The Greatest Ever Scot
Historian and avowed monarchist, Nikolai Tolstoy extols the virtues of his hero, King Robert the Bruce as one of the greatest Britons
By Nikolai Tolstoy
October 8 2024
Although I must confess to being unable to boast Scottish ancestry, I have from a very early age nurtured a fascination with Scottish history. Mr Whicker, the enlightened headmaster of my prep school, used to read to us in his study before we retired to our dormitories. The book that launched my enthusiasm was The Flight of the Heron by DK Broster. Its setting is the 1745 uprising in the Highlands, which still appears to me one of the most glamorous events in history. I was, and have remained to this day, a devoted Jacobite. Encouraging my enthusiasm, Mr Whicker suggested I read the novels of Walter Scott. By a curious coincidence, my father had about the same time bought at auction a fine leather-bound set of the Waverley novels, and this raised my Scottish fervour to giddy heights that have never been diminished. In my library where I write these words, the principal picture is a contemporary engraving of a handsome Bonnie Prince Charlie, whose purported faults mean nothing to me, and his virtues everything.
Prominent among the prince’s most gallant supporters were the chiefs of the great house of Macdonald, as Scott points out in his poem ‘Flora Macivor’s Song’:
O! Sprung from the kings who in Islay kept state,
Proud chiefs of Clan Ranald, Glengarry, and Sleat!
Combine like three streams from one mountain of snow,
And resistless in union rush down on the foe!
Today, my library includes a cherished collection of (in some cases, rare) books on Scottish history, focusing primarily on the Highland clans and Jacobite uprisings. One of the first volumes in my collection is Macdonald of the Isles, by an enthusiastic Edwardian lady, AMW Stirling. As a fortunate schoolboy, I bought my copy at Foyle’s for the princely sum of five shillings
Robert the Bruce was of course one of the greatest — if not the greatest — monarchs to rule over his ancient nation. And ever beside him, in his long years of peril and ultimate glorious victory at Bannockburn was the mighty chief of the Macdonalds! To this inheritance, my good friend Ranald Macdonald is a worthy heir — I drink to him with a glass of Drambuie. In Scott’s sadly neglected epic poem ‘The Lord of the Isles’, King Robert and his comrades advance to victory at Bannockburn.
Bruce, with the pilot’s wary eye,
The slackening of the storm could spy.
“One effort more, and Scotland’s free!
Lord of the Isles, my trust in thee Is firm as Ailsa Rock;
Rush on with Highland sword and targe,
I, with my Carrick spearmen, charge;
Now, forward to the shock!”
Second only to his valour and skill in battle was Robert the Bruce’s patient and undaunted resistance in the face Clockwise from left: one hand firmly declared Robert as king of a proud, independent Scotland: of adversity, epitomised by the famous tale of his encounter with the spider in the cave. His greatest strategy lay in his patient policy of not encountering superior English forces in the field, instead conducting highly skilled guerrilla tactics from the dense forests of the Scottish Lowlands, while seeking, when necessary, refuge in the distant sea-girt Hebrides. With the death of his formidable adversary, King Edward I, in 1307, Bruce was gradually able to lead his army to victory in the open field.
No king could have been more inspiring when it came to the day of crisis at Bannockburn on 23 June 1314 — a day which I am proud to note is that of my birthday! Not only were his tactics greatly superior to those of Edward II, but as the battle began, he famously engaged in deadly single combat with Sir Henry de Bohun, splitting his skull with a fearsome blow of his battleaxe. We need more like him in these degenerate days.
Like Bruce’s battleaxe, most uplifting too is the spirited wording of the celebrated Declaration of Arbroath despatched to the Pope in 1320, in which the Scottish estates resolutely declared their country’s independence. This on the one hand firmly declared Robert as king of a proud, independent Scotland: “The divine providence, the right in succession by the laws and customs of the kingdom [Jacobites please note!] (which we will defend till death), and the due and lawful consent and assent of all the people, made him our king and prince. To him we are obliged and resolved to adhere in all things, both upon account of his right and his own merit, as being the person who hath restored the people’s safety in defence of their liberties [please note, SNP]. But, after all, if this prince should leave these principles here so nobly pursued, and consent that we or our kingdom be subjected to the king or people of England, we will immediately endeavour to expel him as our enemy, and as the subverter both of his own and our rights, and will make another king who will defend our liberties.”
Left: The Robert the Bruce Memorial, near Loch Troon, Galloway; Top Right: Melrose Abbey, burial place of Robert’s heart; Bottom Right: King Robert’s seal.
The declaration provides further testimony to the greatness of Robert the Bruce, in that he himself implicitly approved his own deposition in the event of his not living up to these high ideals. On the death of the great and good King Robert, his brave heart was borne in battle against the Muslim invaders of Spain, while the royal line passed through his daughter Marjorie to that great and glorious dynasty that ruled over Scotland until 1714 — and still rules over the hearts of the faithful and true. As no less than Jane Austen wrote of Marjorie’s greatest and most glorious descendant, King Charles I: “I shall satisfy myself with vindicating him from the reproach of arbitrary and tyrannical government with which he has often been charged. This, I feel, is not difficult to be done, for with one argument I am certain of satisfying every sensible and well disposed person whose opinions have been properly guided by a good education — and this argument is that he was a Stuart.” I rest my case.
