Nigel TranterCritiques

I’m used to Nigel Tranter’s books being set in the distant past, so it was a bit jarring for this one to be set in the present day, or at least the present day at the time of publication. Eventually I did settle in and found this a good book. Roddie was quite the character, especially. I wouldn’t really consider this a book for learning about the history of the Stone, as I thought it might be. It’s a light adventure story, I guess, with a satisfying resolution.

This was a very good Nigel Tranter novel featuring the MacGregor clan. This is set earlier in time than MacGregor’s Gathering, which is similar to this novel with its dynamic of a nephew being mentored by an uncle in the clan leadership. And like The Captive Crown, the third book in the Stewart trilogy, this book features an assertive woman who know a fair deal about politics: Mary Gray, the illegitimate daughter of the Master of Gray, proves to be a diplomatic wonder through her position at court, despite her illegitimacy. Children of the Mist is also similar to The Captive Crown in its ending, which is well judged but melancholy.

A brief view of Scotland, I didn't have too many expectations as its not a large book to cover the history of a country. Covers the main points and is an introduction to the topic, but not a book for one who already has a good knowledge of Scottish History.½

This is a stand-alone historical fiction novel featuring Kenneth MacAlpin, the first High King of Scotland. It has rather a lot of men in it, not so many women. That said, Eithne (Kenneth’s eventual wife) does gets a fair bit of page time, and there’s a prioress who goes on an adventure with the battling Dalriadans. Eithne’s story is mostly well handled, although I did find the “From Here to Eternity”—style sex scene on the beach a bit cheesy. The writing style is a bit on the heavy side but if you’re in the right mood for it, it works. The author includes a historical note at the end to explain a bit about what happens to the key players.

Oddly enough, even though the Norsemen are the bad guys here, I’m kind of hankering to read the Orkneyinga Saga now, because it covers the 9th century as well.

A real slog. Too many similar names, so I kept referring back to the lists of characters. The early years of the Stewarts from the viewpoint of Jamie Douglas. Infighting and political intrigue galore. Recommended ONLY for those interested in Scottish history.

There was a time when many Nigel Tranter historical novels could be seen in Scotland's bookshops, but now he has pretty much disappeared, indeed, I do not think in 2021 he is any longer in print. I prefer history to historical fiction, so had never read any of his books until I came across this novel in a charity shop. It was a paperback published in 1996, but "The Queen's Grace" was first published in 1953. It is a good read, clearly based on an encyclopaedic knowledge of locations and events in Scotland during the time of Mary Queen of Scots. The derring-do is reminiscent of that other novelist associated with Glasgow, John Buchan, and Tranter does not shrink from the brutality of the times or from the serious tensions between Highlanders and Lowlanders. The Queen plays an important role, and Tranter presents her as a teenager undermined as sovereign by the thuggery of her illegitimate half-brother, James Stewart. The hero is, however, a young Highland laird, Partick Gordon of Balruary, sent by his clan chief with a message to the Queen, where he meets her ladies in waiting. As the author notes: "The fall of Huntly and the House of Gordon, the most powerful noble and the strongest clan in Scotland of Queen Mary's time, so little documented as it is, has long puzzled those interested. How did such complete collapse come about, in the short space of two months?" In "The Queen's Grace" Tranter provides a possible and pretty convincing answer.

Mining away at Scotland's turbulent past, Nigel Tranter has lighted on the career of Thomas Learmouth of Ercildoune, the "True Thomas" of legend. The story can be fleshed out and rationalized, and Mr. Tranter has performed his entertainment duties quite competently. Thus we are carried through the reign of Alexander III of Scotland and given some quite likely motivations of the Sots nobility forced to deal with the problem of Edward I, a very forceful Plantagenet. Edward's friends need not read this book, as he has from a Scots' point of view, much to be forgiven for. Those who like this sort of thing, will be pleased by this book.½

Once more I return to Nigel Tranter, for a dose of Scottish history...served with a bit of sex, three things you cannot do with a two-handed sword on horseback, and a lot of geographical information about mountain passes in Scotland. The book deals with the complexities of feudal politics, and the problems of self-interest as opposed to national service. The noble Scots are not on their best behaviour during the Wallace-led revolt, and this is fully shown. There is even some exploration of less than heroic behaviour on the part of Robert Bruce. Tranter's joy in exploring genealogy also intrudes just a bit, and is on a par with that of Sharon K. Penman, another competent explorer in this genealogical swamp. But I find , as this is medieval politics, that family has got some share in what happens. So, this book is worth reading, even if one is a bit of a friend of Edward I of England, for,after all it is interesting to know what the neighbours think.

