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AllanP

Nigel Tranter.

Can anyone help me with a link, telephone number, or a specialist shop address that could help me authenticate a signature found in a paperback attributing the signature to Nigel Tranter?
I know he died in January 2000 but don't know if he was in the habit of signing anything or not.

I have tried the web but without much luck.
This book was found by me in the Cancer Research Charity shop in Grangemouth where I work.
The paperback in question is "Honours Even" published in 1996.
Any info or input would be very much appreciated.
Let's hope it's a great find.
BoB

Don't have a Sig' yet Allan.

But he must have been a busy man!!  

Nigel Tranter Books
BoB

Here you go, from a letter in 1999.

AllanP

BoB wrote:
Here you go, from a letter in 1999.



Thanks for that Bob. That has verified that the siggy in my paperback is genuine at least.
I looked at your link with interest, but where did you find that signature from?
I had looked at a variety of sites beforehand but with no info on signatures or autographs.
Thanks again.
BoB

NigelTranter

There is one on this site somewhere.  
Lord Blackadder

Fraud through signatures  and autographs is a growing industry.  I would have the signature verified by a graphologist before claiming it is genuine, if I were you, AllanP.
AllanP

Lord Blackadder wrote:
Fraud through signatures  and autographs is a growing industry.  I would have the signature verified by a graphologist before claiming it is genuine, if I were you, AllanP.


I'm not claiming that it is a genuine Tranter signature, but as a comparison as such it's pretty close. Anyway I've passed it on to the "higher ups" to find out more, but thanks for your input anyway my Lord.
Guest

Alan...it's great yer here..I hope it works out!
rickyross3359

Talking of Nigel Tranter I am now reading his Bruce Trilogy, really great stuff. He was a great Historian who knew how to use his knowledge in his novels.
AllanP

rickyross3359 wrote:
Talking of Nigel Tranter I am now reading his Bruce Trilogy, really great stuff. He was a great Historian who knew how to use his knowledge in his novels.


I have also read that trilogy. Great reading. Do try 'The Wallace' next.

Tranter had his own unique way of taking Scottish history away from the normal boring reading of historical facts per se, but wrote his novels around a central character, with some romanticism about that person thrown in for good measure.

This made for not only exciting reading, but also included a learning process too for those who wanted to know about Scottish history.

I have read most, if not all of his his factual based novels and it is a sad loss for all of us that he is now no more.
Rickyross, do read all of his Scottish novels, you will not be disappointed.
Lord Blackadder

Read every single book he wrote!  Of course history didn't pan out like he surmises ... but I bet he got closer than many "serious" historians!

Great stirring stuff!  
AllanP

Lord Blackadder wrote:
Read every single book he wrote!  Of course history didn't pan out like he surmises ... but I bet he got closer than many "serious" historians!

Great stirring stuff!  


Dear me! Are you agreeing with me at last? Bet you are not so half bad as you make yourself out to be, and are only just a big softy at heart.
Lord Blackadder

Quote:
Bet you are not so half bad as you make yourself out to be, and are only just a big softy at heart.


You take that back!!!  

That's a horrible thing to say ... and I'll sue you for defamation if you continue in this vein!  
rickyross3359

I am reading COURTING FOR FAVOUR  now.
Its aboot the younger son of the 9th Earl of Dunbar who wasn't expected to gain a title or estate. However his auld ma Black Agnes bequeathed him the earldom of Moray. Its very intesresting I too was a younger son, dragged up in a cooncil estate in Paisley and it really shows me what might had been <sigh>
Lord Blackadder

Black Agnes ... “That brawling, boisterous, Scottish wench”

Despite their defeat in 1314 by King Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn, English forces returned to Scotland in 1338 intent on conquering those pesky Scots. On the 13th January they arrived outside the mighty gates of Dunbar Castle near the fallen town of Berwick.

This should have been a reasonably easy castle for them to take as its lord, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of Dunbar and March, was away with the Scottish army fighting an English army in the north.

The castle was under the command of Dunbar’s wife Lady Agnes Randolph, Countess of Moray, nicknamed Black Agnes for her dark hair and complexion. With only a handful of men left behind by her husband Agnes had pledged herself to defend the castle.  In response to a request to surrender she replied:

‘Of Scotland’s King I haud my house,
He pays me meat and fee,
And I will keep my gude auld house,
While my house will keep me.’

The Earl of Salisbury, the English commander, opened the siege by hurling huge rocks at the walls of the castle using great catapults. Between these attacks, and in clear view of the English, Agnes sent her maids dressed in their Sunday finest onto the ramparts to dust and clean the marks of the shot from the walls with their dainty white handkerchiefs.

Salisbury was forced to roll out his secret weapon. It was a huge battering ram or ‘sow’, with a wooden roof to protect the men underneath. Agnes was ready for this and signalled for large boulders to be dropped from the ramparts. They crashed though the roof splintering it into pieces sending the surviving Englishmen fleeing in every direction.

Winter passed into spring and the siege continued. With the last of the castle’s winter supplies nearly exhausted Salisbury finally sensed an end and possible victory. Help for the defenders finally came from the sea when Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie arrived with men and supplies in two boats and entered the castle via a half-submerged concealed doorway.

It is said that the following morning Agnes sent a freshly baked loaf and with some fine wine to the English commander and had the ‘gift's arrival proclaimed loudly’.

In desperation Salisbury sent for Agnes' brother the Earl of Moray. Moray had previously been captured and was a prisoner of the English. He was brought to within sight of the castle and forced by Salisbury to call to Agnes to surrender the castle or he would be killed.

