The Lion Rampant, by Robert Low. Book review

Harper Collins 2013. ISBN 978-0-00-733790-3. 454 pages

Set in southern Scotland and Spain in 1314, The Lion Rampant is the third in Robert Low’s trilogy about the Wars of Independence, and covers the build-up to the Battle of Bannockburn and the battle itself. The main characters, Sir Hal Sientcler of Herdmanston and his household, are fictional. ‘Black Roger’ Kirkpatrick, loyal henchman of Robert Bruce, is also fictional, although the fictional character is now starting to step into the role of the historical Roger Kirkpatrick.  Isabel MacDuff of Fife, formerly the Countess of Buchan, is based on a historical figure, although many details of her life and her eventual fate are not known. Other historical figures appear as important secondary characters, including Robert Bruce and his brother Edward, various Scots lords including Sir James Douglas (‘The Black Douglas’, or ‘The Good Sir James’, depending whether he was on your side), Edward II of England and various other English lords. 

In early spring 1314, Hal of Herdmanston has been held prisoner by the English garrison of Roxburgh Castle for seven years since his capture at the end of the previous novel, The Lion At Bay. His beloved Isabel MacDuff has been imprisoned for much the same time, in even harsher conditions (in a cage hung from the walls of Berwick Castle). During Hal’s imprisonment, Robert Bruce has been steadily fighting a guerilla war against his Scottish enemies and rivals, chiefly the Comyn family, and the English garrisons in Scotland. Now, after seven hard years, the Comyns are defeated and exiled, and the English presence in Scotland is largely confined to the garrisons of three great fortresses, Roxburgh, Edinburgh and Stirling. When Roxburgh falls to a daring assault led by James Douglas, Hal of Herdmanston is freed. Returning to Robert Bruce to seek help in rescuing Isabel, he finds Bruce facing the prospect of a large-scale invasion of Scotland. Edward II of England is determined to crush Robert Bruce and independent Scotland once and for all. Unless Robert Bruce can source enough weapons to arm his soldiers by midsummer, he will have no chance against the English army – and there are only a few months left. And so Hal and ‘Black Roger’ Kirkpatrick are despatched on a desperate mission to a Templar stronghold in Spain. Secrecy and speed are of the essence, for the fate of Scotland hangs on their success – but already there is the stink of treachery in the air...

The Lion Rampant concludes Robert Low’s trilogy about the Wars of Independence, which began with The Lion Wakes (reviewed here earlier) and continued with The Lion At Bay (reviewed here earlier). As well as bringing the war to its climax at Bannockburn, it also resolves the stories of the main characters, including Hal of Herdmanston, Isabel MacDuff and Dog Boy.

Like its predecessors, The Lion Rampant is a gripping adventure novel with plenty of violent action. The fight scenes are gory, brutal and gruesomely convincing. Fittingly for a book published shortly before the 700th anniversary, the Battle of Bannockburn dominates the novel. All the famous set-piece scenes are there, from Robert Bruce’s duel with de Bohun to the decisive charge of the camp-followers.  The author has neatly contrived to place one of his main characters in each of the key components of the battle, so it is told from all sides, and stirring stuff it is. If you have ever tried to imagine what it might have been like to stand in a schiltrom of spearmen facing a charge of armoured knights; or to be one of those knights charging a forest of steel pikes; or a Welsh mercenary archer in Edward’s army, neither fully trusting in nor trusted by the English leaders; or a sensible veteran like the down-to-earth Yorkshire knight Marmaduke Thweng, watching with gloomy resignation as the squabbling nobles in high command precipitate disaster – this novel is for you.

The Templar sub-plot and the mystery of the traitor add an exotic diversion (best taken, as the author says about all things to do with the Templars in Scotland, “with a huge saline pinch”), and gives Hal and Roger something exciting to do while the rival armies are converging on Bannockburn. There is more of a nationalistic atmosphere to this novel than the previous two, partly because the Scottish civil war has largely been won by the Bruce faction (and partly, perhaps, reflecting the iconic status of Bannockburn in modern popular culture). However, the sense of the dense political background is retained. There are Scots lords from the defeated Comyn faction fighting with Edward II, the ‘English’ army contains considerable numbers of archers from Wales and mercenary soldiers from Hainault, and the simmering unrest among the English nobles – not all of which is due solely to inflated egos – is an ever-present menace.  Edward II is seen through the clear eyes of Marmaduke Thweng, who has sympathy for him and admires his courage, but who also has no illusions about Edward’s effectiveness either as king or war leader.

