The Hunter Read online

  The family of Mar was one of the most important in Scotland and, as we’ve seen before, was very well connected. Mar was one of the original eight “Mormaers” of Scotland, which later became known as the Earldom of Mar. “Janet’s” father, Domhnall (Donald), was the 6th Earl of Mar; her brother Gartnait, the 7th; and her nephew—another Donald—who was also the son of Bruce’s sister, was the 8th. This is the young Donald who appears in The Viper and is being raised in Edward II’s household along with his cousin the young Earl of Atholl in The Recruit. In addition to Isabella, who was Robert the Bruce’s first wife, and Duncan, who may have been married to Christina MacRuairi (the Lady of the Isles), there was possibly another brother, Alexander.

  Walter Stewart did indeed marry Princess Marjory Bruce, Robert and Isabella of Mar’s daughter, after she was released from her eight-year captivity in 1314. Walter’s date of birth ranges anywhere from 1292 to 1296. I went with the earlier date, as it fit my plot better. In any event, he was old enough to marry Alice Erskine before he married Marjory in 1315.

  Tragically, Marjory died from a riding accident less than two years after her release while heavily pregnant. The child survived and, after the death of Bruce’s only son, King David II, would eventually be crowned Robert II, founding the dynasty of Stewart kings who would reign Scotland and later—tons of irony here—England! Readers of Highlander Untamed might remember this “Union of the Crowns,” which takes place in 1603 at the end of that novel.

  Edward II’s invasion of Scotland over the summer of 1310, featured in both The Recruit and in The Hunter, was anticlimactic to say the least. You almost have to feel sorry for poor Edward. Not only did he have the “Hammer of the Scots” legend of his father Edward I to live up to, and the constant problems with his barons, but he put together an army for presumably his triumphant defeat of the Scots and marched into Scotland only to find no one to battle. There were some skirmishes, but for the most part, Bruce engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse and refused to meet him in a pitched battle. As I was writing, I kept picturing Edward looking around yelling, “Come out, come out wherever you are!” Edward II is also the king who was defeated by his wife, imprisoned, forced to abdicate, and possibly killed by having—as legend has it—a hot poker stuck up his bum. Yikes! Sometimes—as Mel Brooks fans may appreciate—it is not good to be the king.

  When I decided to make “Sister” Janet speak Italian in The Recruit, I didn’t realize what a can of research worms I was opening for The Hunter. What language people would have spoken at the time turned out to be a surprisingly involved question.

  In Scotland, Gaelic was certainly spoken in the Highlands and the West, as well as in Galloway, and possible among the peasants in other parts of the country as well. Northern Middle English (which would become the “Scots” tongue) and Norman French would have been prevalent in the towns. The “Greater Lords” probably would have spoken Norman French or Northern Middle English. Robert Bruce is thought to have spoken Gaelic, Norman French, and Northern Middle English and to be literate in classical Latin, as were most of the nobles of his time.

  With all this in Scotland, I assumed Italy would be much easier, but it proved surprisingly complicated given the large number of regional dialects and the emergence of Italian as a distinct language from Vulgar Latin. I made it even harder on myself by making Janet a pseudo-nun, as Latin stayed around longest in the church.

  The Italian language developed in the early Middle Ages from what is known as Vulgar Latin. The word vulgar as used in this context means “common,” and Vulgar Latin refers to the Latin that is spoken “of the people.” Classical Latin by this time is mostly written. Vulgar Latin was transforming into the various Romance languages certainly by the eighth century, but as Italian is the closest Romance language to Vulgar Latin, it isn’t as easy to pinpoint when it became distinct.

  It was around the late thirteenth century that the distinction was becoming more evident in the writings of people such as Dante Alighieri. Dante is often referred to as the “Father of the Italian Language,” and he wrote the Divine Comedy between 1308 and 1321, so you see the problem. I kept waffling on whether to call it “Italian” or “Vulgar Latin” or “Tuscan,” being unsure how they would have referred to it at the time. I eventually decided just to go with the familiar “Italian.” Believe me, by this time I was wishing I’d made Janet mute!

  The meeting at Dundonald Castle between the kinsmen is my invention, but the squabbling among the noblemen is not. It is a precursor to an incident known as the “Capitulation of Irvine.” The capitulation, which took place on July 7, is definitely not a high point for Scottish noblemen in the long Wars of Independence, especially as it relates to William Wallace.

  Wallace began his famous uprisings in May of 1297 by allegedly killing the Sheriff of Lanark. Very quickly he was joined by William “the Hardy” Douglas. The two had some early success in further attacks and were joined by some other noblemen, including a young Robert Bruce and James Stewart. Apparently, Bruce had been dispatched by Edward I to attack Douglas’s holdings for his rebellion and decided instead to join the rebels.

  Alas, the confederacy was not a long one. When the nobles were ordered by Edward to appear at Irvine to submit, the English and Scots gathered for a battle. As the probably apocryphal story goes, there was so much fighting on the Scots side that the English simply turned and left! The alternative, that the Scots’ squabbling led to their submission, is probably more likely. It is speculated that some of the noblemen had a problem following Wallace, who at the time wasn’t even a knight.

  This ignominious capitulation by the noblemen was even worse in that it came only a couple of months before Wallace’s great victory at Stirling Bridge on September 11, 1297. Many of the Scot noblemen who capitulated at Irvine were on the English side of that battle, including James Stewart, who then supposedly went back to the Scot side when he saw Wallace and Andrew Moray were winning the battle. As I have mentioned before, it’s probably easiest just to sum it all by saying that there was a lot of going back and forth by the Scot nobles in the Wallace years (1296–1305).

  As I mentioned in the prologue, the families of Stewart, Menteith, Douglas, and Bruce were all descendants of Walter, the 3rd High Steward of Scotland, which probably explains why later both Stewart and Douglas were early supporters of a Bruce kingship. Alan, Earl of Menteith, was as well, but the young earl (his father, Alexander, had died in 1304) was captured at Methven in 1306 and died in prison. His brother and successor, like the young earls of Mar and Atholl, seems to have been held as a hostage in England.

  Interestingly, and what influenced the prologue, is that the Lamonts of Ardlamont were Stewart’s men and the main branch of Lamonts were Menteiths. There was certainly discord between the two branches of Lamonts, but whether there was discord between Stewart and Menteith, I don’t know. I’d like to think so, since the “Lambies,” as the Lamonts have been referred to in history, are sometimes held responsible for the death of Wallace’s father. Moreover, John “the False” Menteith, Alexander’s younger brother, will forever be known in history as the man who turned William Wallace over to Edward I in 1305. If you’ve seen the movie Braveheart, you know the result of that.

  St. Drostan’s Day was held on December 15 or 16. Drostan was a Celtic monk who lived in Scotland in the sixth century. He was possibly a member of the Irish royal family (or a Welsh prince) and was a disciple of the famous Saint Columba. Drostan founded the monastery of Old Deer in Aberdeenshire. St. Drostan’s fairs were known to have been held at Aberlour in Moray for three days and at Old Deer in Aberdeenshire for eight days. Given the strict penitence that was usually observed during Advent, the timing is unusual, but it must have been one of those times when custom won out—at least in those villages. That there would have been a fair in Roxburgh is my conjecture.

  A few quick notes. There was indeed a hospital at Rutherford in this period, founded by King David (1124–1152) and dedicated to Saint Mar