Hi John,
Just a thought on Lena and Niven's write ups on this battle. There's
actually no need to claim that John St Clair was the "unamed
Knight". Niven never actually claims that. There were 26 other squires
and gentlemen with them, and it's more than likely John was Sir William's
squire, in which case he wouldn't have been named. It is commonly known
and accepted that the two brothers were basically always together, and so
it would be fairly natural to assume that they were together for this
battle. As well, as Niven points out, there were the post mortem payments
to the nephew, which if John had been alive, would have gone to him, as his
nephews guardian (and his own by right). So I would think it's fairly safe
to say that he was with his brother and did die at the Battle of Teba,
without ever needing to lay claim to the "Unnamed Knight"
Also, from "The Bloody Heart" by By Peter Drummond-Murray of Mastrick,
Slains Pursuivant of Arms.
Originally printed in The Double Tressure - Journal of the Heraldry Society
of Scotland, Number 16, 1994
He states that the Battle of Theba (Teba) occured on 25 August, 1330, and
references the death of Bruce as occuring "at Cardross on 7 June
1329". If Bruce died in June, then the battle certainly couldn't have
taken place in March.
The article in full can be found at
http://www.cyberhighway.net/~cutter/cdsna/bloody.htm, complete with sources.
Regards
Margaret (milamba)
At 10:44 PM 09/08/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Thus far we have the Battle of Teba occuring in three different months:
>
>25 March 1330 (Laurel quoting Ronald McNair Scott)
>
>8th September, 1330 (Niven)
>
>25 August 1330 (Pete Cummings)
>
>At least we all agree on the year....
>
> >>Mediterranian and then up the coast to Scotland, it is obvious that in that
> >>warm climate these bodies couldn't be taken home as they were. So Sir
> >>William Keith had the bodies prepared for the journey by having them boiled
> >>(in vinegar-from a Cadfael story) so that the flesh fell off. It was only
> >>the bones of the dead that went back to Scotland. The flesh was buried in
> >>holy ground in Spain. I wonder whether anyone has gone there to look for a
> >>monument to them?
>
>Teba (not Theba; there is no th in Spanish) has its own web pages:
> http://www.costadelsol.net/web/teba/Index.htm
>
>They mention a memorial plaque. That battle was the biggest thing
>that ever happened in Teba. :-)
>
>As for Saladin,
> http://www.manhal.com/salah.html
>yes, he was exceptional, but Muslims in general considered Christian
>Europeans to be barely better than barbarians with no manners, and with
>quite a bit of justification, given the behavior of the crusaders.
>The Byzantines held a similar opinion, for similar reasons.
>
>In any case, Laurel and Niven's writeups are now in
> http://www.mids.org/sinclair/who/william_d_teba.html
>
>John S. Quarterman <jsq@mids.org>
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