Engrossing trilogy culminates in battle
Whyte slow but always steady in his retelling of the First War of Scottish Independence
The referendum on Scottish independence held in September was a potent, often galvanizing, reminder of the centuries- long history of resentment and ill use simmering just under the surface of the contemporary Scottish psyche.
The Guardian, the new novel from Kelowna- based writer Jack Whyte, is an equally powerful reminder of those same forces, but from the other end of the timeline, documenting in fictional form the early days of the First War of Scottish Independence in the late 13th century.
The Guardian, the third book in the Guardians Trilogy, draws together the strands of the previous books, which explored the lives of nobleman Robert the Bruce and outlaw William Wallace, Braveheart, as events — some would say destiny — drew them toward their roles in the war. While the third volume is ostensibly focused on Andrew Murray, the story is actually told by Father James Wallace, cousin to the outlaw, who is peripheral to the main flow of history but a frequent participant in ( or at least observer of) the crucial events of the birth of Scotland.
The Guardian chronicles, in the main, four months in 1297, from Wallace’s attack on the garrison at Lanark in May, the success of which ( and the death of the English sheriff at Wallace’s hand) drew men to Wallace’s forces in unprecedented numbers, to the Sept. 11 battle at Stirling Bridge, during which the combined forces of Wallace and Murray routed an English force far superior in numbers, training and equipment.
Despite the power of these historical moments ( and the cinematic force they already enjoy), The Guardian is not a novel of war, nor a thrilling account of battles and violence. It is, rather, a historical novel which gives full weight to the historical aspect. Much of the book is confined to small rooms or tents, secluded encampments and empty roads. This is a novel of planning, of permutations, of talk, and thought.
It is, to be sure, a slow novel, but it is a steady one: it never plods nor is it ever anything less than absorbing. Whyte writes with a clear sense of history as an ongoing chess game, an unending series of plans and strategies, of hopes and disappointments. Yes, there are highstakes flashpoints, and the battle at Stirling Bridge is depicted in a realistic, brutal manner, utterly captivating even as one feels driven to look away from the horror, but there is more to the book than what might refer to as the marquee events of history. It’s wiser than that, and Whyte has the skills as a writer to pull it off with aplomb.
What comes through most clearly in The Guardian is a sense of proportion which is rare in historical fiction. At a human level, Whyte is able to clearly delineate just how personal the events of the First War for Scottish Independence really were, rooted in the intimate betrayals of Edward Plantagenet, who used Scotland for resources and money, while manipulating and corrupting its feudal lords, making them beholden to him even as he stripped away at their holdings and the lives of those in their charge.
Similarly, Whyte captures, without seeming to break a sweat, the sheer scale of war in the 13th century — not only the relatively small number of men involved, but the sheer distances they faced. As Father James Wallace is deployed from revolutionary centre to revolutionary centre, Whyte depicts the vastness of a country not only without modern technologies but without, in large part, roads connecting major centres.
All of this adds up to a novel which is both captivating and transporting, plunging the reader into an utterly alien world of conflict, the repercussions of which are being felt to the present day.
The Guardian, however, does leave the reader with one question: that can’t really be it, can it?
Having brought William Wallace and Robert the Bruce to their first major triumph at Stirling, Whyte has completed the narrative he set out to write, but there is so much left to tell. Thankfully, Whyte has intimated online that “this book, though it marks the completion of a trilogy, is a long way from the end of the story, so I’ll keep plugging away at it until it’s finished.”
Good news, indeed.
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