Robert first married Isabella of Mar, daughter of Helen of Wales and the Earl of Mar, one of the seven guardians of Scotland.  What little is known of her suggests she was beautiful, educated, and wealthy, heiress to a large section of northeastern Inverness. She spoke both Gaelic and High English.  Moreover, she and Robert were in love, an unusual thing in the arranged marriages of the time.  She was 18.  In December 1996, at the age of 19, she died shortly after giving birth to their daughter Marjory. 

Of dozens of sites I’ve read on Bruce, only one mentions a ‘second’ marriage license, dated September 19, 1295 to Maud Fitz Alan.  The source reports that this marriage ended, without children, in divorce or annulment, probably due to their having a blood relationship.  However, since Bruce married Isabella in 1295, and she lived through most of 1296, it is impossible to imagine how a second marriage could have occurred that year.  Was it a first proposed marriage that fell through?

Six years after Isabella’s death, in 1302, Robert married another beautiful and wealthy young woman, Elizabeth de Burgh.  Records of her birth date vary greatly, but she may have been as young as 18.  Their early marriage was hardly a honeymoon, much of it being spent in hiding from the English.  In 1306, Elizabeth was captured at Tain with Marjory and several others.  She was imprisoned in a convent until after Bannockburn, in 1314.  Her children were born in the years following Bannockburn: David, Matilda, Margaret, and John.

Marjory, Bruce’s eldest daughter, is a story of triumph and tragedy.  Most sources agree she was born in December of 1296, the same month Longshanks invaded Scotland and took Berwick.  As an author, I could hardly write better foreshadowing for the life Marjory would lead.  In June 1306, at the age of 9, she was captured at St. Duthac in Tain, north of Inverness, while trying to escape to safety in Orkney.  It is all too easy to imagine the terror of a 9 year old girl, separated from her father, who she knows is fighting not just for his kingdom, but for his life, seeking safety in a church with her aunts and step-mother, and seeing armed men storm into what should have been a place of refuge and safety.  It is easy to imagine the terror of wondering what had become of her Uncle Nigel who had tried to protect them,  still under attack back at Kildrummy; or what would become of Sir John of Atholl, who had whisked them away from Kildrummy for safety, or her aunts and step-mother. 

We know that two of the women captured in the church that day–Isobel MacDuff and Mary Bruce, Marjory’s aunt–would spend years living in cages hung on castle walls.  Edward I had a similar cage built for Marjory at the Tower of London, but in a rare moment of softness, reconsidered and instead ordered her held in solitary confinement in the nunnery at Watton.  There, the young Marjory lived, virtually alone, for 8 years.  She was released after Bannockburn in 1314, when she was still 17, in exchange for English prisoners held by the Scots. 

 The following year, she married Walter, the 6th High Steward of Scotland, who was only 22 himself at the time, but one of the heroes of Bannockburn.  She very quickly became pregnant.  The following March, she rode her horse in the late stages pregnancy, fell when it reared, and delivered the future Robert II by c-section on March 2, 1316, according to Electric Scotland. 

The tragedy of her life is that she died at the age of barely 19, having spent close to half her life in near-solitary confinement.  It hardly gets more tragic than this.   

Marjory’s triumph is that, despite a tragically short and difficult life, spent mostly alone, she became the mother of the Stewart Dynasty and ultimately, all future monarchs of Scotland, and England since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, right down to the present day!  A partial list of her descendents: Robert II of Scotland, Robert III of Scotland, James I, James II (James of the Fiery Face), James III, James IV (who married Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII), James V, Mary Queen of Scots, mother of James VI of Scotland who was also James I of England, father of King Charles I of England, Charles II of England, James II of England (VII of Scotland), father of Mary (wife of William of Orange) and Anne. 

Of Marjory’s half-siblings, Margaret, Matilda, and John, we know very little.  John died in childhood.  Margaret married the 5th Earl of Sutherland and died in 1358.  Matilda married a Thomas Isaac, with whom she had two daughters, Joan and Katherine.  She died on July 20, 1353.  

David II, King of Scotland, like his half-sister Marjory, is a lesson to those who wish they’d been born kings and queens.  History says it is rarely a pleasant or easy life.  He was born March 5,1324,  and married Joan of the Tower, the daughter of Edward II of England, on July 17, 1328, as per the treaty of Northampton.  Yes, he was 4.  He succeeded to the throne on his father’s death in 1229, at the age 5.  He was already an orphan.

