Customer Reviews

Freedom's Sword: Scotland's Wars of Independence

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This is an excellent single-volume history of the Anglo-Scottish Wars in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. It strips away the clouds of romantic distortion and sentimentality which for a century and a half have surrounded historical figures such as William Wallace and Robert Bruce and which have more recently been perpetuated on the silver screen. The conflict between the ruling families of England and Scotland are objectively explained in their dynastic and historic contexts, and where emergent nationalist sentiments played a role these are not exaggerated out of proportion. Mr.Traquair steers the reader with a sure hand through the complexities of family relationships and medieval concepts of sovereignty, loyalty and justice. He is no less assured in dealing with the military aspects of the endless series of miserable campaigns involved and in keeping interest up throughout. This is a grim tale of treachery, greed and slaughter on a vast scale and it is a tribute to the author that he so convincingly conveys the nature and mentality of a society that accepted this state of affairs as the norm for its existence over decades. In its credible recreation of the medieval period this book has much in common with Zoe Oldenbourg's histories of the First to Third Crusades ("The Crusades") and of the Albigensian Crusade ("Massacre at Montsegur)".

Peter Traquair has managed to fuse a high degree of academic knowledge with an even greater degree of readibility and passion to produce this incredible tour-de-force work on the Scottish wars of independence. This is a must read for anyone interested in Scottish/British/European history. Avoid pretenders to the throne, Traquair is the ONLY Scottish historian worth reading today.

Peter Traquair's gift is to make a complex narrative readable and enjoyable whilst he retains scholalry assuredness. This is a barnstorming book that takes no prisoners in the pursuit of the truth behind the wars with a genuine feel for the period and the players. He avoids the mythology that damns so many Scottish books and places the wars in their wider context, whether in the Scottish highlands, the Plantagenet court or in the milieu of European warfare. This is a brilliant and rare study. Read it.

Traquair utilizes a number of contemporary sources--both English and Scottish--to accurately reconstruct Robert Bruce's ambitious grab for the Scottish throne. Traquair also has a fine grasp of politics, the motives of all the key figures, and an understanding of the strategies that worked and the ones that failed. If you want to know not just WHAT happened, but WHY, this is the right book for you.

Traquair has taken an complex and emotive subject by the scruff of the neck and shaken it free of historical dogma. His grasp of the subject clearly shines through yet he avoids turgid academic language but writes with flare and pace which is so often missing from history texts. If you want an understanding of the Anglo-Scottish conflict that is based on strong research and that avoids the subjects myths and cliches, then read this book. Strongly recommended.

Do not be deterred by the romantic title to this book, which suggests it might be a nationalist tract. It is not. "Freedom's Sword" is in fact an excellent presentation of the events that historians have called the Scottish Wars of Independence, but were not seen in those terms by contemporaries. Scotland's failure to resolve its succession crisis in the late 13th and early 14th centuries had disastrous consequences, souring relations with its southern neighbor, ensuring that Scotland remained an impoverished and isolated country until the Act of Union, while many English and Scotsmen died in unnecessary wars. As Traquair demonstrates, this was far from being inevitable. The book is unfortunately let down by a large number of typographical errors, but otherwise an entertaining read and an excellent debunking of the grotesque distortions presented in popular histories, most notably the film "Braveheart".

First, let me comment that Mr. Traquair's writing is disappointing to say the least. While one doesn't expect the excitement of fiction, managing to make the Scottish War of Independence as dry as dirt was quite a feat.

And while I do admire Mr. Traquair's obvious scholarship and his attempts to cut through the myths of this period, I do not admire his assumption that he has to know more about what happened than the original sources from people who are there or who wrote about the war soon afterward. And I believe that I have read every original source on this subject.

Now, obviously original sources have to be questioned and aren't always accurate. They're almost always inaccurate as to numbers. But beyond that I wanted a better discussion and reasons than he gave.

For example, his statement that there could only have been three schilrom's at the Battle of Bannockburn I find to be thorougly insufficient. Every original account I have read said there were four and I find his attempt to dispute that and dispute who was in leadership positions at Bannackburn ludicrous.

I suppose this is worth reading simply because there aren't many good books on the Scottish War of Independence but I suggest reading it with a skeptical and educated eye, because Mr. Traquair makes some statements that are questionable at best.

It is perhaps unfair for me to write a review well over a year after reading this book, but I meant to do so after I finished it and I let it slip till now. While Mr. Traquair is to be applauded for removing many of the myths about the Anglo-Scottish wars, and his work appears well documented, I would have to give this book a low score because it was the worst text I have ever read. Too often I found his sentences to be incredibly awkward and tortured. I would have to read the same sentence over several times to try and grasp his meaning and occasionally I would just have to give up and move on hoping to pull the meaning from the context of the whole paragraph. His style and grammar are in general deplorable and one wonders if his manuscript was ever reviewed by an editor. Lastly, he has managed to take an exciting period of Scottish history and make it incredibly dry and boring. While it is admirable to remove mythology from history, it is not necessary to also reduce history to lifeless prose lacking any color or imagination. After the first two chapters I had decided that this book was not going to be a good read, but like feeling compelled to watch all of Ishtar to take in the grandeur of its failure, I was drawn into completing this book only to see if its weaknesses would prevail throughout the whole work, which was indeed the case. I keep this book in my library as a reference for checking facts, but other than as a reference work, I would not recommend it as a good book to read. History need not be presented in a stifling way and lacking grace.

Yes, it is pure history and a fresh look at it, but done with a readable craft that nearly makes you forget that. Traquair has a firm control of what he wants to impart.

Well researched, loaded with tons of interesting details, maps and pictures - (many colour plates) , I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to have a better understanding of the rise of Wallace and the Bruce and the conflict that caused England and Scotland to go to war.