I had determined to write the story of the Lords of the Isles who ruled the Hebrides for four hundred years. I began with Somerled, the progenitor of the clan, in Summer Warrior, and then considered the next book. Angus Og Macdonald intrigued me. He was a great warrior and a loyal chieftain but when I realized he was the one who secured Scotland’s crown for Robert the Bruce, I knew I had my story. Two young lads who bound themselves in friendship rose to stand together at Bannockburn to win Scotland’s independence. It’s an amazing story.
The story begins when Angus and Robert are young men, before either has achieved the position history remembers him for. What interested you about meeting them at this earlier stage of their lives and exploring the men they were still becoming?
My research told me they had, indeed, met as young men, possibly even as boys. Given their pedigrees, each was destined for greatness. But would they stay involved in each other’s lives? And when Robert Bruce’s fate was at issue, and the crown of Scotland coveted by Edward I, Angus Og came through with 5,000 Highlanders and Islesmen to win Scotland’s independence at Bannockburn. I was fascinated to learn that each fell in love with a woman from Ireland. And those were women of great courage. It’s a wonderful story for the ages.
Their pledge of honour has consequences far beyond their personal friendship, ultimately influencing the future of both the Isles and Scotland. How much is known about the historical relationship between Angus Og and Robert Bruce, and where did you need to turn to fiction to bring that relationship fully to life?
My research is always deep and rooted in original sources if I can find them. As the Author’s Note for the story at the end of the book makes clear, much was known about the friendship between Angus Og and Robert Bruce. There was this line in The Macdonnells of Antrim by George Hill, written in 1873: “From the time in which Angus Og joined the party of Bruce, so early as the year 1286, his loyalty never faltered, even when the fortunes of the king became at times apparently hopeless.” The year 1286 is where my story begins. Both the men were mere lads then.
Angus Og “the noble and renowned chief of the Innsigall” (the Hebrides, or the “Isles of the Strangers”) has been remembered in historical accounts as “personable, modest and affable”, yet we know he was a formidable warrior. (He was several inches over six feet and would have carried many weapons and trained with the galloglass.) One historian described the Macdonalds of that era as “the Hell’s Angels of the Hebrides” likely because of the galloglass they were known for. I put that together with my research and what emerged was a fierce warrior, a skilled fighter and a leader of men, who was also well liked. Angus was staunchly loyal to his friends, including Robert Bruce, to whom Angus had bound himself by the honor of Clan Donald and never wavered.
Angus Og Macdonald may be less familiar to many readers than Robert Bruce. Who was the historical Angus, and what did you most want readers to understand about his importance to Scotland during this turbulent period?
Angus Og Macdonald was the Lord of the Isles when Robert the Bruce was King of Scots. As such, Angus ruled over hundreds of isles off the West Coast of Scotland, and over thousands of Highlanders and Islesmen. I want my readers to know of the proud Clan Donald heritage and of their honor that bound them to a right course generation after generation. They are examples for us today.
Robert Bruce is such an iconic historical figure that readers often come to fiction with a picture of him already formed. Was it difficult to set aside the legend and write Robert as a young man with ambitions, loyalties, doubts and personal relationships?
No, because I always start from the beginning and dive deeply into my research. It’s the character that emerges that becomes the man I portray. One of my readers, a Clan Donald historian, told me he believes my account of the Battle of Bannockburn is the most accurate written.
Áine O’Cahan and Elizabeth de Burgh stand alongside Angus and Robert, and both women have their own places within this story. What drew you to Áine and Elizabeth, and how did you approach portraying the lives of women whose marriages placed them so close to power and conflict?
How could I not be drawn to the two women these incredible men chose? First I looked at the facts. Áine O’Cahan was a young Irish widow of an arranged marriage with an Irish king. She was a known beauty of her time and talked of in Holyrood Palace. Her fame had even reached the English Court. It was reported in historical sources that Angus Og was enamored of her. No wonder. This I discovered after I had contrived my own image of the dark-haired beauty who captured Angus Og’s heart. In turn, he would be her one true love.
Elizabeth de Burgh, who became Robert Bruce’s queen, stood by him despite the English king’s cruel treatment of her. She was the daughter of the Lord of Ulster, effectively an English lord in Ireland. They would be separated for years yet their bond never wavered.
