The life of Robert Bruce is one of the greatest comeback stories in history. Heir and magnate, shrewd politician, briefly 'king of summer' and then a desperate fugitive who nevertheless returned from exile to recover the kingdom he claimed, Bruce became a gifted military leader and a wise statesman, a leader with vision and energy. Colm McNamee combines the most up to date scholarship on this crucial figure in the history of the British Isles with lucid explanation of the medieval context, so that readers of all backgrounds can appreciate Bruce's enormous contribution to the historical impact not just on Scotland, but on England and Ireland too. It is designed to encourage popular reassessment of Bruce as politician, warrior, monarch and saviour of Scottish identity from extinction at the hands of the Edwardian superstate. Peeling back the layers of misconception and propaganda, the author paints an accurate, sympathetic but balanced portrait of a much beloved national hero who has fallen out of fashion of late for no good reason.

The Bruces of fourteenth-century Scotland were formidable and enthusiastic warriors. Whilst much has been written about events as they happened in Scotland during the chaotic years of the first part of the fourteenth century, England's war with Robert the Bruce profoundly affected the whole of the British Isles. Scottish raiders struck deep into the heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire; Robert's younger brother, Edward Bruce, was proclaimed King of Ireland and came close to subduing the country; the Isle of Man was captured and a Welsh sea-port was raided; and in the North Sea Scots allied with German and Flemish pirates to cripple England's vital wool trade and disrupt its war effort. Packed with detail and written with a strong and involving narrative thread, this is the first book to link up the various theatres of war and discuss the effect of the wars of the Bruces outside Scotland.