The Douglas Bastard

 This was my homeward-bound reading on the plane back from Istanbul. It is J.R. Tomlin's take on the later Scottish-English Wars. Our hero is Archie Douglas, the bastard son of the Black Douglas, overly keen to live up to his father's reputation. 

The story starts during King David II's exile in France after the defeat at the Battle of Halidon Hill in July 1333. Archie is taken on as a squire by a Douglas relative, William Douglas, Lord of Liddesdale, and returns to Scotland to take part in the campaigns that largely freed Scotland from English rule. Edward III was distracted by the Hundred Years' War. He is knighted by King David after he also returns to Scotland.  

The Scots army had not learned the lessons of fighting against the English longbow in pitched battles. In 1346, under the terms of the Auld Alliance, David invaded England to try to draw King Edward away from the French, who had been defeated at the Battle of Crécy. After initial success at Hexham, David's army was soundly defeated at the Battle of Neville's Cross on 17 October 1346. Unlike the King, who is wounded and captured, our hero escapes to live another day in the rest of the series.

This is an ideal quick read for a holiday. The action is fast flowing and continuous. Archie is not a flawless hero, and the story captures the divisions among the Scots nobility that plagued the country for centuries after the Bruce's death.

Some of my 28mm Scottish schiltrons of the period