The Admiral

Andrew Wood begins as a modest Fife laird and merchant mariner, but the murder of his father by English pirates gives his seafaring a harder purpose. Hunting raiders in the Forth and defending Scottish trade bring him national renown and the attention of James III. The king recognises that Scotland cannot remain secure without ships of its own and entrusts Wood with captured vessels that become the nucleus of a royal fleet.

Wood’s successes against English privateers earn him lands, rank and the office by which history remembers him, but they also provoke Henry VII’s government into sending stronger opponents north. At sea he must rely on seamanship, discipline and intimate knowledge of the coast; ashore he faces a royal court divided by rebellion and suspicion. His loyalty survives the fall of James III and makes him an important servant of James IV, for whom naval power is central to Scotland’s ambitions. Tranter combines maritime action with diplomacy in the career of the man who became Scotland’s most celebrated early admiral.