Envoy Extraordinary

Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, was a man of modest ambitiions, less interested in warfare and matters of state than in the welfare of the folk of his earldoms and encouraging the trade generated by the great wool production of his sheep-strewn Lammermuir Hills.

However, these were troubled times and Patrick was destined to play a major role in Scotland's affairs. The Scottish king, Alexander III, was but a child, and the heir to the English throne, Edward Plantagenet, already proving aggressive.

But it was the Norsemen and the Vikings, and the immediate threat they presented to his trading links with Norway and the Baltic states, who finally drove the Cospatrick to action.

In his own inimitable style, Nigel Tranter vividly describes how this reluctant hero, aided by his shrewd and strong-minded wife, Christian Bruce, summoned all the ingenuity and courage he possessed to protect his beloved Scotland from the threat of foreign invasion.