Customer Reviews

From Bannockburn to Flodden: Wallace, Bruce, and the Heroes of Medieval Scotland (Tales of a Scottish Grandfather)

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Although I am a Spanish speaking reader, I found this book most lovely and interesting from the first page. It is written in a clear style that makes it easy to understand and attractive to read. Writing History is a hard task, not suitable for everybody. Sir Walter Scott is certainly one of the greatest British poets and here he combines all his virtues in this matter with a great skill to narrate past events which almost turns this book into a "Romantic History" . It is wonderfuly adecquate for kids as it was originally intended even to those learning English as a second language.

Walter Scott's History of Scotland written for his young grandson, with better editing and presentation, should be the perfect companion piece to many of Sir Walter's poems and novels. This Cumberland House 4-volume edition has large enough print and contains a helpful list of the Kings of Scotland and a good index. Lacking are much needed maps. Nonetheless, this is a truly great but simple introduction to the long history of Scotland in the "great man" genre of historical writing.

Fans of Mel Gibson's movie BRAVEHEART will be enchanted by the treatment of England's King Edward I, Longshanks -- corrupter of Robert the Bruce and conqueror in the end of Sir William Wallace. These and other great men and women as well as the Stuart Kings all strut across Walter Scott's well-lighted stage.

This first in a four volume edition covers the years 1033 - 1542. We see Scotland as a nation never conquered by Normans and intent on national independence but increasingly coveted and invaded by the Normanized English. We begin with MacBeth. We conclude with the struggle between England's Henry VIII and Scotland's James V, closing the Roman Catholic centuries of Scotland with the death of James just after the birth of his unhappy daughter Mary, "the Queen of Scots."

Let Chapter XVII, "Robert III" (1390 - 1406) serve as one of several examples of how determined readers of Walter Scott can easily and pleasantly flesh out the fiction of "the Wizard of the North." Readers of Scott's novel THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH will find here a brief but memorable description of events behind that bloody novel.

All in all, FROM BANNOCKBURN TO FLODDEN is a book well worth the time of anyone just beginning to read into the history of Scotland

Sir Scott really knew how to bring history back alive!! The writing is very visual and very heartfelt. Thank you Sir Walter Scot !!