Characterisation is vivid and complex, with even minor characters swiftly sketched in as distinct individuals with their own fears and ambitions. Relationships can be equally complex and contradictory. Hal does not trust ‘Black Roger’ Kirkpatrick (with good reason), yet the two are bound together by obligation and revenge, in “a tangle of sin and redemption that even God would have trouble unravelling”. Dog Boy has discovered his identity, Aleysandir of Douglas, and is now a warrior in his prime, "as daring as the Black Sir James, but better looking", as he says to more than one vanquished enemy. Yet the cruelty and the waste of war are taking a toll on him, and he wants nothing more than to settle to family life with Bet’s Meggy and be done with killing and destruction. Their love is a bright thread of joy running through the darkness of war, a counterpart to the bittersweet love affair between Hal and Isabel MacDuff.

An Author’s Note and a detailed character list at the back of the book outlines the underlying history, identifies the purely fictional characters, and acknowledges some of the liberties taken with historical figures.  For example, Isabel MacDuff’s fate is unknown, but the limited information suggests that it probably was not as depicted in the novel.  A sketch map at the front gives approximate locations for some of the places mentioned. I would have liked a more detailed plan of the battlefield at Bannockburn itself as imagined in the novel.  There is no glossary of Scots words and phrases, perhaps because the Scots dialect seems less pronounced in this novel than in the first one.

Gripping, violent action-adventure bringing this trilogy of the Wars of Independence to a rousing conclusion with the Battle of Bannockburn.

Kingdom of Shadows, by Barbara Erskine. Book review

First published 1988. Edition reviewed, Harper 2009, ISBN 978-0-00-728866-3. 715 pages

Kingdom of Shadows is a time-slip novel set in Scotland and England with two intertwined plots, one set in about 1290 to 1314, one set in the 1980s. The historical plot centres on Robert Bruce and Isobel MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, with other historical figures including Isobel’s husband the Earl of Buchan and Robert’s queen Elizabeth de Burgh featuring as secondary characters.  All the characters in the modern plot are fictional.

In 1980s Britain, Clare Royland inherits Duncairn Castle, a (fictional) romantic ruin on the north-east coast of Scotland, from her beloved aunt Margaret Gordon. The castle has been in the Gordon family for over seven hundred years and Clare, like her aunt, feels a powerful connection to Duncairn and to its earlier owner, Isobel Countess of Buchan, a family ancestor who played a tragic role in the Scottish Wars of Independence. But Clare’s husband Paul, a ruthless and distinctly dodgy financier in the City of London, sees Duncairn first as a nuisance and then, when an American oil company bids to buy the land, as a potential solution to his secret financial problems.  When Clare refuses the American oil company’s offer, Paul tries to make her sell Duncairn, by persuasion, fraud and force.  Meanwhile, Neil Forbes, a Scottish environmental campaigner, is organising a campaign to oppose both the sale of Duncairn and drilling for oil.  He and Clare are on the same side, but for different reasons, and Neil initially regards Clare as an enemy.  As the pressure on her builds, Clare experiences increasingly vivid visions of Isobel’s life, as though Isobel can somehow call to her from the distant past.  Is Isobel’s tragedy about to repeat itself through Clare?

I first read Kingdom of Shadows years ago.  I was reminded of it more recently when I read The Lion Wakes, because both novels feature Isobel MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, as a major character and involve a (probably fictional*) love affair between her and Robert Bruce, though that’s about the only similarity between them.  Kingdom of Shadows is a full-blown (and, at over 700 pages, ‘full’ is the operative word) Gothic romance, packed with menace, drama, passionate love and equally passionate hatred, with vaguely supernatural forces looming in the background.  The first time I read it, I remember finding the supernatural aspects irritating, so much so that I ended up skimming through quite a lot of the novel.  This time I treated it as a fantasy novel creating a world of its own that happens to have some similarities with late twentieth-century and early fourteenth-century Britain, and that worked much better for me. 