 He and Joan were crowned at Scone in November of 1331, when he was 7.  A series of guardians ruled while he was a minor, one after another being lost to death in battle or capture and captivity.  He spent much of his youth in France, safely away from Edward Baliol, who was trying to claim (or reclaim as he saw it) his father’s brief kingship of Scotland.  David ruled Scotland in his own right from June 1341 until he was captured at the Battle of Neville’s Cross in October 1346, and held prisoner in England for 11 years.  He returned to Scotland in 1357, promising to pay his ransom money to England.  Instead, he returned to a poverty-stricken kingdom, a third of its population decimated by the Black Plague while he’d been imprisoned in the Tower of London.  Payment to England was impossible.  He tried to trade the inheritance rights to the throne of Scotland for remission of his debt to England.  The Scots nobles did not particularly care for this plan.  He died unexpectedly at Edinburgh Castle February 22, 1371, without children, and is buried at Holyrood Abbey.

Robert Bruce also had a number of children termed, in medieval terms, ‘natural,’ or, in our words, illegitimate.  Historical sources state their mothers as unknown.  Others, primarily genealogical sites, claim they are all the children of Robert’s wife, Elizabeth de Burgh.

Robert Bruce of Liddesdale was born about 1303, although his birth dates range from 1299 onward.  He was killed at the battle of Dupplin Moor, August 12, 1332.  Prior to this, he had led an unsuccessful attempt at preventing Edward Baliol from landing in Scotland.  One site mentions that Clan Elliott made an unusual move from Glenshire in the north to the Teviotdale in the Scottish Borders, in order to protect Robert Bruce of Liddesdale, whom Robert Bruce (king), had made lord of Liddesdale, as the previous lord, William de Soulis, had been imprisoned for treason.  Does this mean Robert Bruce of Liddesdale had a connection with the Elliott family?  Little more is said of this son, except that he made a gift of 20 pounds to St. Fillan’s Church, in the year his father died.  (Robert Bruce had greatly venerated St. Fillan.)  One site lists his mother as Matilda, and another lists his mother as a woman who, according to all my other research, never existed and is unlikely to have, and if she did, was certainly not Bruce’s wife as that site claims.

Of Bruce’s remaining children, Sir Neil Bruce of Carrick died at the Battle of Neville’s Cross on Oct 17, 1346.  His half-brother, King David II, commanded the army at this battle.  Of the rest, we know little beyond names.  Walter Bruce of Odistoun on the Clyde, pre-deceased his father; he is not mentioned at all in some genealogies.  Christina Bruce of Carrick died after 1329, at which point there is a record of her receiving a pension.  Of Margaret Bruce, we know only that she was born before 1327–one site tells me Dunfermline in 1307–was alive as of the 29 February, 1364, and married Robert Glen.  Elizabeth Bruce, the youngest, married Walter Oliphant of Gask.  Sources suggest that these children, though illegitimate, were treated with love by Bruce.  Elizabeth, for instance, is called Princess Elizabeth in a site on Clan Oliphant.  Robert Bruce of Liddesdale was made a lord and given lands by Bruce.  And Neil Bruce was knighted.

Bruce himself was born in 1274, the first son and third child.  Neil–also known as Niall or Nigel–arrived soon after in 1276, followed by Edward around 1279, Thomas i 1284, and Alexander, the youngest, in 1285. 

War with England shaped, and eventually took, the lives of all Robert Bruce’s brothers.  As a novelist, asking what if is important.  No doubt we all do it in our lives, and it is easy to ask of the Bruce family, what if?  What if Alexander III had not died, trying to get home to his bride on that dark and stormy night?  What if his young widow had in fact been pregnant with an heir to the throne, as she first claimed?  What if his granddaugther, the Maid of Norway, had survived her journey to Scotland to claim the throne?  What if the lords of Scotland could have agreed on a successor instead of, fearing internal war, asking Edward I (Longshanks) to choose?  Had any of these things been different, perhaps the Bruces would have lived a relatively peaceful life; perhaps more of the five brothers would have had families and lived to old ages. 

But the fact is, Alexander was determined to get home to his bride, andgiven the personalities involved, it led inexorably, step by step, to prolonged war with England, in which Bruce, and thus his brothers, were major players.

Neil, the second brother, was the first to die at England’s hands.  The beginning of the end, for him, were Bruce’s defeats at Methven in June 1306 and Strathfillan two months later in August.  At the time, Bruce was a newly-crowned king with no power, and in fact no home, in his own kingdom.  His wife, daughter, and sisters had been traveling with  him and his men, but his defeats at Methven and Strathfillan raised concerns for their safety.  So he sent them, under the protection of most of his men, including Neil and the Lord of Atholl, to Kildrummy Castle for safety.  Bruce, along with Edward, Thomas, and Alexander, and a few close followers, headed into hiding on Rathlin Island off the northern shore of Ireland.

Ruins of Kildrummy

When the English marched against Kildrummy, the women were sent further north on their way to Orkney, under the protection of the Earl of Atholl.  Neil defended Kildrummy admirably against the younger Edward.  Unfortunately, he was betrayed from within by a blacksmith bribed with ‘all the gold he could carry’ to set fire to the grain stores.  With no food, the men of Kildrummy were forced to surrender.  Neil was captured, and in September 1306, hanged, drawn, and quartered at Berwick-on-Tweed.  (The blacksmith, on being caught by the Scots, did indeed receive his reward for betraying the King’s brother: all the gold he could carry was melted and poured down his throat.  I’m thinking he would have done better to remain gold-less but loyal.)  

Neil (or Nigel) would have been about 30 at the time of his death.  (The year or his birth is given as circa 1276, and so far in my research, without a month.)

The death of his brother Neil, the first of the five brothers to die at England’s hands, was a devastating blow to Bruce, both personally and in his quest to reclaim his country.  The sickening feeling to all of them, Robert, Edward, Thomas, and Alexander, on hearing of the vicious torture, mutilation, and execution of their own brother, can only be imagined.  Bruce, who, as the eldest brother, ultimately had made the decision for all of them, to fight, had known from the start that he risked bringing this on his own family.  Of course, succumbing to Longshanks’ brutal rule was no guarantee of a long and peaceful life, either.  In fact, knowing how Longshanks treated Scotland, it was a guarantee of the opposite.  Still, the death of his brother, resulting from his decisions, is believed to have weighed heavily on Bruce’s heart.

One can imagine the thoughts of all the Bruce brothers, knowing any of them could be next.  And, indeed, it was less than a year later–on February 9, 1307, that Thomas and Alexander would die at Carlisle the same way Neil had.  During the winter months of 1306-1307, many believe Bruce and his company rested and re-grouped in the western islands under the hospitality and protection of Christina MacRuairi.  It is from there that Bruce and his followers launched their two-pronged return to the mainland of Scotland in February 1307. 

Robert and Edward landed at Turnberry Castle in the southwest, while Thomas and Alexander led 18 galleys in the landing further south still, at Loch Ryan.  They were immediately overwhlemed by the local forces of Dougal MacDougal, a supporter of the Comyns.  Keep in mind that Robert Bruce killed John Comyn at the altar of Greyfriars Kirk not quite a year prior to this, on February 10, 1306.  Alexander would most likely have been short of his 22nd birthday, and Thomas short of his 23rd. 

Thus, within six months, the English executed three of Bruce’s four brothers, leaving himself and the third of the five brothers, Edward.  It is easy to imagine that they felt the executioner’s rope heavy around their own necks at that point.  It is easy enough, reading history 700 years later, and knowing they would live for many years to come–especially Robert–but they did not have the comfort of such foreknowledge.  They could only push on, most likely feeling that, with all their brothers so quickly captured and executed, the odds were heavily against them.  Still, they did push on.

Edward Bruce comes down through history as forceful, hot-headed, and willful.  Because he lived much longer, the historical record is full of stories of Edward Bruce.  In brief, he fought beside Robert through the years leading up to Bannockburn, a loyal supporter and a thorn in his side.  On the one hand, he re-captured many of the castles taken by Edward I.  On the other, he made the rash agreement with Phillip de Mowbray, the English commander of Stirling Castle, which led to exactly the pitched, face to face battle with the English which Robert had always tried to avoid.

(Again, ask what if?  What if Bruce had chosen Edward to lead the attack on Loch Ryan?  I have not done the research to know if history tells us why Bruce chose as he did, but years of reading on Edward makes it easy to guess that he may have kept Edward at his side exactly to keep his rashness under control.  What if the more level-headed Thomas or Alexander had survived and been sent to conduct the siege at Stirling?  The Battle of Bannockburn likely never would have happened. 

It was a huge, but unavoidable, risk at the time, once Edward Bruce opened his mouth and put Robert into that unenviable position.  It is probably not completely possible for most of us to imagine marching to battle with a force three times the size of our own.  But Robert was thrown into that position, and turned it into Scotland’s greatest moment.  Does this make Edward Bruce the villain and fool of the story or the accidental hero?  Or the full-blown hero for having the courage to face the largest army the world had ever seen?

Edward Bruce commanded the men of Galloway in one of four schiltrons (rings of spears, against which even knights on warhorses could not stand) at the Battle of Bannockburn, on June 23 and 24, 1314.  After Bannockburn, Edward was among those who pushed for continued attacks on England, in order to force England to acknowledge Scotland once again as an independent nation and Robert Bruce as its rightful king. 

To this end, Edward Bruce also pushed Robert to lead the Irish in rebelling against their English overlords.  His argument was that a few thousand Scots, with the aid of the Irish who also disliked England’s rule, could harry England further, harassing them on so many fronts that they must finally give in to Scotland’s very minimal demands.

Due to Edward’s manipulations behind his back, Robert was somewhat forced to agree to Edward’s plan, and on May 26, 1315, Edward’s fleets landed in Ireland.  In 1316, he was crowned King of Ireland.  His brief reign ended with his death at the battle of Faughart on October 14, 1318.  De Birmingham, the opposing commander, had his body quartered, and the pieces sent to various towns in Ireland.  His head was delivered to Edward II. 

He was about 39 years old.  He left behind at least one son, Alexander de Brus, fathered with his probable wife, Isabelle, daughter of John de Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl.  Records suggest an intended second marriage, after Isabelle’s death, to Isabella Ross, and a second son, Thomas, by this other Isabelle.  Many historians doubt the marriage actually took place.

This left Robert, the eldest, as the sole survivor of his father’s five sons.  He spent the rest of his years working to ensure Scotland’s freedom from England.  He died on June 7, 1329, at the age of 54, at his new manor of Cardross.  He had suffered for years from a painful skin ailment, that has been called everything from psoriasis to leprosy.  He is buried at Dunfermline Abbey.  At his request, however, James Douglas, his closest friend and companion, removed his heart, embalmed and enclosed it in a silver casket, and carried it to the Crusades, to atone for his murder of John Comyn 23 years earlier.  James Douglas died in the Crusades, but the silver casket with Bruce’s heart was recovered and buried at Melrose Abbey.

Bruce was Scoto-Norman and Franco-Gaelic, and a direct descendant of David I of Scotland on his father’s side.  It is believed that, as a result, he spoke the several languages of his heritage, in addition to Latin.  He was the third child, but oldest boy, of 10, 11 or 12 siblings, depending on the source.  The confusion seems to lie in the fact that multiple names are often attributed to the same person, much like our Roberts and Bobs, Williams and Bills.  For instance, one source lists seven sisters for Robert Bruce: Isabella, Christina, Maud, Mary, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Marjory, while another source lists Isabella, Christina,  Elizabeth, Mary, and Margaret, but calls the sixth and last daughter Matilda/Marjory.  Yet another source lists only five sisters, leaving out Elizabeth, and listing Isabella, Christina, Margaret, Matilda, and Mary. Undiscovered Scotland says there were ten Bruce siblings.  There is no confusion about his brothers, Niel/Nigel, Edward, Thomas, and Alexander, perhaps because, being deeply involved in politics and warfare, there are clearer records of them.

 The older Bruce siblings may have remembered the time of peace before Alexander III’s death, but for the most part, they would have grown up in a world of turmoil, as Scotland fought Edward Longshanks’ continued efforts to subdue and control Scotland.  This was perhaps the motivating force on all their lives.  Only Isabella could be said to have had anything like a peaceful life, as queen of Norway.  (And I say that in comparison to the harsh fates of so many of her siblings.)

Bruce himself, spent years living in conditions most of us will never suffer, in caves and hunted both by the English and various Scottish clans who for various reasons sided with the English (or against Bruce, which of course had the same effect, if different motives) and fighting battles.  His sisters did not routinely fight battles, but they did suffer for his stand against the English.

Christina, or Christian, the second child and daughter, was betrayed and captured, along with Bruce’s wife and daughter, at Kildrummy, shortly after Bruce’s crowning at Scone in defiance of Longshanks.  She was ‘lucky’ enough to only be held in a convent from 1306 until after the Scots’ victory at Bannockburn in 1314.  But life was hard, and she lost three husbands.  Her first, Gartnait Earl of Mar, died of natural causes in 1305.  Her second, Christopher Seton, was brutally executed by the English in 1306.  Not the long marriage she had perhaps hoped for.  Her third, Andrew Murray, spent his life in battle against the English and serving Scotland.  Deborah Richmond Foulkes, in her novelized and very detailed account of James Douglas and his family, does an excellent job of portraying life for the wives and children left behind throughout countless battles and years of warfare, highlighting the fear and waiting which must have colored so much of Christina’s life.

She had three children, at least as recorded by history: Donald Earl of Mary and Helen with Gartnait and Lord John and Sir Thomas with Andrew Murray. 

