The Great Scot: A Novel of Robert the Bruce, Scotland's Legendary Warrior King

From Booklist
Bruce, a banker by day, has created a little cottage industry of sorts with several nonfiction books of Scottish history, such as The Mark of the Scots (1996) and The Scottish 100 (2000). Turning to fiction, he tells the story of Robert the Bruce, Scotland's greatest king, from his unexpected victory at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, when the vastly outnumbered Scots routed the English forces, to the peaceful end of a long and eventful life. The narrator Bruce chooses is David Crawford, soldier and confidant of King Robert, and the form, the retired Crawford's memoir written from the vantage of his sixtieth year and on his estate in the Scottish Highlands. Although not great literature by any means, the novel is still a fun read that brings to life characters and events we really only know about through history books. Anyone interested in Scottish history will probably enjoy this rousing tale. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Lord Elgin, Chief of the Name of Bruce
"This is the manner of real story telling over the ages."


Review
"This is the manner of real story telling over the ages."
- Lord Elgin, Chief of the Name of Bruce



Book Description
Robert the Bruce was Scotland's greatest King ever. The Bruce, as he was known, was crowned King of Scots in 1306, a time when the ancient kingdom of Scotland was under harsh and illegal English occupation. As soon as King Robert began his reign, his army was treacherously attack at Methven, resulting in a calamitous defeat for the Scots which forced the Bruce into hiding. Yet, steadily between 1307 and 1313 King Robert won battle after battle. shunning pitched medieval clashes, and fighting as a guerilla force, a form of warfare which he, perhaps, invented.

The war peaked in 1314 when the Bruce faced a formidable English invasion. With brilliant tactics and resolute bravery the vastly outnumbered Scots defeated and routed the knights, archers, and foot soldiers of mighty England at the Battle of Bannockburn. And that's only the first part of this epic tale of the Bruce's long and event-filled life.

The Great Scot is a novel filled with valor, treachery, passionate love, journeys great and small, and people of every rank and situation-all from the pages of Scottish history.



About the Author
Duncan A. Bruce, a descendent of Sir Edward Bruce, brother of Robert the Bruce, is a native of Pittsburgh and a graduate of the Wharton School. He has written two nonfiction books on the contributions Scots have made to civilization, The Mark of the Scots, and The Scottish 100, which has received numerous honors. He is married with two grown children and lives with his wife, Tamara, in New York City.



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First fiction by New York financier Bruce, who unfolds the story of Scotland's great medieval warrior and king Robert the Bruce (1274-1329). The Scots, like the Irish, have a history that is dominated by a succession of wars, raids, routs, battles, plots, and uprisings against the English-most of which, unhappily, they lost. Robert the Bruce was one of their big-time winners. Descended from a Norman knight who crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror, and was repaid for his services with Scottish lands, Robert grew up in a Scotland that was dominated by the English crown despite (or perhaps because of) the great diversity of peoples (Norman, Saxon, Irish, Scottish, etc.) living within its borders. His tale is told here through the eyes of one David Crawford, a lad from Dumfries who became Robert's page after witnessing him murder his erstwhile ally Red Comyn in 1306. David is also present when, not long after, Robert is crowned King of Scotland. Forced to flee to Ireland to evade the armies of England's Edward I (to whom he had once sworn an oath of fealty), Robert returns to Scotland in 1307 and leads a successful attack on Edward's forces at the Battle of Loudoun Hill. This marks a turning point in Scotland's fortunes, for now the English are on the defensive, forced into hiding in remote castles, and Edward himself soon dies while fleeing the Scottish advance. His son Edward II tries to win back his father's losses but is defeated even more decisively at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and the English are finally forced to recognize Scotland's independence in the Treaty of Northampton, which also accepts Robert's claim to the throne of Scotland. The Bruce reigns unopposed foryears thereafter and, after a lifetime of warfare, dies peacefully in his bed. The history is everything here, so if you are a Scot or a Scotophile you will not be the least bit disappointed by the rather clunky narration and two-dimensional hagiography that prevails. Agent: Bob Diforio/D4EO Literary Agency


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