Somerlaed mac Gillebride, was a warlord of the west Coast and Inner Hebrides during the mid-1100's. Just giving that definition gives room and intrigue enough for several stories. His relationship with either the Scots' kingdom, or the Norse Earldom of Orkney or the kingdom of the Isle of Man is complex. Tranter also throws in the rise of Henry II of England, disorganized but vengeful small time Norse raiders, and the usual accidents of life in the twelfth century including the final struggle between the Papacy and the dying Celtic church, and a good time is had by all.

MacBeth was not well served by the Holinshead Chronicle, one of Shakespeare's constant sources. By working with the Barbour verse chronicle and other sources, Nigel Tranter, produced this quite entertaining novel. Mr. Tranter, however has a habit of providing us with extensively (dare I say excessively?) detailed route descriptions, and, battle scenes which seen to be far more detailed than most levels of research can provide. Okay, sometimes I find them too clever by half. But as he works happily in poorly recorded periods for many of his accounts, no one can contradict this quite competent writer. You will have a pretty good couple of days with this chapter of Tranter's epic of Scotland.
Just don't precede this novel with a close reading of either "The Orkneyinga Saga" or the "Heimskringla", Some holes will suddenly appear Tranter's tapestry.½

A novel which is aided by the gaps in the actual record, so the author can run with the ideas of the ideal hero. It makes for a good read, and an image that probably partakes more of the "Hero" image than the actual man possessed. Tranter plays with the image of a "reluctant hero" called, somewhat by circumstance, to apply his treasured dreams to the needs of Scotland in the ninth century. If for Cornwell's Uhtred, "Destiny is all!" for Tranter's Kenneth, it is the dream of the final romantic image of Scotland that is all. Throw in the usual recounting of geographical features of the west coast of Scotland, and a mild hint of sexual tension, and the book works. Especially for Scots.½

A pedestrian account of the great Irish Missionary and his work in Scotland. there are a great many names and incidental historical information, but not much life.½

The conclusion to Nigel Tranter’s MacGregor trilogy takes us to 1746, in the aftermath of Culloden. Bonnie Prince Charlie has a price on his head, and Rob Roy’s great-nephew Duncan is one of a loyal band that volunteers to escort the prince to safety. The loyalty of Duncan and others is tested, though, when they come across an enormous shipment of gold from France that is intended for the Jacobite cause. Will they keep the money safe for their prince, or will it be spent on the immediate needs of his followers?

Like the other books in this trilogy, it reads very quickly and contains moments of levity. The realities of wartime are easier to bear in this book—while there is talk of pillage and rapine, thankfully none of the female characters we follow in this book experience it directly. Instead, the focus is more on dividing loyalties, the corrupting power of gold, and the struggle between short-term needs and long-term desires. The trilogy as a whole is good.½

In this book, Nigel Tranter tells the story of William Wallace, son of a small knight of Elderslie, who ended up jump-starting resistance to Edward Longshanks of England, fighting on behalf of the deposed John Balliol and eventually, by his actions, setting Robert the Bruce on the path to the Scottish throne.

As one comes to expect with a Tranter book, this one is rich in detail and does a fairly good job of balancing the needs of informing the reader with advancing the plot in a non-clunky way. I’m sure some liberties have been taken to the presentation of history to make things more immersive or relatable for the modern reader, but overall I’m prepared to accept those. What really surprised me, and what I had to keep in mind, was that Wallace was just 26 years old when he started his campaigns. That’s only slightly older than my brother is now—and it’s not a fact that comes to mind when I think about him. Even the painting of him on the cover of my edition makes him seem much older.

Speaking of my edition, it’s a Coronet Books mass market paperback and makes an error in attributing the painting. Well, I don’t doubt that it was painted by George Jamesone, but the back cover listing the art credit seemed to be giving Jamesone *Wallace’s* birth and death dates. “Jamesone did NOT live from 1274 to 1305,” I said. “He was in the 1600s!” And the text contained a fair number of typos, so maybe don’t read this particular edition. But the story itself is great.½

Trigger warning: rape

It’s 1715. Rob Roy MacGregor has been declared an outlaw for his cattle thieving and his support of the Jacobite cause. He leaves his clan lands to avoid having his clansmen targeted by association, but the government men don’t seem to follow such niceties. They burn down his house and attack his family because they think the family are hiding something. When Rob returns and hears of this, he swears revenge on those who wronged his family. At the same time, the Jacobite cause is coming to a head. Will the Stuart king finally come back and try to claim the throne from Anne or from her successor, George?