Even apart from her sufferings on behalf of her brother’s and husbands’ politics, Christina must have been yet another remarkable woman in her own right.  Of course, this would undoubtedly come from her mother’s forceful personality, which deserves an article of its own.  But one of the few things that is remembered about Christina is that she successfully commanded the defending forces of Kildrummy Castle in Aberdeenshire, against David de Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl, leader of the English forces, in 1335.  She was in her 60′s.  It is unusual enough for a woman in medieval times to command an army; it is unusual in any time for a woman in her 60′s to do so.  It is a brief story that speaks volumes about who Christina must have been.  She lived to be 84.

Little enough is said of Mary Bruce, but we do know she was one of the younger sisters.  Along with Christina, Isabella MacDuff, Robert’s wife Elizabeth and daughter Marjory, Mary was betrayed and captured by the Earl of Ross.  Not treated so well as Christina, she and Isabella MacDuff were both held prisoner in wooden or iron cages, suspended from castle walls, for the amusement of crowds who mocked and threw things.  Mary lived like this, exposed to all seasons, from 1306 until 1310 on the walls of Roxburgh Castle.  She was kept in captivity even afterward, only being set free in exchange for English prisoners after Bannockburn in 1314.  Shortly after, she married one of Bruce’s closest companions and most loyal supporters, Neil Campbell.  He died very soon afterward, in 1316, and she later married Alexander Fraser of Touchfraser and Cowie (how would you like to fill that name out on your children’s school and medical forms!) 

Like so many, very few details of Mary have survived, but Nigel Tranter, the historian and novelist, paints her as a forceful and colorful personality.  Given her family background, it seems likely.

Virtually nothing has come to us of Bruce’s other sisters.  It is not even clear how many of them there were.  Is it because they were the younger siblings and so less involved in the immediate events of the time?  Perhaps more sheltered?  Given how long the wars of independence lasted, it seems unlikely they were that fortunate.  Is it because their names, Elizabeth, Marjory, Maud, and Matilda, are so easily confused with Bruce’s wife and daughters?  Were they less forceful or colorful personalities such that they left no records?  At this point in my research, it is impossible to say, but if anyone knows more of Bruce’s youngest sisters, I would very much welcome the information. 

Tomorrow, Bruce’s brothers.  Next week, his wives and children.

Castle Tioram, home of Christina MacRuari

Sadly, little is really known about Christina, sometimes called Christian or Christiana, Christina of Garmoran, or Christina of Mar.  The daughter and only (legitimate) child of Alan MacRuairi, she inherited vast portions of the western isles: Knoydart, Rum, Eigg, Moidart, Barra, Uist, and Gigha, in the early 14th Century.  She married Duncan, second son of the Earl of Mar, and brother to Robert Bruce’s first wife.  She was, therefore, a sister-in-law to the woman who would have been queen, had she lived, and related by marriage to Bruce himself.

While Nigel Tranter portrays Christina and Bruce meeting at sea when Bruce comes unexpectedly upon her ships being attacked and sails to her aid, Clan Donald by Donald J. MacDonald says that they met in Carrick, on Bruce’s land (not at sea at all), when she brought fifteen men to join him.  Ronald McNair Scott, in his book Robert the Bruce: King of Scots, says that Bruce went to Christina seeking her aid. 

Says Barbour:  A lady of that country [Carrick], who was his near kinswoman, was wondrous glad at his arrival and made haste to join him, bringing fifteen men whom she gave the king to help him in his warfare.  Fordun says: “the lady was a certain noblewoman, Christian of the Isles and it was by her help and power and goodwill that Bruce was able to return to Carrick.” 

A modern historian, Dr. Louise Yeoman, makes the case much more strongly, stating that it was not a spider (as per the legend), but a woman, Christina MacRuairi, who really inspired Bruce to keep fighting, by backing him with ships and hundreds of men.

At the time, living as a fugitive from Edward I of England, with very few at his side, even resorting to caves for shelter at times, Bruce would have been grateful regardless of where they met, regardless of whether it was fifteen men or hundreds, and this would indeed have made her a brave woman, following in the footsteps of Isobel MacDuff, to stand at his side at a time when few others had.

  She is believed to have sheltered Robert Bruce in the months between his loss at the Battle of Methven in June 1306 until his return to Carrick on the mainland in February 1307, according to Fordun.  Others go further and say that she not only sheltered him, but helped organize his armed return to his lands.  We do know that she was a consistent and loyal supporter and did at various times support him with food and shelter, in addition to ships and men.

