Candace ROBB - A Trust Betrayed

Elizabeth Ewan has been so generous with her expertise and time, enthusiastically helping me create and recreate the world of Margaret Kerr. No question regarding Scottish history and culture was too quibbling. Her suggestions have made it all the richer. My friend Joyce Gibb has been a patient, calming and encouraging sounding board and reader, working miracles with tight deadlines. Kate Elton did a wonderfully provocative final emotive edit.

Claudia Noyes advised me on vertical looms and card weaving, even giving me hands-on experience with the latter it is much more difficult than it looks. Alan Young provided me with a balanced bibliography for the Wars of Independence. Brian Moffat spent a cold, blustery Easter Monday atop Soutra Hill sharing his knowledge of the great medieval hospital with my husband and me. And Charles Robb has made good use of our explorations to provide the maps. As ever, Im grateful to my colleagues and friends on Chaucernet and Medfem and all who participate in the annual International Congress of Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo.

And my especial thanks to Lynne Drew, Sara Ann Freed, Evan Marshall and Patrick Walsh for their wisdom and encouragement, and for believing in Margaret when she was just an idea.

Scotland and the Scots have been the subjects of so many popular tales that readers often come to works about them with set ideas which may be contrary to the people and the country depicted in A Trust Betrayed. I mention plaids, but no clan tartans they had not been formalised at this time. Also, although I pepper the speech of my characters with some Scots words, I do it with a light touch. Scots lowland speech was much closer to that of northern England in the late 13th century than some might expect, and the majority of the lowland Scots could not understand the Gaelic of the highlanders.

Nor were the Wars of Independence a simple two way battle, Scots vs. English, at this point. To explain the complication I must go back to the death of the Maid of Norway, the last member in the direct line of kings of Scotland from Malcolm Canmore. After her death, two major claimants arose John Balliol and Robert Bruce, but eventually ten additional claimants stepped forward. In an effort to prevent civil war, the Scots asked King Edward of England to act as judge. In hindsight, they were tragically unwise to trust Edward, who had already proved his ruthlessness in Wales. Edward chose John Balliol as king, and then proceeded to make a puppet of him, which is somewhat puzzling considering the powerful Comyn family to which Balliol was connected by his sisters marriage.

Robert Bruce, known as the Competitor to distinguish him from his son Robert and his grandson Robert, still seething under the lost opportunity, handed over his earldom to his son, who was more an Englishman at heart than a Scotsman. He in turn handed over the earldom to his son, who would eventually become King Robert I. Through the 1290s this younger Bruce, Earl of Carrick the Robert Bruce who appears in this novel vacillated between supporting and opposing Edward. When he at last resolved to stand against Edward, he was not doing so in support of John Balliol, but was pursuing his own interests.

As for William Wallace, he was in 1297 and thereafter fighting for the return of John Balliol to the throne. He was never a supporter of Robert Bruce.

The reader might at first be puzzled by the small size of Edinburgh in 1297. Until the siege of the town of Berwick, it had been the jewel in the Scots crown. Edinburgh did not come into its own until the 14th century, and largely because of the fate of Berwick. At the time of this tale what is now call the Old Town was all that existed of Edinburgh, and truly just the bare bones of that.

The Bishop of St Andrews was essentially the head of the Church in Scotland: there were no archbishoprics in Scotland.

The treachery of Adam, Abbot of Holyrood, is fact, though the particulars in this tale are speculation.

Scotswomen did not take their husbands family name, so a woman would be known by her own family name, the exception being when she was widowed. Then her status was marked by her late husbands surname, as in Widow Sinclair.

arles: when two people strike a bargain in goods or services, the purchaser gives arles, a money payment to show that she is in good faith

backland: the part of a burgh plot that stretches behind the main house

bowyer: one who makes bows for archers

brewster: a woman who brews ale

canon: in some religious orders, including the Augustinian order, the priests were called canons; Holyrood and Soutra were Augustinian houses

card weaving: also called tablet weaving, an ancient technique for weaving bands that predates loom weaving. A set of cards with four holes are threaded for the warp, each hole in each card carrying a single warp thread; the space between these holes creates the shed. As the cards are turned one-quarter, individually or in clusters, new threads are brought to the surface making the pattern. The warps twist, or twine around the weft, completely covering it. The cards are often made of bone or wood.

close: a pathway between burgh properties larger than an alley but not public (see wynd)

cruisie: an oil lamp with a rush wick

Edward Longshanks: King Edward I was long-legged, hence the nickname

factor: one who buys and sells for another person; a mercantile agent; a commission merchant

flyting: scolding

gate: street

gey: very

gooddaughter: daughter-in-law

goodmother: mother-in-law

kirtle: a gown laced at the bodice that served as an undergarment

lugs: ears

lyke: corpse

lykewake: the watch over the corpse

merrills: a popular board game with a board containing holes and pegs that the players moved in the manner of tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses

Pater Noster beads: rosary beads

pattens: wooden platforms attached to shoes for walking in mud

plaid: vari-coloured wool cloth, precursor to the tartan but linked to an area only by the dyes available to weavers

port: gate

queyn: girl

Ragman Rolls: an oath of fealty to Edward I signed by Scots, dated 28 September 1296, Berwick

scarlett: the finest cloth, not necessarily red in colour

scrip: a small bag, wallet, or satchel

siller: money (from silver)

smiddie: smithy

trencher: a thick slice of brown bread a few days old with a slight hollow in the centre, used as a platter

tron: the marketplace weigh beam for weighing goods

wean: baby

wynd: a more public alley between burgh properties than a close