The Rock (54 page)
Authors: Monica McCarty
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Romance, #Historical, #Medieval, #Scottish, #Historical Romance
Although Lent certainly sounds like a dreary period—especially for the poor—and most people appeared to have adhered to it strictly with one big meal and perhaps one smaller meal at night, even religious houses seemed to find a work-around: “Lent was kept in the official refectory, but not in the infirmary, where the old and sick needed meat to remain strong. Many monks just went to the infirmary for supper” (Ruth A. Johnston,
All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval Word
[Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011], 232–33). This was pretty much the approach I took to religious matters. People would be very conscious of the rules but didn’t always follow them.
Finally, Bruce’s location during the taking of the castles is unclear, although he was with Randolph at Edinburgh during the beginning of the siege (probably in January 1314) to negotiate with the keeper, who was later imprisoned by his fellow Englishmen for parleying with the enemy. Where Bruce might have stayed is also conjecture, but there is evidence suggesting that Holyrood was used as a royal residence by 1329 and Bruce held parliament there in 1326 (John Gifford, et al.,
Edinburgh
[New York: Penguin Books, 1991], 125).
Would women have been in Edinburgh at the time of the siege? It doesn’t seem unlikely. Bruce had his wife, daughter, and sisters with him eight years earlier in much more precarious circumstances after the Battle of Methven. Similarly, during a siege of Stirling Castle ten years before Bannockburn by Edward I, his queen accompanied him from England. Much is made of the entertainment factor in watching Edward’s new siege engine “Warwolf” at work. A special window was supposedly constructed so that Queen Margaret and other ladies from court might watch (Cornell, 12).
Check out the other sizzling installments in Monica McCarty's Highland Guard series!
When Eoin MacLean decides to fight with Robert the Bruce, he knows he will earn the enmity of his new bride’s father, but he doesn’t expect Margaret MacDowell, the spirited girl he’s fallen in love with, to betray him.
The Striker
An undercover warrior and her sworn enemy play a seductive game of cat-and-mouse in this concluding installment to the Highland Guard series!
The Ghost
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AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX ABERCROMBIE
MONICA McCARTY is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of the widely acclaimed, award-winning Highland Guard series, as well as the MacLeods of Skye and Campbell trilogies. Her interest in the Scottish clan system began in the most unlikely of places: a comparative legal history course at Stanford Law School. After realizing that her career as a lawyer and her husband’s transitory life as a professional baseball player were not exactly a match made in heaven, she traded in writing legal briefs for writing about sexy Scottish alpha heroes. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. Visit
www.monicamccarty.com
.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any refeerences to histtorical events, real people, or real places are used ficttitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Monica McCarty
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First Pocket Books paperback edition December 2015
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ISBN 978-1-5011-0878-5
ISBN 978-1-5011-0880-8 (ebook)
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