Like the first book in the trilogy, this book is told well and moves at a rattling pace. The subject matter, however, is much harder to deal with, particularly Mary’s rape and the psychological aftermath for her. It’s post-traumatic stress in the 1700s and Rob is so unequipped to deal with it that Mary doesn’t even tell him that she was raped. He just thinks the factor hit her (but that’s enough for him to want revenge).

As for the Jacobite rebellion, there’s a crisis of confidence in the clan: a divide between people who want to die recklessly for glory and people who would prefer to save the clan from total destruction. The conflict plays out interestingly and fits in nicely with all the history I’ve been reading about this period. I’m tempted to put the third book on the to-read pile right away!½

In the time of Queen Anne in England, with the Act of Union looming, the MacGregor clan has been outlawed and proscribed. They make their living through a sort of protection scheme, taking cattle from landowners in exchange for ensuring that other clans don’t harry the landowners. Then comes a time when there’s a possibility of putting a Jacobite king on the throne of Scotland. Rob Roy and his nephew Gregor are set to join the adventure, rally the clans and support this first rising (the 1715 one).

This was a relatively breezy read for a historical novel. It clocks in at just over 250 pages in my edition and has more funny moments than I would otherwise have expected. Gregor, as the main character in the story, is young and impulsive and has a zest for life, and his relationship with his uncle provides many instances of affectionate joking. The setting is described beautifully and the dialogue, although written in English, to me captures the flavour of Gàidhlig in its sentence structure and use of interjections.

I recommend this book if you’re looking to read about Scotland in the 1700s. It might also make a manageable introduction to Nigel Tranter’s work.

After the assassination of James I, King of Scots, his seven year old son is crowned king. Unfortunately, two Scots lords try and out maneuver each other in order to rule Scotland through possession of the child-king's person. Sir Alexander Livingston of Calendar, Keeper of Stirling Castle wasn't trusted by the Patrick, Thane of Glamis and he and his son Alec rode to advise Queen Joan to move the young king to Edinburgh where he would be under the protection of William Crichton. Crichton's personality clashed with the queen mother, she and her daughters leaving the castle, and taking up residence in Holyrood Palace which left James II in the castle with Alec Lyon who endeavored to keep the boy busy. The squabbling between Livingston and Crichton meant that they weren't paying attention to some of important nobles of the realm when they were consolidating power until their own power was threatened. So they invited William Douglas and his young brother David to celebrate the king's birthday, seized them in front of the king, and had them executed. When the king was a man grown he would repeat the scene stabbing and killing the 8th Earl of Douglas over dinner and after giving him safe conduct. That didn't go over too well with the rest of the Douglas clan. James II also introduced cannon in Scotland, his Mons Meg can still be found in Edinburgh Castle.

Not the end of the line as far as the bloodline is concerned but the end of the Cospatricks as Earls of Dunbar and March. Unfortunately, they happened to be a powerful family of royal descent that shared a period of time with the early Stewart dynasty. The first two kings were inept so Robert, Earl of Fife basically became the power behind the throne. He would imprison and starve his nephew, David, heir to the throne, to death. David's brother, James, tried to flee to France but the Earl of Fife by now the Duke of Albany, tipped the English off and James was captured and spent eighteen years as a "guest" of the English crown. All the while the Cospatricks are treading very warily as the various Stewart princes grab for land and power. They support the return of King James and become major players as members of his council but when James was assassinated the Cospatricks fell from power as the remaining Stewart princes jockeyed for access of the child-monarch who was being held by alternately by Sir Alexander Livingstone and Sir William Crichton. George, 11th Earl of Dunbar & March would be the last earl and would live out his life in exile in England

This continues the saga of the Cospatrick family moving north to Morayshire when John Cospatrick of Dunbar was bequeathed the earldom to him by his step-mother, Black Agnes of Dunbar. She goes with him on initial trip north to introduce him to the Moray folk, evaluate the problems with other nobles and clansmen infringing on territory due to Moray's lack of an acting earl. He soon proved himself a effective ruler of Moray dealing with feuding clansmen and forming and alliance with Donald of the Isles, and the Earls of Sutherland and Caithness after Alexander "The Wolf" Stewart went on a rampage burning Elgin Cathedral as well as most of the town of Elgin. He also took part in the battle of Otterburn and was envoy to Richard II and John of Gaunt trying to broker a more permanent peace between the two kingdoms

He was Thomas Learmonth of Ercildoune, a minor laird who was the vassal and squire of Patrick, 7th Earl of Dunbar, a situation he was content with. He kept paper, quill, and ink with him to scribble down anything that came to him though the only writing he really wanted to complete was a translation of Tristan & Isolde into the Scottish language. His superiors wanted more of his prophecies rather than his poetry, especially if he foretold of positive events for Scotland, his monarch , or the Earl. Not much is known of Thomas, other than he he had a small holding with a son, Thomas the Younger who signed Ercildoune over to the church while his father joined the church before the Scottish Wars for Independence. Tranter's speculations make for a good story though.

