Aye. Ken it wis like this...
is the title of my new Friday theme, and I've some absolutely fabulous authors joining me for this venture over the coming Fridays, during the next quarter of the year. Though it sounds as if it's meant to be a Scottish theme, and I'll be delighted to feature fiction set in Scotland, it's not intended to be exclusively Scottish settings.
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| Laura Vosika |
I've invited authors of historical fiction to join me in giving us an overview of the historical period they have been writing about, with specific references to the novels they have published. To start the theme, I'm delighted to welcome a new visitor to this blog- Laura Vosika. Laura's 'Blue Bells Chronicles' are time travel historical fiction, and I'm always delighted to get to know a fellow author who loves to thoroughly research an era they choose to write about, since I can't seem to stop my own researching!
Laura has sent along a superb post to get us started on the theme, but I'll let her introduce you to her historical era herself.
About the Books:
The Blue Bells Chronicles
is a tale of time travel, miracles and mysteries,romance and redemption.
It begins in the days just before the Battle of Bannockburn. American readers
will best know this as the post-Braveheart years. After William Wallace was
executed in 1305, Robert the Bruce became the leader of the fight against
England. That
fight grew, like the crescendo of
Bolero, from Wallace's execution to
Scotland's greatest battle, at
Bannockburn, in 1314.
England that Shawn Kleiner, a
modern American musician, falls. Rich, famous, and influential in his own time,
a notorious drinker, gambler, and womanizer, he must suddenly navigate a world
where men settle differences with steel, a world of faith and values very
different from his own, a world at war.
It is into these days
of impending battle against the power of
In 1314, he is forced to live as
Niall Campbell, the devout Highland warrior who looks just like him. Through
their adventures fighting with the Bruce and Bruce's greatest friend and
military general, James Douglas, through two years of trying to get Shawn back
to his own time--where Shawn hopes to make amends to his girlfriend Amy for the
way he treated her, and to finally be a father to the infant son he never
met--Shawn and Niall move from despising each other to a deep respect and
friendship.
One thing I've enjoyed about
writing The Blue Bells Chronicles is the intense study of history.
Truth is stranger than fiction, they say. And it's also more amazing. The
Blue Bells Chronicles are as historically accurate as I can make them, with
thousands of hours logged in study of Scottish and English medieval history,
which forms the backdrop of the story, told through Blue Bells of Scotland,
The Minstrel Boy, The Water is Wide, Westering Home, and the conclusion,
The Battle is O'er, released on March 23, 2018.
At one point in the story, Shawn
fights a battle that leaves him in shock. That battle is the battle of
Skaithmuir.
The historical Background...
The first Valentine's Day
thoughts, as we know them weren't sent until hundreds of years after the death
of the Good Sir James. Nonetheless, it seemed a good title for a
piece on how James spent February 14, 1316.
He spent it fighting what he
later called the hardest fight of his life, the battle of Skaithmuir
(SKAY-mur), near Coldstream in the Borders region of
Scotland. It becomes a scene
in
The Minstrel Boy, Book 2 of the
Blue Bells Trilogy.
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| Douglas Shield (public domain) |
Setting the stage for Coldstream,
we'd have to back up to 1286, the year when Alexander III ended his peaceful
reign over what many see as a golden age of Scotland, by dying without a clear
heir. (Ironically, as if an author had foreshadowed James's destiny,
James' was that same year.) Into this void stepped Edward I of England, claiming his right to be overlord of Scotland. On
March 30, 1296, after his failed attempt to rule Scotland
through a puppet-king, John Balliol, who didn't dance on his strings quite
the way he'd expected, Edward attacked Berwick, thus launching the revolts
led by William Wallace. This fight against the English invasion
culminated, or should have culminated, in the great Battle of Bannockburn on
June 24, 1314, in which Robert the Bruce's small army routed the much larger
might of England.
It was not the culmination
because, although Edward II failed to inherit his father's military skill, he
more than made up for it with a double dose of the stubborn gene. Though
soundingly and humiliatingly defeated, he refused to give a peace treaty
agreeing to Scotland's very
mild terms which were, essentially, to acknowledge Scotland as the independent nation
it always had been, and Bruce as her rightful king. In short, a promise
to leave Scotland
alone.
Thus, the First Wars of Scottish
Independence continued.