Beyond this little bit, most scholarly reports of Christina concern her brother Roderick, Alan’s illegitimate son, to whom both she and Bruce gave land, or the mention of her in connection with her niece Amie. 

Less academic sources mention Christina’s strong friendship, and possible affair with Bruce during the eight years his wife, Elizabeth, was imprisoned by the English; yet she became fast friends withElizabeth in the years after her release.  James MacFarlane and Nigel Tranter both portray Christina and Bruce’s relationship in this light.  MacFarlane says, through Bruce, that Christina was first and foremost a warrior and clan chief.

I have been lucky to find a series on James Douglas, written in story form, but based on two or more years of on-site research with primary sources in Scotland and England.  It is my hope that some day someone will do as thorough a job researching Christina of Garmoran, and perhaps tell the world a great deal more about the life of this remarkable and fascinating woman.

Bruce did have one piece of luck on his side: Edward I was not his father.  He was not the knight, king, or commander his father had been.  He was not liked or respected by his people.  Some sources, not worrying about his feelings overly, say he ‘lacked the dignity’ of his father, and ‘failed miserably’ as a king.  His lavish spending, including on male favorites such as Piers Gaveston, made him unpopular with the lords.  This, and other issues led to the baronial revolt, and of course, it was easier for Bruce to re-take his country with the invaders pre-occupied with fighting amongst themselves.

Despite this, Bannockburn was still a pitched battle–something the Bruce had done his best to avoid throughout his years fighting England, and for good reason.  The English routinely had much larger forces, and guerrilla warfare gave the Scots a fighting chance (no pun intended–well, maybe not).   But faced with two forces meeting face to face on open field, Bruce found other methods.

The first of his strategies in defeating an army rumored to be anywhere from three to five times larger than his own, was to get there first and choose his ground.  Bruce had long been a master of this, in battles which will be discussed later.  Bannockburn was no exception.  He knew the road the English must take to reach Stirling Castle.  Remember, Bannockburn stemmed from the agreement between de Mowbray, the commander of Stirling Castle, and Edward Bruce, that de Mowbray would turn Stirling over to the Scots if Edward II did not send reinforcements by Midsummer’s Day.  This is what Edward II was attempting to do, and what Robert Bruce and the Scots were trying to prevent.  With that destination in mind, Edward’s mighty army, his 2,500 warhorses, 500 light cavalry, 2,000 Welsh bowmen, and tens of thousands of foot soldiers, marched up the old Roman road.

 The Roman road ran, at one point, between woods (The New Park) on the west and a bog (the Carse) on the east.  The deadliest part of England’s army was its cavalry.  But everybody has their Achille’s heel.  Even a highly trained knight armed with deadly weapons, atop a charging warhorse.  The one thing such a knight on his warhorse really needs is firm ground to support the weight.  And at this stretch of the old Roman road, there was very little of that.  By arriving first and staking out this section, Bruce created a situation in which 1) only a small part of the 20 mile long army could come through at any given time and 2) those that strayed from the solid path, or were forced to fight beyond it, would have one of their greatest assets–size and weight–turned against them, as they found themselves mired in the boggy ground.

Bruce did not rise to power in Scotland, however, by relying only on what the landscape gave him.  He came early, and did not sit idle while he waited.  In the weeks before England arrived, he set his men to digging ‘murder pits’ all over the carse across which the English would charge.  These pits were deep, and filled with spikes sticking straight up.  The pits were covered over with a camouflage layer of branches and leaves culled from the New Park wood.  Normally, I’d have to say that’s not very nice.  But then again, if I knew a knight was going to be charging at me swinging a mace and sword to crush in my skull, I think I’d do the same thing. 

Bruce had used this strategy in previous battles.  Nigel Tranter novelized the results in The Path of the Hero King.  The first wave of cavalry hit the first row of murder pits and went down.  The knights behind them were unable to stop, their horses simply not being so agile.  Eventually, enough horses had gone down in these pits that further waves were able to simply ride over the bodies.  They did not count on there being a second row of murder pits.  Or a third.

For those horses who escaped the murder pits, Bruce had another surprise: caltrops.  A caltrop is a giant, four-armed jack.  No matter which way it lands on the ground, a spike is sticking straight up, waiting to pierce a hoof.  If your name is Drummond, they may be part of your family history, as Sir Malcolm de Drymen is credited with strewing them on the ground that day.  It is said that the caltrop on the Drummond arms, and the motto Gang warily stem from this moment in history.

