Preface to James the Good: The Black Douglas

SIR JAMES THE GOOD, one of the finest soldiers Scotland ever produced, is better known by the name given to him by the English – the ‘Black Douglas’. And they gave him this name with some justification. He terrified the northern shires of England throughout the King Robert the Bruce years of the Wars of Independence.

I feel that the people of Scotland should know more about this remarkable man, and although I wrote of him in my book On the Trail of Robert the Bruce, he really deserves a book dedicated solely to him.

Much of what I write of here comes from John Barbour, Arch - deacon of Aberdeen (1316–1395), who wrote a great work on Robert the Bruce around 1370. He gave details of many of James Douglas’s exploits in this book, allowing us an insight into the life of this remarkable man.

There is a triptych dedicated to Barbour in an aisle within St Machar’s Cathedral in Aberdeen. Barbour himself is buried beneath the floor there, and a plaque to his memory is at first-floor level on the old bank building on the corner of Marischal Street and Castle Street, at the eastern end of Union Street. (I do feel that in this day and age, this name should be changed to ‘Robert the Bruce Street’ or similar. After all, Bruce did great things for Aberdeen, starting the common good fund and the like, and should be recognised.) Barbour’s epic work on Bruce is one of the great early works of Scottish literature. I am humbled that nearly seven centuries on, I can draw on his patriotic ode, to pen one of my own.

Besides such works of literature, much of this book was of course compiled by my running around Scotland and England on my motorcycle, visiting the places that Douglas knew, and getting a feel for the way things were.

But I think it may be fitting here to quote some words of Barbour, ones I’m sure Douglas himself would wholly endorse: