Nigel Tranter.

AllanP · Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Central Scotland.

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.
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BoB · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:12 pm Post subject:

Don't have a Sig' yet Allan.

But he must have been a busy man!!

Nigel Tranter Books
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BoB · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:28 pm Post subject:

Here you go, from a letter in 1999.

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AllanP · Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Central Scotland.

BoB · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 10:37 pm Post subject:

NigelTranter

There is one on this site somewhere.

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Lord Blackadder · Joined: 05 Dec 2008 Posts: 2953

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.
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AllanP · Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Central Scotland.

Guest · Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 10:09 pm Post subject:

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

rickyross3359 · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:25 pm Post subject:

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 · Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Central Scotland.

Lord Blackadder · Joined: 05 Dec 2008 Posts: 2953

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!

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AllanP · Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Central Scotland.

Lord Blackadder · Joined: 05 Dec 2008 Posts: 2953

rickyross3359 · Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:40 pm Post subject:

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 · Joined: 05 Dec 2008 Posts: 2953

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 !
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AllanP · Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Central Scotland.

rickyross3359 · Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 12:10 am Post subject:

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 · Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Central Scotland.

Lord Blackadder · Joined: 05 Dec 2008 Posts: 2953

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.
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AllanP · Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Central Scotland.

rickyross3359 · Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 3:14 pm Post subject:

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.