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.
BRUCE, Robert
Any one of three. Robert, Earl of Carrick, later became King Robert I and is now known as Robert the Bruce. His father, also Robert, was Earl of Annandale (he renounced the titles of Carrick to his son when they fell to him because, under a technicality, he would have had to have sworn fealty to the Comyn for them and would not do that). Finally, there is Bruce’s grandfather, Robert, 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.
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.
BUCHAN, Earl of
A powerful Comyn magnate, (the Red Comyn Lord of Badenoch was his cousin) he was the bitterest opponent of the Bruces. Robert Bruce finally overcame the Comyn, following the death of Edward I and a slackening of English pressure, in a campaign that viciously scorched the lands of Buchan and Badenoch in a virtual Scottish ethnic cleansing of Bruce’s rivals. Defeated and demoralised, the earl fled south and died in 1308.
CLIFFORD, Sir Robert
One of Edward I’s trusted commanders, he 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.
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, powerfully built and favouring a big latchbow, a crossbow usually spanned (cocked) using a hook attached to a belt. He is strong enough to do it without the hook.
CRESSINGHAM, Sir Hugh
Appointed by Edward I as Lord Treasurer of Scotland, he was disliked by his English colleagues as an upstart and universally detested by the Scots, whom he taxed. His attempts to curtail the expense of the campaign of 1297 fatally compromised the English army at Stirling Bridge, where Cressingham himself was killed leading the Van. Famously, legend has it that he was flayed and strips of his skin were sent all over Scotland, one being made into a baldric for Wallace.
DE FAUCIGNY, Manon
Fictional character, a stone-carver from Savoy brought into a conspiracy from which he has subsequently fled. Now all factions are hunting him out for what they believe he knows.
DE JAY, Sir Brian
Master of the English Templars, he brought a force to Falkirk in the service of Edward I, thus pitting the Templar knights against fellow-Christians, to general odium. With Brother John de Sawtrey, commander of the Scottish Templars, he pursued Wallace into a thicket, where both Templar commanders were killed – the only ‘notable deaths’ in the entire affair according to the chroniclers.
DE WARENNE, Sir John, Earl of Surrey
Long-time friend and supporter of King Edward, De Warenne was already in his sixties when Edward appointed him ‘warden of the land of Scots’ and had served in the Welsh campaigns of 1277, 1282 and 1283. He hated Scotland, complaining that the climate did not suit him, and attempted to run the place from his estates in England. Finally forced to do something about the rebels, he brought an army to Stirling Bridge and was famously defeated. Fought again at Falkirk, commanding one of the four ‘hosts’ of heavy horse. He died, peacefully, in 1304.
DOG BOY
Fictional character, the lowest of the low, a houndsman in Douglas and of ages with the young James Douglas. Given to Hal as a gift by Eleanor Douglas to spite her stepson, the Dog Boy finds that service at a Herdmanston at war brings him to rub shoulders with the great and the good and invests him with a new stature he would not otherwise have enjoyed.
DOUGLAS, James
Son of The Hardy 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 death of ‘Le Hardi’, Eleanor and her two sons, James’s stepbrothers, were packed off south to a convent and the Douglas lands given to Clifford. James went to Paris under the auspices of Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews. He returned as a young man just as Bruce became king and joined him, rising to become one of Robert the Bruce’s most trusted commanders.
DOUGLAS, Sir William
Lord of Douglas Castle in south-west Scotland, father of young James Douglas, later to be known both as The Black Douglas (if you were his enemy and demonising him with foul deeds) and The Good Sir James (if you were a Scot lauding the Kingdom’s darling hero). It is clear nicknames ran in the family – William was known as The Hardy (which simply means Bold) and was a typical warlord noble of Scotland. Sent to defend Berwick against Edward I in the campaign that brought John Balliol to his knees, William Douglas was finally forced to surrender and watch as Edward ravaged the town in a slaughter which became a watchword for the Scots and their later revenge. Douglas agreed to serve Edward I in his French wars, but absconded as soon as possible and joined Wallace’s rebellion. Taken into custody – in chains – after the convention of Irvine, he was imprisoned in the Tower and died of ‘mistreatment’ there not long after.