Isobel (Isabel, Isabella) MacDuff’s story, what little of it is recorded in history, is itself the stuff of tragic romance.  She was a member of the MacDuff family of Fife, who had the hereditary right to crown Scottish monarchs.  Although her husband John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, was a senior member of the Comyn family, enemies and political rivals of the Bruce family, Isobel crowned Robert Bruce when he seized the Scottish throne in 1306.  This conferred some traditional legitimacy on Robert’s rather hurried coronation, which may lie behind the harshness of the punishment later inflicted on Isobel by Edward I of England.  (I’m trying to avoid too many spoilers for readers who are not familiar with the history, so I won’t spell out what happened to her here; anyone who wants to find out can look it up on Wikipedia).  

The modern plot in Kingdom of Shadows has to go into overdrive to live up to the dramatic events of Isobel’s true story.  It reminded me of a rather over-the-top Eighties TV drama series, with its ostentatious wealth, corporate double-dealing, insider trading, fraud, blackmail, family secrets, deceit, abduction, suicide and attempted murder.  I gave up trying to keep track of all the double-crossing and fraud, and also got rather lost among Paul Royland’s collection of rich and mostly rather unappealing relatives and City colleagues.  If the financial wheeler-dealing background to Clare’s tale is intended as a sort of modern analogy to the turbulent power politics in fourteenth-century Scotland that form the background to Isobel’s tale, it has the appropriate level of dizzying complexity.

On this re-read, I was struck by the degree of allegory between Clare’s storyline and Isobel’s.  Not just in the broad parallels between the situations of the two women – controlling husbands, a love triangle, the need to make a stand – but also in details.  Sometimes the effect is quite powerful, as in their shared experience of imprisonment.  At other times I found the allegory a bit heavy-handed for my taste.  For example, both women are subjected to religious rituals by clerical brothers-in-law; and in the historical plot Robert Bruce has an Irish wife, Elizabeth de Burgh daughter of the Earl of Ulster, so the romantic hero of the modern plot, environmentalist Neil Forbes, is duly given an Irish girlfriend. I wonder if Clare’s passivity, which was another feature that irritated me first time round, was also there in the interests of creating parallels between her situation and Isobel’s. Isobel lived in a time when women, even wealthy high-born women, had very few rights. Clare has lived a very sheltered life, a beautiful rich girl who married straight from school, has always been dependent either on her parents or her husband and has never had to take her own decisions, and so she is easily pushed around by other people. Similarly, the unpleasant portrayal of Isobel’s husband may owe more to allegory with Clare’s abusive husband in the modern storyline than to the historical John Comyn.  The historical Isobel clearly disagreed politically with her husband on at least the matter of Robert Bruce’s coronation, but as far as I know nothing is known of their personal relationship except that the marriage had no surviving children, which could be interpreted in many different ways.  

The writing style is heavy on detail – I didn’t feel I really needed a description of Clare’s outfit almost every time she makes an appearance – and some of the descriptions of Clare’s nightmares and visions of Isobel border on the repetitive. The pace picks up in the last 200 pages or so as the various sub-plots involving Clare’s friends and relatives either fall by the wayside or converge on the main plot.  Atmosphere and landscape are conveyed well, especially at Duncairn with its mystical connection to both women.

A useful map at the front of the book shows the major locations in the tale, including the fictional Duncairn, and a very brief Historical Note outlines Isobel’s known history.

Gothic time-slip romance based on the tragic history of Isobel MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, during the Scottish Wars of Independence, interwoven with and paralleled by a tale about her fictional descendant Clare Royland in 1980s Britain.

*’Probably’ fictional because although there were allegations of an affair between Isobel and Robert Bruce in hostile contemporary chronicles, these may have been no more than inventions by political enemies.

The Traitor’s Wife, by Susan Higginbotham. Book review

Sourcebooks, 2009, ISBN 9781402217876, 500 pages.*
First published: iUniverse, 2005, ISBN 0-595-35959-0

Set in England in 1306-1337, The Traitor’s Wife tells the story of Eleanor de Clare, niece of King Edward II and wife to Hugh le Despenser (the Younger), one of the most hated men of Edward’s reign. All the main characters are historical figures.