Elizabeth’s loyalty to Robert would cost her dearly. Without giving too much away, how important was it to show the personal price paid by those closest to the men fighting for Scotland’s crown?
I think it is of great importance to show the women “behind” the great men. She was captured and imprisoned under severe conditions by Edward I. That she waited for Robert and never wavered in her loyalty said much about him and much about her.
Q8. The novel takes readers into the complex politics of late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Scotland, where family allegiance, territory and personal loyalty could all influence political decisions. How did you make that complicated historical landscape accessible without losing its complexity?
I did it through the people and their relationships...between men, between families and between clans, relationships that existed in some cases for generations. The Bruces knew they could count on the Macdonalds for it had always been so. And their mutual ties to Ireland were strong, too. When I do my research, and I have questions not answered by original sources, I always reach out to experts. For example, Dr. Katharine Simms, author of Gaelic Ulster in the Middle Ages, and a professor at Trinity College in Dublin, gave me invaluable assistance in the history, customs and players in Ulster at the time of my story. She graciously engaged in an extensive email correspondence with me that provided much useful information. At one point, she told me my research helped her understand a perplexing issue, too.
The title Bound by Honor seems particularly fitting for a story in which promises and loyalties can determine the fate of individuals and nations. What did honour mean to Angus and Robert within the world they inhabited, and is it always possible for them to honour both personal loyalty and political duty?
Honor was everything to Angus Og Macdonald, for it was not only his honor but the honor of Clan Donald. Robert’s world was politically more complex, and at times he changed allegiances, all for a wise decision. But once he committed to regaining the crown for Scotland, he never wavered. I see both men as having honor for their families and for their nation. Angus Og, as Lord of the Isles, essentially ruled an independent kingdom within Scotland though he recognized Robert Bruce as King of Scots, and thus his king.
Battle plays an important role in the novel, but the outcome depends upon far more than what happens on the battlefield. What interested you most about exploring the years of alliances, sacrifices and personal choices that eventually lead your characters towards that defining confrontation?
The Battle of Bannockburn is the climax of the story and brings all the players together. As the threads of the lives you have witnessed come together on that one field, you see Angus Og leading the galloglass warriors and Islesmen into battle, unwavering in their courage. You see Bruce’s strategy he has developed over years of trials, you see heroes you have come to admire fall in battle (one in particular made one of my readers cry), and you see the faltering of Edward II, who lacked both courage and honor.
This is the second novel in The Clan Donald Saga. How does Bound by Honor build upon the world established in the first book while still allowing someone new to the series to enter Angus and Robert’s story here?
Each book in the series can be read as a standalone. Each story tells of a successive Lord of the Isles. Somerled was the first, his story told in Summer Warrior. Then Angus Og and his family and friendship with Robert the Bruce in Bound by Honor. Then, in the 14th century, Donald, Lord of the Isles is threatened by the Albany Stewarts who wanted all the power for themselves and were not above murder to get it. Donald’s story is told in The Strongest Heart. And finally, I finished the Saga with Donald’s son, Alexander, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross in Born to Trouble. Persecuted by James, King of Scots in what was a betrayal of Clan Donald’s loyalty, Alexander triumphs over misfortune to become one of the most powerful men in Scotland.
When readers finish Bound by Honor, what do you hope they will take away about Angus Og Macdonald, Robert Bruce, and the friendship that helped shape the destiny of Scotland?
I hope they will be inspired by Angus Og and his loyalty to Robert Bruce. I hope they will be intrigued by the history and want to know more. And I hope they enjoy the dive into Medieval Scotland and Ireland.
A huge thank you to Regan Walker for joining me today and sharing the fascinating history behind Bound by Honor.
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Regan Walker
Regan Walker is an award-winning author of more than twenty historical novels spanning the Regency, Georgian, Medieval, and Revolutionary eras. With meticulous research and a storyteller’s eye for drama, she transports readers from the cobblestones of early nineteenth-century London to the intrigues of eighteenth-century France, from Scotland’s mist-shrouded Highlands to ships riding dangerous seas. From spies, smugglers, and pirates to masked balls and opulent palaces, her novels reveal the courage, faith, and love that endure through history’s most turbulent days.
