Nigel Tranter (1909-2000) was an author of a variety of types of written work, from histories, to children’s works, to historical fiction, to Westerns. He was born in Glasgow, and a number of his best-known books focus on Scotland—its land, people, and architecture.
In 1969, Tranter published the first of three books that would become The Bruce Trilogy. Robert the Bruce: The Steps to the Empty Throne was soon followed in 1970 by Robert the Bruce: The Path of the Hero King. The third and final installment, Robert the Bruce: The Price of the King’s Peace, was published in 1971. All three books sold extremely well, but the reviews were mixed. Robert the Bruce was and remains a national hero in Scotland. Tranter, as he did with a number of his protagonists, wrote the Bruce and “all his heroes largely out of his own experience, posing the question, ‘What would I have done?’”87 As a work of historical fiction, The Bruce Trilogy largely succeeds in its presentation of the Bruce as a complex figure.
Tranter went on to write about the exploits of William Wallace. In The Wallace, published in 1975, he was able to give a larger stage to a figure who was given a limited role in The Bruce Trilogy. Tranter believed that Wallace was a greater hero than the Bruce, for while the latter fought for “a throne, Wallace fought for a nobler cause, for liberty and the idea of nationhood.”88 Wallace’s capture, his procession to and through London, and his torture and eventual death are, in the hands of Tranter, moments of real tension, despair, and pathos.
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