AUTHOR’S NOTE
THE TAKING OF Roxburgh Castle on Shrove Tuesday 1314 by Sir James Douglas and—not to be outdone—the taking of Edinburgh Castle three and a half weeks later on March 14, 1314, by Sir Thomas Randolph are two of the most renowned events in the almost unbelievable Bruce journey to kingship.
Douglas’s taking of Roxburgh during the Shrove Tuesday celebration happened much as I described it: he and sixty or so of his men took advantage of the garrison’s inattention and crawled through the field of livestock on all fours in black cloaks to disguise themselves. Using their ingenious rope scaling ladders, they scrambled over the wall and took the castle. I fictitiously gave credit to my sharpshooter Gregor MacGregor, but the incident with the keeper did happen. Guillemin Fiennes, the Gascon commander, had holed up in a tower but was compelled to surrender after being wounded (mortally it turned out) by an arrow to his face.
Historian David Cornell has posited that Bruce hadn’t ordered Douglas to take the castle, but that it was a “rogue operation” by Douglas, who decided to try on his own after watching the castle for a while (David Cornell, Bannockburn: The Triumph of Robert the Bruce [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009], 118). Noting the “audacity of the operation,” Cornell calls it a “momentous feat of arms” (ibid., 118, 120), which is probably putting it lightly.
There is a great story by Sir Walter Scott surrounding Douglas’s capture of Roxburgh. After climbing the wall and dropping down into the castle, Douglas comes upon a woman who is singing to her baby the infamous lullaby about the Black Douglas: “Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye, Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye, The Black Douglas shall not get ye,” after which Douglas puts a hand on her shoulder and says, “Do not be so sure of that” (Ronald McNair Scott, Robert the Bruce King of Scots [New York: Barnes & Noble, 1982], 139). After presumably scaring the life out of her, he gallantly promises to protect her. Whether there is any truth to it, I have no idea, but as we’ve seen before, Sir Walter sure knows how to spin a good yarn, and his tales often find their way into the history books as truth.
Edward Bruce, Earl of Carrick, either already entrenched in the siege at Stirling Castle or on his way to start, was indeed ordered to Roxburgh by the king to “receive local submissions” (Michael Brown, Bannockburn: the Scottish War and the British Isles, 1307–1323 [Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008], 107) and oversee the destruction of the castle, which was effected much as I described it, by the digging of “shafts” underneath the walls, and then the “firing” of the “timber supports” with “the tunnels collapsing inwards and bringing the great masonry walls of the magnificent buildings crashing thunderously to the ground” (Cornell, 121).
Randolph, who’d been entrenched in the siege at Edinburgh for well over a month by this point, had to have felt the pressure to do something equally daring and “momentous” after his rival’s great triumph at Roxburgh. He proved equal to the task by climbing the never-before-ascended Castle Rock to take the Edinburgh garrison by surprise.
Thom MacGowan is my version of the local man who was said to have led Randolph up the rocks: William Francis. The possibly apocryphal story is that as a young man, Francis had a sweetheart who lived in the castle and he’d snuck in to meet her. Whether the romantic part of the story was true or not, Francis was rewarded with lands in Sprouston, Roxburghshire, for his extraordinary efforts (G. W. S. Barrow, Robert Bruce [Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005], 256).
The castle also was taken much as I described it (with the exception of the makeshift pitons—see below) with a diversion at the south gate, and then the thirty or so rock climbers, “before the art had been invented, inched their way in darkness up the steep and slippery north precipice” (Barrow, 256). This route was “so steep and treacherous that it was considered unscalable” (Cornell, 121). Some of the descriptions of this feat in the accounts are wonderful: “the sharp edges of the rocks cut into their hands” (Cornell, 122) as the Highlanders from Moray ascend the crags “with finger holds and toe holds in the crevices . . . clinging to the rock face” (Scott, 140).
John Barbour in his poetic recounting of the story in The Brus, probably written about sixty years later, mentions a stone tossed down by the watch above, but the rescue of Randolph by Thom was my addition.
The momentousness of Randolph’s feat is still apparent today. One of the first things visitors see upon arriving at Edinburgh Castle is the plaque dedicated to Randolph commemorating this event on the outer wall by the main gate. If you are surprised by the 1313 date like I was, apparently this is the result of a calendar change to what we now consider 1314.
How big were the English garrisons at the castles? The best guess (Cornell, 114) is about 123 men at Roxburgh and 194 at Edinburgh.
Militarily, the importance of the taking of these two castles was enormously significant—it took away key places of refuge for the English on their march north in the coming summer, as well as eliminated places for resupplying the troops. But I suspect the moral victory of wrenching away these two strongholds in such dramatic fashion so close to battle was just as important. To both friend and enemy, it must have seemed as if God was truly with the Bruce, giving the Scot “Davids” confidence as they neared the battle with the English “Goliath.”
