SOURCE: "James Douglas and Barbour's Ideal of Knighthood," Forum for Modern Language Studies, Vol. XVII, No. 2, April, 1981, pp. 167-80.

In the following essay, McKim concentrates on Barbour's portrayal of James Douglas as an ideal knight.

The little critical attention which John Barbour's Bruce has received, has tended to concentrate on the figure of Robert Bruce, and on Barbour's treatment of him as the type of the ideal king, national hero and military leader.¹ The poem's other hero, James Douglas, has attracted little more than passing comment.² Yet Barbour himself pointed out that the poem has two heroes: "king Robert of Scotland, /… And gud Schyr Iames off douglas, /… Off thaim I thynk this buk to ma" (I, 27-33).³ In the course of the narrative the poet dwells on the exploits of other Scottish knights who ought to be "prisyt" or "lovyt", most notably Edward Bruce and Thomas Randolph, but...