Nigel Tranter: 74 books

Scotland's story cannot be told merely in terms of documentary evidence, for this would be to neglect an integral part of the nation's heritage. The legends, myths, stories and memories handed down from generation to generation must be added to the bare bones of factual record if the character of...

By the power of his sword arm, his dragon fleet and his sheer personality, Somerled Norse Slayer carved an enduring name for himself in Scottish legend. Inheriting his father's shattered thanedom in Argyll in the twelfth century, he enlarged it by courage, initiative, military shrewdness and diplomacy....

Scotland at the dawn of the 15th century was a wretched spectacle. While the feeble Robert III still clung to his throne, his kingdom rang with the sound of conflict as his son and brother grappled for power. Sir James Douglas of Aberdour, married as he was to the King's illegitimate sister,...

Norse-Slayer and nation-builder, Kenneth, son of Alpin mac Eochaidh, King of Galloway, was the visionary who brought together the ancient kingdoms of Alba, Dalriada, Strathclyde and Galloway to create the country of Scotland. Yet his vision was wider still. He dreamed of a great coming together...

The year 1617 was a fateful one for Scotland - and especially for young John Stewart of Methven, bastard son of the Duke of Lennox. King James VI of Scotland and I of England made a rare and disastrous visit to his homeland of which he had been an absentee monarch for fourteen years. Knighted...

The youthful Alexander II, who ascended to the Scottish throne in 1214 at the age of sixteen, was delighted to welcome to his court a young man of royal blood, heir to the ancient - and all but rival - line of the Cospatricks, Earls of Dunbar. Rather than begrudge Alexander his crown, Patrick, Master...

With the heir to the throne murdered, King Robert III a sick weakling, and his remaining son a child, Scotland and the Stewarts were in a bad way three generations on from the great Bruce. But two young men stood out: Alex Stewart, bastard son of the notorious Wolf of Badenoch, and his cousin, Brave...

Following the murder of his father at Bannockburn in 1488, fifteen-year-old James Stewart was crowned James IV of Scotland. From those inauspicious beginnings, the inexperienced boy-king was to become one of the finest and most popular kings in Scotland's history, leading his people bravely through...

The son of an Edinburgh merchant, Hope had a spectacular beginning to his career: at the age of seventeen, before he had even finished his legal education, he travelled to France to triumph in his first court case and caught the attention of his young king, James VI. It was the beginning of a life...

During the 16th century, the Borderland between Scotland and England was something of a world apart, with its own strange laws, beliefs and customs. Young John Maxwell, Warden of the West March, did his best to control a motley crew of dalesmen and mosstroopers from Liddesdale, Eskdale and...

In 1649 Charles II left his exile in the Netherlands and sailed to Scotland. Arriving at the small fishing village of Garmouth, he faced a mixed reception from the minister of the Kirk. The exiled king was to remain in Scotland for a year, learning more about his northern subjects, while the...

In 1460, when clan feuds were rife, and the threat of English invasion was ever-present, James III, one of Scotland's weakest monarchs, came to the throne. Before long, John, Lord of Douglas, a born leader and a man of conscience and vision, found himself wishing that James' wise and strong-minded...

Laird of a small estate, Will Alexander of Menstrie, poet and tutor, was a man of modest ambitions. But when James VI learned of his poetic genius, the king had other plans for him. In 1603, when James VI of Scotland became James I of England, he summoned Will to London and commanded him to...

Half-Celt and half-Saxon, King David determined to take hold of his backward, patriarchal, strife-ridden country and, against all the odds, pushed and dragged it into the forefront of Christendom's advancing nations. This is a story of independence, single-mindedness and hard-headed leadership....