For those cavalry who survived both murder pits and caltrops, Bruce had his schiltrons waiting.  Those who saw Braveheart will likely remember the scene in which the Scots wait, with 15 foot pikes flat on the ground, until it is too late for the charging English cavalry to stop.  The pikes come up, and the charging horses impale themselves, and sometimes their riders, on the pikes. 

The drawback to this method was that it was purely defensive.  Bruce shortened the pikes to a more manageable length and trained his men to march together, hundreds together, with pikes pointed outward, thus making the schiltron a mobile, offensive force, the only power in the world that could take on mounted cavalry.  Bruce had six schiltrons at Bannockburn. 

One of the more famous stories to come out of the battle is that of Sir Robert Clifford and his 700 English cavalry attacking a schiltron.  He succeeded in getting himself and a large number of his knights killed or captured.  (One of these was Sir Thomas Gray, whose son later gave us one of the few written records of the battle based on first hand accounts.)  The rest scattered, realizing the futility of the attempt.

Knowing from past experience that the archers were a danger to his strongest weapon, the schiltrons, Bruce dispatched Keith’s cavalry to deal with them.

Bruce’s plans and choice of battleground not only destroyed much of the English cavalry before they could even begin to fight, but prevented tens of thousands of footmen from ever fighting at all.  Because of the narrow entry through which they must come, these soldiers were trapped behind the knights, and unable to fight. 

Finally, there is the storming from Coxet Hill (or Gillies, according to some).  Some say it was the Knights Templar.  Others say it was Bruce’s reserve army, and still others that it was the ‘wee folk,’ or townfolk, racing to battle with their homemade weapons and farming tools, waving blankets and homemade banners on poles, and thus appearing to the English to be another army. 

 The English had gone into the main battle already demoralized.  The destruction of their archers by Keith’s light cavalry and the apparent appearance of a fresh army were the final blows.  Edward II, with a host of his followers, turned and ran.  In the chaos that followed, many of the English drowned trying to cross back over the many waterways–the River Forth, the Pelstream, and the Bannock Burn–which hemmed them in.

Sources contradict one another, and arguments rage as to how many fought on each side at the battle of Bannockburn.  (The number I’ve given above are only one source, and vary widely in others.)  But what is undeniably true is that the Scottish forces were heavily outnumbered, at least three to one, and some say as much as five to one.  And yet, with the foresight of Robert the Bruce and his years of creative warfare against a much stronger army, they were able to not only win, but completely rout their Goliath.

John Balliol’s kingship came via several avenues.  The first was the luck of the draw: he just so happened to be born a great-great-great grandson of David I of Scotland.  I’m guessing most of us don’t even know the names of our great-great-great grandfathers, but in his case, such a name was vitally important to an entire nation; in fact, to two, as we’ll see.

The second factor in John Balliol’s kingship was a series of unfortunate deaths.  He would have lived part of his life under the rule of Alexander III of Scotland.  Alexander had three children, all of whom preceded him in death: David, the younger son, in 1281, Margaret, Queen of Norway, in childbirth 1283; and the elder brother, Prince Alexander, in 1284.  This left Alexander’s young granddaughter, Margaret, known as The Maid of Norway, as his sole heir.  With Alexander’s wife and three children all dead, and a country in need of an heir, Alexander re-married.  His race home to his new bride, despite adverse weather, ironically, led to his death when his horse fell over a cliff in the dark, and exactly the situation a new wife was supposed to prevent. 

Alexander’s young granddaughter, three or four years of age when Alexander died, was sent from Norway, in 1290, to take the throne of Scotland.  Not only did she become ill on the voyage, but a storm blew her ship off course.  She died on September 26, 1290 on Orkney Island, at the age of 7.

This left a country that had, just a few short years before, had a monarch and four clear heirs, with no obvious successor to the throne.

Into this void stepped thirteen men, all claiming the right of succession.  Maybe six of these had strong claims, with Robert Bruce, “the Competitor,” grandfather of the better known Robert the Bruce, Robert I of Scotland, and John Balliol having the strongest.  John Balliol and his three older brothers–all of whom had predeceased him, leaving him as the possible heir–were descended from an elder daughter of the line of King David, while Bruce was descended from a second daughter, but a generation closer to David I.

Still, civil war threatened to break out.  The Scots invited Edward I, Edward Longshanks, King of England, to settle the matter.  Edward chose John Balliol, viewing him as the weaker and more easily controlled man.  So on the 17th of November, 1292, Balliol became king of Scotland. 

His reign was short-lived.