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| St. Bride's Church, Douglas, Mausoleum |
Scotland,
lacking the wealth and large armies of England,
chose instead to launch a series of guerilla-style strikes into Northumbria. These raids, led most often by the Good Sir James (or The Black Douglas
as the English called him) and Bruce's nephew, Thomas Randolph, the Earl
of Moray, served the dual purpose of harrying England into accepting a
peace treaty and collecting money to fund the continued fight, which Edward
II's refusal to treat made necessary.
In the
winter of 1315-1316, Douglas besieged Berwick,
still held by the English. Heavy rains the previous spring and
summer had already led to the beginning of the Great European Famine.
Throw in a little siege, and Maurice de Berkeley, the commander of Berwick, was
reduced to begging Edward II for help by October 1315. Few rations could
get through the Scots' blockade, however.
Finally, on February 14, 1316, a
company of Gascon soldiers decided they would go get food for themselves.
Under the leadership of a Gascon noble, the knight Sir Edmund Caillhau (or
Raymond, in many sources), this company ventured into the rolling
farmland along the River Teviot. They spread out, looking for
cattle.
One Sir Adam
Gordon saw some of them and raced to Douglas
to report that there were a few cattle raiders out and about. Douglas accepted the report and went to intercept
them. Instead of a few cattle raiders, he found a host of well-armed
fighting men.
There are relatively few accounts
of this battle to be found on the internet. The most detailed account I
have found comes from David R. Ross's wonderful book James the Good: The
Black Douglas. He reports that the
incident happened at Skaithmuir (SKAY-mur) a few miles north of
Coldstream. Douglas came
upon Caillhau's brigade in the flat, open country of the Merse,
perfect for cavalry, but with no natural defenses. Just the sort of
situation James Douglas typically avoided.
With only seconds to decide
whether to retreat or attack, he made the decision he would not run on Scottish
soil, on his own marches, of which he was warden. His men were seasoned
fighters, having spent the previous ten years and more fighting the English,
and he had great faith in them. He stationed his men behind a small ford
before unfurling his famous white banner with the blue band and three white
stars, signaling his intent to fight.
The Gascons charged. They
no doubt expected to easily overcome this small group. John Barbour, in The
Brus, tells about the fight:
The Scotsmen bravely
fought them back
There one could see a cruel fight.
And strokes exchanged with
all their might
The Douglas
there was full hard pressed
But the great valor he
possessed
So lent his men
courageousness
That no man thought on
cowardice.
The BorderMagazine, Volume 12, 1907, adds the picturesque touch that old tales
say so much blood was shed in the battle that the river ran red for three days
afterward. (The author of the piece seems to doubt it, but it is interesting
that such stories would continue for centuries.)
John Barbour, interviewing men
who knew Douglas, says Douglas later called it
the hardest battle he ever fought. But, like Bannockburn, it resulted in sound defeat for
the larger English force with amazingly few losses at all on the Scots'
side. Douglas himself fought his way to, and killed, Caillhau. With
their leader dead, the Gascons lost heart, and were quickly beaten. James
himself learned a lesson from this, and from that time on, always went for the
leader of the opposing armies.
Most reports on Skaithmuir say
there are no records of the size of James Douglas's force, except that it was
significantly smaller. David R. Ross says that Caillhau had 80 to
Douglas's 40. Maurice de Berkeley reported
four days after the event that twenty men-at-arms and sixty foot soldiers were
missing.
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| The Good Sir James - Wikimedia Commons |
In the wake of Skaithmuir, James
Douglas disappeared back into the Ettrick
Forest, but afterward,
the tale was told by Englishmen of how he fought and won against overwhelming
odds, and he was spoken of with awe.
Happy Valentine's Day, Sir James!
Contact Laura here:
Thank you so much for starting my theme, Laura, and my very best wishes with your latest addition to the 'Blue Bells Chronicles'. My kindle will soon have some new additions, and I'll eventually get to your current launch - Book 5 The Battle is O'er. (I confess, I like to start a series at the beginning).
Slainthe!
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Douglas_Arms_1.svg
Recently I've been so engrossed in sprucing up the three
books of my Celtic Fervour Series to get them republished under the Ocelot
Press banner. Ocelot Press is a small co-operative of authors of which I am one
and our mission is to share any expertise, give help, and support to the other
members as we self-publish our novels. 
