£277k battle for Braveheart book
Incredibly rare volume bought by mystery bidder
A 500-YEAR-OLD book that revealed the exact date of Sir William Wallace’s uprising against the English for the first time has fetched over £277,000 at auction.
The Lindesiana Chronicles of Scotland contain two handwritten texts in Latin thought to have been made in Edinburgh between 1511 and 1526.
The book , kept in a private collection in Norway since 1990, was studied by historian Professor Dauvit Broun who found previously unknown details about the First War of Scottish Independence and Wallace’s uprising.
The book went under der the hammer at Christie’sie’s in London and was snappeded up by a mystery buyer earlier this month for £277,200 after a bidding battle.
Broun, chair of Scottish history at Glasgow University discovered previously unknown information including the exact date – May 3, 1297 – when Wallace killed English sheriff of Lanark William Heselrig.
The book also revealed that WallaWallace had an accomplice namenamed Richard of LLundie, who wowould later swswitch sides aandn fight agagainst the ScoScots at the BattlBattle of Stirling Bridge. Christie’s auction eer Eugenio Donadoni said: “The Lindesiana Chronicles of Scotland is without doubt one of the most significant Scottish manuscripts that has ever come to market.
“Manuscript codices produced in Scotland with Scottish bindings from this period just don’t come up. When you add the textual significance, it is incredibly rare. I don’t remember anything like it.”
The texts were originally owned by Sir Robert Robertoun, chaplain of Edinburgh, who had them bound into a unique 223 leaf book some time before 1550.
Among its later owners was John Lindsay of Balcarres, the late 16th-century secretary of state for Scotland in whose family library it remained until it was bought by Norwegian bibliophile Martin Schoyen 34 years ago for £41,800.