in 1314 and one of the new breed of knights excelling in tournoi, the new one-on-one style of knightly combat gaining ascendancy over the old-fashioned mass combat of grande mêlée. Famously, he charged against the lightly mounted and armoured King Robert, only to be killed. The style of fighting described as favoured by Bruce is accurate – the German Method involved avoiding heavily armoured opponents trying to bowl you over and attacking them on a faster, more manoeuvrable mount. In the grande mêlée, when capturing a knight meant a deal of prize, it was a sensible if unchivalric way of fighting, but such combats frequently degenerated into brutal riots with scarcely a trace of chivalry. Here, I use it as it was almost certainly designed: to hit your bigger, stronger, better-armoured opponent from behind.
BOHUN, Humphrey de
The Earl of Hereford in 1314 and Constable of England. As such, he should have been given command of the army, but was out of favour with Edward II over the murder of Piers Gaveston. Command instead went to Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester (see below). At Bannockburn, therefore, Hereford argued with Gloucester constantly over the conduct of the army, making coherence virtually impossible. Following the defeat, Hereford was forced north, taking refuge in the only English-held castle left, Bothwell. However, the commander of Bothwell promptly changed sides and imprisoned him and all the other lords who had escaped with him. Hereford was eventually ransomed for Bruce’s sister and daughter – pointedly, Isabel MacDuff was not included. Historically, this is a good clue that she was probably dead by this time.
A firm opponent of the Despensers, Hereford eventually rebelled against Edward II. At the Battle of Boroughbridge, Hereford led a desperate assault to try and force the said bridge and so avoid being trapped between two armies. In the affray, he was stabbed from below the bridge, up under his armour and into his anus, the soldier allegedly twisting the pike into his intestines; his dying screams helped to panic the army into fleeing.
BRUCE, Edward
King Robert’s sole surviving brother and, in lieu of any other relevant offspring, heir to the throne. History has it that his ill-conceived truce with de Mowbray, English commander of Stirling, enraged Bruce, who then had to fight a pitched battle. While I am sure it did enrage his royal brother, I am also certain Edward knew exactly what he was doing and for the reasons I mention. Rash and ambitious, Edward was given men and means to invade Ireland in 1315, ostensibly to carry the war to England’s supporters. He made himself High King in Ireland but was defeated and captured in the Battle of Faughart (also known as the Battle of Dundalk) on 14 October 1318. He was hanged, drawn and quartered and his head sent to Edward II. Ironically, among the many other Scots lords who died fighting with him that day was a certain Sir Philip de Mowbray, former commander of the garrison at Stirling and reconciled to King Robert’s peace upon the surrender of the fortress following Bannockburn.
BRUCE, Robert
King Robert I, now known as Robert the Bruce. His father, also Robert, was Earl of Annandale. His grandfather, also Robert, was 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. While Edward II vacillated and wilted under setbacks, the harried Bruce shouldered on; the story of the spider, though apocryphal, shows that the spirit of the man served as an uplifting moral message for later generations. The Curse of Malachy was a very real threat to the Bruces, silly though it may seem to our twenty-first-century irreligious sophistication, while the illness Bruce suffered was a continual worry. It may well have been leprosy – there are many forms of it – or a simple skin complaint, but investigations of his skull reveal extensive damage to the right cheek and a considerable wound injury above and below the left eye, though he was not blinded. The Pilkington statue at the Bannockburn Heritage Centre may well show the glory of the king, but the reality seems to have been painful, ugly and, towards the end of his life (in his mid-fifties), his face may well have been blurred and coarsened by illness as well. Myth and legend have similarly blurred the Hero King, bathing him in a golden glow that masks the reality of both appearance and character.
CAMPBELL, Dougald, Laird of Craignish
The 6th Laird of Craignish, the lands on the wild Argyll peninsula, is in his early forties at the time of Bannockburn and heading off to support his chief, Neil Campbell. The Campbell of Craignish shields are defiantly recognizable and much copied by re-enactors, even over the famous black galley on gold of the MacDonalds of Angus Og. Described as gyronny of eight or and sable, the shield hanging from the mast of a lymphad sable, it simply means a series of eight triangles, alternated yellow and black, on a shield seemingly hung from a horizontal black bar. It is, in fact, an even older runic symbol which gives more than a hint at the Craignish Campbells’ Viking ancestry.
CAMPBELL, Sir Neil
Known as Niall mac Cailein (Neil, Colin’s son), he was a firm adherent of Edward I, having sworn fealty to him on the Ragman Roll of 1296. A decade later, however, with Edward handing Campbell lands to English knights, Neil Campbell was ripe for rebellion and finally joined Robert the Bruce in 1306. He was one of the few men who stuck with the ill-fated King Robert following defeats at Methven and Dalrigh. Eventually, as a reward, Neil Campbell received Bruce’s sister, Mary, as a wife and the lands confiscated from the turncoat David Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl (see below). His son, Iain, eventually became earl.
CLARE, Sir Gilbert de
Earl of Gloucester, whose mother was Joan of Acre, Edward I’s sister. Being so closely related to Edward II, he was yet another of those favourites who replaced Gaveston. Aged only twenty-three, he was given command of the army over the head of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford (see above), who was Constable of England. In fact, Edward fudged the issue by declaring them joint commanders, which was a recipe for disaster since they disliked one another. Unhorsed and barely rescued on the first day of Bannockburn, Gloucester was killed the next day, though the actual circumstances remain unclear.
CLIFFORD, Sir Robert
One of Edward I’s trusted commanders and a member of the original gilded youth of the Feast of the Swans in 1306 – but, eight years on, the youth and gilt are wearing thin on all that band. Clifford and Sir Henry Percy were given the task of subduing the initial Scottish revolt and negotiated Bruce and other rebel Scots nobles back into the ‘King’s Peace’ in 1297, but could not overcome Wallace. Clifford also brought a retinue to fight at Falkirk which included knights from Cumbria and Scotland, one of the latter being a certain Sir Roger Kirkpatrick of Auchen Castle, Annandale, and the ‘real’ Kirkpatrick who murdered the Red Comyn. Clifford was at the Siege of Caerlavrock Castle in 1300, according to the Caerlavrock Roll – the list of knights present – and at Bannockburn in 1314, where he was killed.
CRAW, Sim
A semi-fictional character. 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
– who is himself old – powerfully built and favouring a big arbalest, a steel-constructed crossbow spanned (cocked) using a winding mechanism and usually used in sieges.
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.