An interesting story of how David Lindsey of Luffness, minor laird, became the companion to child-king Alexander III, King of Scots, and sought to look after his monarchs best interests. This is part of the Cospatrick series as David is related to the Cospatrick Earls of Dunbar. He introduces Alexander III to goose hunting and the king spends quite a bit of time down by Aberlady Bay with David's family. There is woman that watches after the king who is reputedly his half-sister Margaret, however the only illegitimate daughter that I've been able to find is married to Alan Durward, Earl of Atholl, who is plotting to legitimize her as Alexander's heir. That doesn't go over well. In this book the plot is outed just after Alexander's marriage to Margaret Plantagenet, Henry III of England's daughter and he's in Scotland when their first child is born. In True Thomas also by Tranter, Alexander is in England for the birth of his first child and later the Durward outing takes place when Alexander achieves his majority. Some consistancy problems but still a good book

Patrick, 7th Earl of Dunbar and March, would have been content to remain on his lands tending to his trading with the Netherlands but his family's close ties to Alexander III, the child king of Scots pulled him into his country's political sphere. He would serve on a regency council that would be severely tested by the Comyn block that wanted to rule Scotland. He would develop trading ties with Norway with King Magnus that would continue into the reign of his son Eric Magnusson. There would be travels to England with Alexander III dealing first with King Henry III whose daughter Margaret became Queen of Scots, and for King Edward I's coronation, denying both kings' claims of lordship over Scotland. Patrick and his wife would also travel to France to interview Robert, Count of Dreux and his daughter, Yolande, when Alexander decides to remarry after the death of his wife and children leaving the fate of the Canmore dynasty hanging on the life of his frail Norwegian granddaughter.

A history of Scotland during the reign of Alexander II from the viewpoint of the Cospatrick family who were the Celtic claimants to the throne. Young Patrick who is sent to the court of a young King Alexander to remind him of their claim to the throne, winds up becoming the young king's close friend and confident as most of the court officials are carry-overs from his father's reign, stuffy old men who only want him to sign papers. Between the two of them they enliven it by bringing young people and women to court. Patrick also earns honors helping put down uprisings in the Isles and Caithness where the clan chieftains regard themselves as kings. Tranter gives you a peak into the running of the Earldom of Dunbar and how they achieved their wealth trading with the Low Countries.
There are also numerous cautious meetings with Henry III of England as Alexander's first wife is his sister. I enjoyed it.

This is the conclusion to the House of Stewart trilogy, chronicling the final days of Robert III, the rule of the Governor (acting as regent for his brother and later his nephew), and the threat posed to Scotland by Henry Bolingbroke (here sometimes confusingly referred to as “Henry Plantagenet”). This was my favourite of the three books—there’s a lot of sword-fighting and adventure, and Jamie Douglas is consistently the pragmatic voice of reason. I also liked having assertive women appear in the story, such as Mary Stewart and Isobel Countess of Mar. The historical note at the end of the book made me want to read the “sequel” ASAP. Tranter has constructed an excellent trilogy that ends at just the right moment to make the reader want more. Recommended for those with an interest in Scottish history.

A note on my cover: I polled some online acquaintances to ask who they thought the bearded man on the cover resembled, and one of the suggestions was of Theoden from The Lord of the Rings. Interestingly, Robert III was a bit of a Theoden figure, with Albany (the Governor) being a Grima Wormtongue...

De auteur van dit boek maakt er gelukkig geen geheim van: hij is geen historicus en is ook niet geïnteresseerd in de correctheid van de historische informatie, hij wil alleen een goed verhaal vertellen. Die eerlijkheid siert hem, maar zelfs zijn nobele voornemen is hem niet gelukt: dit verhaal steekt boordevol historische details en is nauwelijks te volgen. Bovendien houdt Tranter ermee op bij de start van de 20ste eeuw. Tenslotte - en ook daar maakt hij geen geheim van - is zijn betoog gekleurd door een aandoenlijk Schots nationalisme dat zich voortdurend uit in schimpscheuten tegen de Engelsen en tegen (de vele) Schotten die de Schotse zaak aan Engeland verkocht hebben. Ondanks al mijn sympathie voor de Schotten: vermijdt dit boek!½