Nigel Tranter · 1971 · overland
The last book, and the one about what victory costs. Bannockburn does not end the war: England will not recognise Bruce, the Pope has excommunicated him, his brother is killed invading Ireland, and it takes fourteen more years, a letter from Arbroath and a great deal of burnt Northumberland before anyone signs anything.
- 1Bannockburn
The greatest Scottish victory and the beginning of the hardest part - because Edward II will not treat, the Pope will not lift the excommunication, and a king who has won cannot get anyone to admit it.
- 2Dundalk
Edward Bruce is crowned High King of Ireland and killed at Faughart outside Dundalk in 1318 - the last of Robert's brothers, and the end of the attempt to open a second front against the English in a country that did not want it.
- 3Berwick
Taken in 1318 and held, and the base for years of raiding into Yorkshire and Durham - the price of the king's peace being paid mostly by English farmers, which is how Bruce intends to make England negotiate.
- 4Arbroath
6 April 1320, and the letter to Pope John XXII - which says that if Bruce himself submits to England they will drive him out and choose another, because they fight not for glory or riches but for freedom alone.
- 5Cardross
Recognised at last by treaty in 1328, and dead the next year in a manor on the Clyde - having asked that his heart be carried on crusade, which is the last journey in the trilogy and the only one he does not make.