Eleanor’s formidable grandfather, Edward I, arranges her marriage to young Hugh le Despenser, the son of one of his faithful followers. Eleanor soon falls in love with her clever and witty young husband and the marriage is both happy and fruitful, until the untimely death of Eleanor’s only brother at the Battle of Bannockburn suddenly makes her a great heiress. At first trying to secure Eleanor’s lands and then to add to them, by fair means or – increasingly – foul, Hugh extorts, threatens, blackmails and bribes his way to ever greater riches. When Eleanor’s uncle Edward II becomes besotted with him, there is no check to Hugh’s greed and ambition and soon he rules the country in all but name. Not surprisingly, this earns him powerful enemies. When Queen Isabella, her lover Roger Mortimer and most of the rest of the aristocracy join forces to get rid of Hugh, Eleanor and her beloved uncle King Edward II are caught up in his downfall.

The Traitor’s Wife is very much Eleanor’s story, covering the whole of her eventful life from her marriage to Hugh until her death. Eleanor is an appealing character, sweet, affectionate and straightforward, perhaps a little naïve in taking Hugh at his own estimation and managing to remain blind to his faults for so long. Edward II is also well drawn, a kind and attractive man who nevertheless made a hopelessly inept king. Some of the secondary characters are also memorable, such as the charming and irrepressible Piers Gaveston and the honest, decent, pleasant William la Zouche. Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella have a wonderfully snappish relationship towards the end of their period in power, as might be expected of a couple who came together out of a mix of expediency and lust.

I felt I would have liked to understand Hugh le Despenser better. Clearly a very complex man, the reader sees him mainly through Eleanor’s eyes and thus sees mostly his good qualities. I found it hard to grasp quite why he was so detested until very late in the book, when Eleanor has to face the evidence of his misdeeds. I’d have liked to see more of Hugh the villain at the time to understand why the tidal wave of hatred built up against him as it did. Not having seen much of Hugh’s bad side, I wasn’t very clear whether Isabella and Roger Mortimer were acting out of pure spite in their treatment of Hugh’s family, or whether they had some genuine grievance that would explain their behaviour. I also didn’t quite grasp why Isabella’s attitude to Eleanor seemed to change; when Isabella first comes to England she treats Eleanor as something of a confidante, but their relationship cools and Isabella is later Eleanor’s enemy. It seems to happen rather early to be attributable to Hugh’s nefarious activities, so I must have missed something.

The novel shows up the remarkable emotional resilience of medieval women, who have to pick up the pieces when their men end up on the wrong side of a power struggle. How do you explain to children that their father has been executed, and shield them from the worst details of it, when your own heart is breaking for the loss of a beloved husband? Eleanor survives the deaths of her brother, husband, father-in-law and uncle, estrangement from her sisters, her eldest son’s imprisonment, her own imprisonment (twice), and still manages to lead a fulfilling life.

One aspect of the novel that I liked very much is the wry sense of humour. Hugh has a sarcastic wit (On Piers Gaveston being given months to prepare for banishment, “With his wardrobe he’ll need every day of it”), Piers takes nothing seriously, and there are sidelong comments on medieval life, such as the difficulties of being a servant in a castle full of women. There’s a delightful note of comedy when John de Grey and William la Zouche are both wooing the widowed Eleanor, and again when they have to go to court to argue over which one of them married her.

The novel is told in third person from various points of view, so the reader is able to see more than one side to the events and can get to know several people. Although there’s a large cast of characters with a only small range of names between them, the story is clearly told so I had little difficulty in keeping them straight. There’s a helpful list of characters at the front of the book if you do get confused. A useful Afterword also sets out the underlying history, including the aspects that aren’t known and that have to be filled in with speculation, and briefly tells you what happened to the rest of the characters after the story ends.

Detailed and well-researched story that brings the people and events of a complicated period of history to life.

*I reviewed The Traitor's Wife when it was first published, and am re-posting my original review now in honour of the new Sourcebooks edition.

Blog tour

Sourcebooks has organised a blog tour for the publication of The Traitor’s Wife. Here are the other stops (Note that the dates are in US format, month/day):

Readers Respite (4/6)

Passages to the Past (4/6)

Reading Extravaganza (4/7)

S. Krishna’s Books (4/7)

HistoricalNovels.info (4/8)

The Tome Traveller’s Weblog (4/10)

Jennifer’s Random Musings (4/12)

Medieval Bookworm (4/13)

StevenTill.com (4/13)

Peeking Between the Pages (4/14)

A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore… (4/14)

Savvy Verse and Wit (4/15 & 4/16)

Sam’s Book Blog (4/16)

Diary of an Eccentric (4/17 & 4/20)

My Friend Amy (4/17)

The Traitor’s Wife, by Susan Higginbotham. Book review

Edition reviewed: iUniverse, 2005, ISBN 0-595-35959-0

Set in England in 1306-1337, The Traitor’s Wife tells the story of Eleanor de Clare, niece of King Edward II and wife to Hugh le Despenser (the Younger), one of the most hated men of Edward’s reign. All the main characters are historical figures.