Agnes simply pointed out that should her brother be killed, who had no children, then she would inherit the title and become the next Earl of Moray. Salisbury quickly recognised the flaw in his argument and let the Earl live.

Finally, on 10th June 1338, after five months of trying, Salisbury realised that he would never get the better of Agnes. As the mighty conquerors marched away the men made up a song:

She makes a stir in tower and trench,
That brawling, boisterous, Scottish wench;
Came I early, came I late.
I found Agnes at the gate.

Sir Walter Scott said, 'From the record of Scottish heroes, none can presume to erase her.'

More recently, Black Agnes was voted one of the top 100 Women of the Millennium at www.women.com  !
AllanP

Lord Blackadder wrote:
Black Agnes ... “That brawling, boisterous, Scottish wench”

Despite their defeat in 1314 by King Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn, English forces returned to Scotland in 1338 intent on conquering those pesky Scots. On the 13th January they arrived outside the mighty gates of Dunbar Castle near the fallen town of Berwick.

This should have been a reasonably easy castle for them to take as its lord, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of Dunbar and March, was away with the Scottish army fighting an English army in the north.

The castle was under the command of Dunbar’s wife Lady Agnes Randolph, Countess of Moray, nicknamed Black Agnes for her dark hair and complexion. With only a handful of men left behind by her husband Agnes had pledged herself to defend the castle.  In response to a request to surrender she replied:

‘Of Scotland’s King I haud my house,
He pays me meat and fee,
And I will keep my gude auld house,
While my house will keep me.’

The Earl of Salisbury, the English commander, opened the siege by hurling huge rocks at the walls of the castle using great catapults. Between these attacks, and in clear view of the English, Agnes sent her maids dressed in their Sunday finest onto the ramparts to dust and clean the marks of the shot from the walls with their dainty white handkerchiefs.

Salisbury was forced to roll out his secret weapon. It was a huge battering ram or ‘sow’, with a wooden roof to protect the men underneath. Agnes was ready for this and signalled for large boulders to be dropped from the ramparts. They crashed though the roof splintering it into pieces sending the surviving Englishmen fleeing in every direction.

Winter passed into spring and the siege continued. With the last of the castle’s winter supplies nearly exhausted Salisbury finally sensed an end and possible victory. Help for the defenders finally came from the sea when Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie arrived with men and supplies in two boats and entered the castle via a half-submerged concealed doorway.

It is said that the following morning Agnes sent a freshly baked loaf and with some fine wine to the English commander and had the ‘gift's arrival proclaimed loudly’.

In desperation Salisbury sent for Agnes' brother the Earl of Moray. Moray had previously been captured and was a prisoner of the English. He was brought to within sight of the castle and forced by Salisbury to call to Agnes to surrender the castle or he would be killed.

Agnes simply pointed out that should her brother be killed, who had no children, then she would inherit the title and become the next Earl of Moray. Salisbury quickly recognised the flaw in his argument and let the Earl live.

Finally, on 10th June 1338, after five months of trying, Salisbury realised that he would never get the better of Agnes. As the mighty conquerors marched away the men made up a song:

She makes a stir in tower and trench,
That brawling, boisterous, Scottish wench;
Came I early, came I late.
I found Agnes at the gate.

Sir Walter Scott said, 'From the record of Scottish heroes, none can presume to erase her.'

More recently, Black Agnes was voted one of the top 100 Women of the Millennium at www.women.com  !


As romantic as that may seem, Walter Scott wrote his own contrived version of Scottish History some two hundred years later.
Perhaps that legend/story might be true, but nothing during the 14th Century was as romantic as that one.
I wonder what the English version was?
rickyross3359

Well Black Agnes does it for me everytime. Enjoying the story thru Nigel Tranters eyes, a great 14th C tale of John, Earl of Moray, loyal supporter of David the second of Scotland.
Was Black Agnes really given that name for her dark hair and complexion or is there something more sinister she didn't drink the blood of babies then?
AllanP

rickyross3359 wrote:
Well Black Agnes does it for me everytime. Enjoying the story thru Nigel Tranters eyes, a great 14th C tale of John, Earl of Moray, loyal supporter of David the second of Scotland.
Was Black Agnes really given that name for her dark hair and complexion or is there something more sinister she didn't drink the blood of babies then?

As far as I can remember about Black Agnes, I think it was because she was a member of the Black Douglas family, although others may well correct me on that.
Lord Blackadder

Agnes Randolph, 4th Countess of Moray (c. 1312 – 1369), was also known as Black Agnes because of her olive skin complexion, was the spouse of Patrick, 9th Earl of Dunbar & March. She is buried in the vault near Mordington House.

The daughter of Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray, kinsman and companion-in-arms of Robert the Bruce, and Thomas's spouse Isabel née Stewart.

The Earls of Moray in later Stewart times were certainly Black Douglasses.
AllanP

Lord Blackadder wrote:
Agnes Randolph, 4th Countess of Moray (c. 1312 – 1369), was also known as Black Agnes because of her olive skin complexion, was the spouse of Patrick, 9th Earl of Dunbar & March. She is buried in the vault near Mordington House.

The daughter of Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray, kinsman and companion-in-arms of Robert the Bruce, and Thomas's spouse Isabel née Stewart.

The Earls of Moray in later Stewart times were certainly Black Douglasses.


I'm glad my memory of that 'nom-de-plume' of her's wasn't wrong.
Thank you LB.
rickyross3359

Well all in all I am enyoying the history of Scotland who even through his novels does instill people to look at related times in more non-fiction books too. He seemed to research his novels pretty well in historic terms.

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