Maid Margaret of Galloway: The Life Story of Her Whom Four Centuries Have Called "The Fair Maid of Galloway"

A historical novel written in the early 20th century. Told as the spirited first-person memoir of the “Fair Maid of Galloway,” it blends romance and clan politics with Franco-Scottish history in the era of the Douglases and the Dauphin of France. The tale centers on Margaret Douglas, her formidable cousin and intended, William Douglas, his dazzling brother James, and their friend Abbot Laurence M‘Kim, moving between a Touraine convent, a Loire-side château, and the larger struggle for power in Scotland. Expect courtly fêtes, tourneys, and intrigue threaded with a sharp, lively female voice. The opening of the novel frames Margaret’s narrative as “found papers,” then plunges into her witty account of hating life in a strict convent at Cheverney until Abbot Laurence arrives with a papal Bull to fetch her for a marriage to her cousin, William Douglas. Whisked to Cour Cheverney under the patronage of Sieur Paul, she tastes freedom, flirts, spars verbally with the future Louis XI (the Dauphin) in disguise, and needles both the grave William and the showy James. A lively sequence features her attempted escape toward Amboise, a triumphant tourney where James wins the prize, and William’s quiet, unexpected arrival as a masked combatant—only to be denied a kiss. At the start of their true courtship, William walks with her by a stream and candidly declares both his love and his grand design: to rule Scotland in fact, if not in name, avenge past wrongs, and bring law and order as the power behind the throne.