Eleanor’s formidable grandfather, Edward I, arranges her marriage to young Hugh le Despenser, the son of one of his faithful followers. Eleanor soon falls in love with her clever and witty young husband and the marriage is both happy and fruitful, until the untimely death of Eleanor’s only brother at the Battle of Bannockburn suddenly makes her a great heiress. At first trying to secure Eleanor’s lands and then to add to them, by fair means or – increasingly – foul, Hugh extorts, threatens, blackmails and bribes his way to ever greater riches. When Eleanor’s uncle Edward II becomes besotted with him, there is no check to Hugh’s greed and ambition and soon he rules the country in all but name. Not surprisingly, this earns him powerful enemies. When Queen Isabella, her lover Roger Mortimer and most of the rest of the aristocracy join forces to get rid of Hugh, Eleanor and her beloved uncle King Edward II are caught up in his downfall.

The Traitor’s Wife is very much Eleanor’s story, covering the whole of her eventful life from her marriage to Hugh until her death. Eleanor is an appealing character, sweet, affectionate and straightforward, perhaps a little naïve in taking Hugh at his own estimation and managing to remain blind to his faults for so long. Edward II is also well drawn, a kind and attractive man who nevertheless made a hopelessly inept king. Some of the secondary characters are also memorable, such as the charming and irrepressible Piers Gaveston and the honest, decent, pleasant William la Zouche. Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella have a wonderfully snappish relationship towards the end of their period in power, as might be expected of a couple who came together out of a mix of expediency and lust.

I felt I would have liked to understand Hugh le Despenser better. Clearly a very complex man, the reader sees him mainly through Eleanor’s eyes and thus sees mostly his good qualities. I found it hard to grasp quite why he was so detested until very late in the book, when Eleanor has to face the evidence of his misdeeds. I’d have liked to see more of Hugh the villain at the time to understand why the tidal wave of hatred built up against him as it did. Not having seen much of Hugh’s bad side, I wasn’t very clear whether Isabella and Roger Mortimer were acting out of pure spite in their treatment of Hugh’s family, or whether they had some genuine grievance that would explain their behaviour. I also didn’t quite grasp why Isabella’s attitude to Eleanor seemed to change; when Isabella first comes to England she treats Eleanor as something of a confidante, but their relationship cools and Isabella is later Eleanor’s enemy. It seems to happen rather early to be attributable to Hugh’s nefarious activities, so I must have missed something.

The novel shows up the remarkable emotional resilience of medieval women, who have to pick up the pieces when their men end up on the wrong side of a power struggle. How do you explain to children that their father has been executed, and shield them from the worst details of it, when your own heart is breaking for the loss of a beloved husband? Eleanor survives the deaths of her brother, husband, father-in-law and uncle, estrangement from her sisters, her eldest son’s imprisonment, her own imprisonment (twice), and still manages to lead a fulfilling life.

One aspect of the novel that I liked very much is the wry sense of humour. Hugh has a sarcastic wit (On Piers Gaveston being given months to prepare for banishment, “With his wardrobe he’ll need every day of it”), Piers takes nothing seriously, and there are sidelong comments on medieval life, such as the difficulties of being a servant in a castle full of women. There’s a delightful note of comedy when John de Grey and William la Zouche are both wooing the widowed Eleanor, and again when they have to go to court to argue over which one of them married her.

The novel is told in third person from various points of view, so the reader is able to see more than one side to the events and can get to know several people. Although there’s a large cast of characters with a only small range of names between them, the story is clearly told so I had little difficulty in keeping them straight. There’s a helpful list of characters at the front of the book if you do get confused. A useful Afterword also sets out the underlying history, including the aspects that aren’t known and that have to be filled in with speculation, and briefly tells you what happened to the rest of the characters after the story ends.

Detailed and well-researched story that brings the people and events of a complicated period of history to life.

Has anyone else read it?

For more detail on the people and events of Edward II’s reign, see Alianore’s blog and website. Susan Higginbotham also has a blog and website.