Early in 1306, five months after the death of William Wallace (subject of the movie, Braveheart), Robert de Bruce, earl of Carrick and lord of Annandale, slew his immediate rival for the Scottish throne and crowned himself king, thereby sacrificing the well being of his family and the loss of his fortune and lands, and instigating the fight for his country’s independence from England.King Edward I of England, “The Hammer of the Scots,” being determined to regain suzerainty over Scotland, sent Lord Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, with a vastly superior army to squelch the Scots’ “rebellion.” King Edward relocated himself to the northernmost part of England to apply as much control as possible over the suppression of this relatively small insurrection. He bore a personal and fearsome vengeance against King Robert, for Robert was the only man capable of forming a political coalition and leading an army to free Scotland.Most of the clan chiefs, barons, and earls of Scotland, and all of England were against King Robert, yet he persevered. Men and women from many families fought alongside the Scottish king. There are various characters in the book with names from Scotland’s history such as Randolph, Douglas, Campbell, Boyd, Seton, Comyn, Hay, Lamberton, Kirkpatrick, Lindsay, Macdougall, Strathbogie, Macdonald, Stewart, Macdouall, Cuthbert, Burgh, Valence, Wishart, Wallace (the brother of William who fought with King Robert), Fraser, Barclay and many others.There have been hundreds of books written on the Wars of Independence from history’s point of view. Rebel King, The Hammer of the Scots, takes the facts, and admittedly some myths, from January 1306 until July 1307, and molds them into the heroic lives of the men and women who forged those events into the history books with their own brand of valor and sacrifice of blood and agony. Read Less