Nigel Tranter · 1969 · overland

The first of Tranter's Bruce trilogy. In 1296 Edward Plantagenet sets out to bludgeon Scotland into submission, and Robert Bruce - Norman lord and Celtic earl at once - spends ten years changing sides, learning from Wallace, and finally committing himself with a murder in a church. Six weeks later he is crowned, and eleven weeks after that he is a fugitive.

1. 1
   Turnberry

   The Bruce castle on the Ayrshire coast, seat of the earls of Carrick - and a young man with a claim through his grandfather, balancing between an English king he has sworn to and a country that expects otherwise.

2. 2
   Dumfries

   10 February 1306, and Bruce meets John Comyn, his rival for the crown, before the high altar of the Greyfriars church - and kills him there, which is both murder and sacrilege and leaves him nothing to do but claim the throne.

3. 3
   Scone

   Crowned King of Scots six weeks later, on a hill where the Stone of Destiny is not - Edward took it to Westminster ten years before - and the crown is put on by Isabella MacDuff, whose husband is on the other side.

4. 4
   Methven

   19 June 1306, eleven weeks a king. Pembroke declines a set battle and attacks the camp at night while they sleep - and Tranter ends the book here, with the army destroyed and Bruce learning what chivalry costs.

5. 5
   Rathlin

   The winter of 1306 in hiding, on an island off the Antrim coast with his wife and daughter taken and three of his brothers executed - which is where the story about the spider gets attached, and where the second book begins.