Despite his late addition to the Guard, Thom “Rock” MacGowan was one of the first stories I came up with when planning the series. I knew I would need a climber for this part of the story and couldn’t help but be inspired by the romantic tale of Francis climbing the rocks to sneak in and see his sweetheart.
Both MacGowan and Elizabeth Douglas are fictional characters. It is possible James Douglas had a sister, but his family tree is particularly sketchy (as noted in The Knight), although he does appear to have had two half brothers, Archibald and Hugh.
Douglas was sent to France after his father was killed for his safety, which inspired Elizabeth’s later trip. The Douglases—including his English stepmother, Eleanor de Lovaine—were dispossessed of their lands by a virulent Edward. James Douglas’s inability to get his lands returned to him eventually set him on a path to join Bruce in 1306. Eleanor, however, was more successful and was able to get her lands returned about three years after William “the Hardy’s” death in about 1298. Wondering what happened to the widow and her two young sons in the interim inspired the difficult period faced by Elizabeth.
Because rank and station were so important in medieval times, I knew from the outset that I had to find a way to write about it. The sister of the powerful Lord of Douglas and the smithy’s son seemed like a perfect way to do so. I’d already decided on the clan MacGowan (in Ireland McGowan), which in its Gaelic form (Mac Gobhann) means son of the smith, but in one of those serendipitous research moments that I’ve had a few times while writing this series, the connection seemed meant to be when I discovered that there was a branch of the clan in Nithsdale in the fourteenth century, which just happens to be the location of an old Douglas castle.
Smiths, sword makers, and armorers were specialized fields at this time, and in the burghs and big cities would have been distinct and likely undertaken by different people. Indeed, most of the different parts of sword making would have had their specialists: from the person who actually smelted the ore, to the swordsmith who shaped the blade, to the cutler who made the hilt, and yet another who might make the scabbard. An important lord might have his own armorer, but in small villages a blacksmith might have been more a jack-of-all-trades—from making everyday items like horseshoes, farm implements, and cooking pots to fixing armor and making swords.
When combining my smith’s son with climbing, I couldn’t resist having him decide to use a spike to help climb Castle Rock, pre-inventing the first piton, which was reputed to have been used by a climber in France in the next century (in the same year Columbus sailed the ocean blue).
One of the most difficult things in writing this novel was trying to import the rigid social structure and the stigma against marrying down to the modern sensibility. It wasn’t just “not done,” but it was really looked down upon as offending the social fabric, social order, and to some extent, I think seen as failing the duty (and thus a justification) of being noble. Nobles were “different” from the rest of us, and for their place in society were expected to put aside personal desires for the good of the family dynasty.
Society was clearly stratified, and there was a permanence of where you were in the “estates.” The three estates were the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners (later there would be a fourth estate for rich merchants, burghers, and the like). People didn’t move around a lot—you were what you were born (except in the church, of course)—and everyone had their place and role. The idea of upward mobility is probably somewhat anachronistic, although you could improve your lot by entering the church, to some extent through marriage, or through warfare.
Whereas today we would just say to marry him if you love him, that clearly wasn’t the way people thought seven hundred years ago. In the late Middle Ages there would have been real pressure against a marriage like Elizabeth and Thom’s where the difference in rank was so extreme. Blacksmiths in times of war were definitely very important people, but they were of lowly status.
It was very hard to get a sense of how common or uncommon marriages between nobles and people of lower status were, but my sense was that from the few examples I was able to find they were very infrequent. The examples I did come across were more like James and Joanna—the difference in rank more mild. Nowhere did I come across a situation with the disparity of Elizabeth and Thom, which isn’t to say that it couldn’t have happened.
What is clear is that marriages between unequals were so likely to stir controversy and discord that it was thought they should be hidden and kept private, which flew directly in the face of the medieval belief that marriages should be public affairs, requiring the reading of the banns. Significantly, one ecclesiastical author on the subject at the time—a French priest by the name of Pierre de la Palude—counted as one of the six reasons for dispensation from the reading of banns: “Marriage between a person of noble rank and a non-noble, since these unions excited opposition and scandal” (James A. Brundage, Law, Society, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987], 442–43). Another one of the six was, “Marriage of a rich person to a poor one, as these upset the social order” (ibid.).
Historian Alison Weir, in her book The War of The Roses, referring to the marriage of Owen Tudor to Queen Kathryn, states, “What is likely is that the wedding had to be kept private because in marrying a man so far below her in rank the Queen had ‘followed more her own appetite than her open honor’ ” (New York: Ballantine Books, 2011, 80). Keep in mind that the “lowly” Owen was the grandson of a Welsh prince.
