1306: A Historical Foreword

IN THE SPRING OF 1306, THE CROWN OF SCOTLAND HAD but recently been vested—precariously, to be sure—in Robert Bruce. He was the survivor in a dynastic wrangle among no less than thirteen contenders for the crown briefly intended for a child called Margaret, commonly known as the Maid of Norway, granddaughter and only direct heir of the last Canmore King of Scots.

On the strength of a childhood betrothal agreed in treaty but never consummated by even a casual meeting of the two principals—the Maid and the Lord Edward of Caernarvon, son and heir of England’s Edward Plantagenet—King Edward had used the premature death of the little Maid as license to adjudicate the Scottish succession, with an eye toward at last absorbing young Margaret’s kingdom into the realm of England. A client king, John Balliol, had been chosen from among the contending thirteen—deposed but three years later, when he dared to assert Scotland’s independence.

Then had come Sir William Wallace, hailed by some as an Uncrowned King—of common blood, but one whose life and death had given new hope to the Scottish nation and enabled the present king to come forth: Robert Bruce, in whose veins, by way of distaff, also ran the ancient blood of the Canmore kings. Not only had Bruce at last risen up against King Edward, but against inhuman forces that might have charted an altogether different course for Scotland.

Behind and at the bedrock of this struggle had been an ancient and power-full artifact called the Stone of Destiny, or sometimes the Stone of Scone, for the place where it was kept: mystical palladium, sacred altar-stone, relic of Jacob and of the saintly Columba—the high seat of Scotland’s high kings since the time of Kenneth MacAlpin, nearly five hundred years before. Earmarked for seizure by King Edward’s men, its power waning, the true Stone had been spirited away and a lesser copy left in its place, saved through the agencies of men who wore white robes: tonsured servants of the gentle Saint Columba, who followed a form of Christianity predating the supremacy of Roman pontiffs and practices, and crusader Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem, whose Inner Circle guarded secrets harking back to the wisdom of King Solomon himself, who had built that Temple in the land where Christ later walked.

Upheld by these seemingly disparate allies, the Uncrowned King had laid down his life and so reempowered the Stone—the Stone upon which Robert Bruce subsequently had undergone a mystical enthronement that had wedded him to the Land by ancient Celtic rite, bracketed between two public inaugurations upon a lesser throne.*

But being crowned king and actually being king were not necessarily one and the same, as Robert Bruce would soon learn. And not only Edward of England would be seeking to destroy him, as the deed became known. Enemies of the Temple had long been searching for ways to bring it down. Discovery of the Knights’ involvement in Scotland’s struggle for freedom was likely to place both the Temple and Scotland in grave danger . . . and also Scotland’s new king. . . .