Elizabeth’s fear of poverty would have been a reasonable one; going from rich to poor in medieval society would have been a drastic change in the standard of living. Recent scholarship on the standard of living in England in the late fourteenth century before the outbreak of the plague suggests that peasants were actually a little better off than originally thought, with a per capita income of $1,000 (rather than $400 as was believed). Relative to our poorest nations today, this is similar to Afghanistan ($869) ().
So if we assume peasants (who might earn up to £2 a year) were living a life similar to today’s people in Afghanistan, a blacksmith, who might have earned about £12 a year (Thomas Thomson, Earliest Times to Death of Robert Bruce 1329 [London: Black & Son, 1896], 201) would have certainly been better off, but nowhere near the barons (£200–£500-plus) and earls (£400–£11,000-plus). (Kenneth Hodges, List of Price of Medieval Items, .) Talk about one percenters!
Thom as a man of arms would have made slightly more than as a blacksmith, but as a regular knight would have earned £36 and a knight banneret (one who led men under his own banner) roughly £72 (ibid.). To put this in even more perspective, for Thom to have purchased a warhorse he might have needed as much as £80 (ibid.). Other horses were much cheaper.
I used the term merk or mark, which was a medieval monetary unit (and later a coin); it was valued at about two-thirds of a pound. One pound was 20 shillings, and one mark/merk was 13 shillings, 4 pence (ibid.).
If you’ve read my books and author’s notes before, you know that the complex and complicated subject of medieval marriage has been a recurring thorn in my side. I was very happy to avoid it in this book, but then I realized I had to deal with the betrothal. Ugh. Trying to get a sense of how common it was to break a betrothal was just like many of the marriage issues I’ve faced: it’s hard to say.
Medieval betrothals were quite different from today’s engagements. In addition to being a much more formal, contractual event and undertaken by the family, breaking one—particularly a noble betrothal—was a much more serious matter. Although, interestingly, it was more of a secular than ecclesiastical issue—the church was much more worried about consent in marriages (and that they be public). As Genevieve Ribordy notes in Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2006, 72): “In a society where honor and the given word were of the utmost importance, betrothals were instrumental in ensuring that the wedding would take place. Although they were optional according to canon law, in reality a betrothal was an important event that could be revoked only exceptionally and with great difficulty.”
A quick—very quick—word on Lent. I usually do my best to ignore what was surely the dominating force in medieval life: the church. I do this mostly because it doesn’t lend itself well to a sexy romance (my usually unmarried heroes and heroines would be doing a lot of penance!), but I also think it’s very difficult to know exactly how rigorously the strictures were applied in everyday life. For example, married couples were expected to abstain from sex every Sunday, throughout the forty-seven to sixty-two days of Lent, for twenty-two to thirty-five days around Advent, for the period around Pentecost, on some other feast days, during penance, while pregnant, after pregnancy . . . you get the picture (Brundage, 155–59). There were so many days where you had to “abstain” from not only food but other delights, so to speak, you have to think that if everyone was taking this to heart there wouldn’t have been very many babies born.
Although Lent certainly sounds like a dreary period—especially for the poor—and most people appeared to have adhered to it strictly with one big meal and perhaps one smaller meal at night, even religious houses seemed to find a work-around: “Lent was kept in the official refectory, but not in the infirmary, where the old and sick needed meat to remain strong. Many monks just went to the infirmary for supper” (Ruth A. Johnston, All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval Word [Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011], 232–33). This was pretty much the approach I took to religious matters. People would be very conscious of the rules but didn’t always follow them.
Finally, Bruce’s location during the taking of the castles is unclear, although he was with Randolph at Edinburgh during the beginning of the siege (probably in January 1314) to negotiate with the keeper, who was later imprisoned by his fellow Englishmen for parleying with the enemy. Where Bruce might have stayed is also conjecture, but there is evidence suggesting that Holyrood was used as a royal residence by 1329 and Bruce held parliament there in 1326 (John Gifford, et al., Edinburgh [New York: Penguin Books, 1991], 125).
Would women have been in Edinburgh at the time of the siege? It doesn’t seem unlikely. Bruce had his wife, daughter, and sisters with him eight years earlier in much more precarious circumstances after the Battle of Methven. Similarly, during a siege of Stirling Castle ten years before Bannockburn by Edward I, his queen accompanied him from England. Much is made of the entertainment factor in watching Edward’s new siege engine “Warwolf” at work. A special window was supposedly constructed so that Queen Margaret and other ladies from court might watch (Cornell, 12).