Fortunately for Scotland, perhaps unfortunately for John himself, neither he nor Scotland was quite as weak as Longshanks expected.  At first, homage to Edward I, as the self-declared Lord Paramount of Scotland, was forced from the Scottish nobility.  (Does anyone besides me sense a medieval Death Star hovering at the border?  Actually, it was called a trebuchet in those times.)  Edward did his best to undermine John’s authority and humiliate him, demanding and receiving legal authority, money, and troops.

In 1294, Edward demanded Scottish troops for his war against France, setting a deadline of September 1. Scotland’s response was to immediately enter their own negotiations both with France and Norway.  In October of 1294, John Balliol openly defied Edward.  By the summer of 1295, Edward became aware of Scotland’s negotiations with France, and, being a medieval king, did what medieval kings (usually) did best: he gathered his troops to wage war. 

1296 saw the outbreak of hostilities, as Edward Longshanks, in a brief respite from his war against France, drove his army north to conquer the Scots.

John Balliol was known in his own lifetime by, and has come down through history with, the moniker Toom Tabard, meaning empty coat.  It stems from the incident at his capture and forced abdication on July 10, 1296, in which Edward Longshanks, ever on the lookout for a good chance to humiliate a man, ripped the heraldic insignia from Balliol’s tabard, or tunic.

Balliol’s brief kingship ended with capture of himself and his son by Longshanks, and his forced abdication on July 10, 1296.  He was imprisoned  in England’s Tower of London, released in 1299 briefly into the custody of the Pope, and in 1301, allowed to go to his estates in France, where he lived out the rest of his life in exile.

Take the name John Comyn.  In the time of Robert Bruce, alone, there are several of them important enough to have come down in history.  The best known is the John Comyn, Guardian of Scotland, slain by Bruce before the altar of Greyfriars Kirk.  That John Comyn is also known as John III Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, and the Red Comyn. 

His father, John II Comyn, also Lord of Badenoch, also a Guardian of Scotland at one stage, was the Black Comyn,  and, like his son, fought for the crown of Scotland with a Robert Bruce–although with Robert Bruce’s grandfather,also Robert Bruce,  known as “The Competitor,” in the late 1200′s, whereas John III, the Red Comyn, fought with the younger Robert Bruce, of Braveheart and Bannockburn fame.

Home of the Comyn Family

Current with this John Comyn was his cousin, John Comyn, differentiated by  the title Earl of Buchan.  In an interesting, perhaps sad, twist, this John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, though a great supporter of John Baliol and enemy of Robert Bruce, was also the husband of the remarkable Isobel MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, who left her husband to ride north and claim the MacDuff family’s traditional role of crowning the Kings of Scotland, by placing the crown on Robert Bruce’s head, shortly after he murdered her husband’s cousin, John Comyn, at Greyfriars Kirk.

Confused yet?

Actually, writing it all out has made it all much clearer.  Now for my second act… on to the Alexander Comyns and Alexander MacDougalls!

Whether Bruce went with the intention of killing Comyn, or whether the crime was committed in the heat of an argument is unknown, but the end result is remembered 700 years later: Robert the Bruce, Scotland’s greatest king, killed a man in front of an altar on holy ground.  The deed launched him on a more abrupt road to kingship and war with England than he most likely intended.

Killing was not an unusual matter in medieval life.  Killing a man on holy ground, however, was a serious matter.  Bruce knew that he would be ex-communicated for it, and, more importantly, that an ex-communicated man cannot be crowned king.  His answer was the race to Scone, where he was crowned before the Pope could get the news and proceed with the ex-communication.

The killing at Greyfriars also cemented some of the great families of Scotland against Bruce as king, and leading them to side with England in the years leading up to Bannockburn.  Who’s to say what would have happened, had tempers stayed cool at Greyfriars that day.  Would Scotland have had an easier time, had the Comyns and their kin not turned against Bruce?  Or would Scotland have had a harder time, with continued infighting amongst the clans?  Regardless, the incident stands out as a major event in the life of Robert Bruce and the history of Scotland.

More on John Comyn tomorrow.

 Urquhart dates from medieval days, or earlier.  Adomnan’s Life of Columba tells us that a structure of some sort stood on the same site as early as the 6th Century, most likely the home of an elderly Pict noble, Emchath, whom St. Columba converted, on his way to visit King Brude.  As an interesting side note, other sources say it was on his trip to visit Brude that St. Columba became the first recorded observer of the Loch Ness monster.  He saw a sea creature attacking a man, and drove it off by making the sign of the cross and ordering it to leave.  As a second interesting sidenote, reports say that most Nessie sightings do occur near Urquhart.  I guess it’s as popular among behemoth semi-mythical sea creatures as among humans!

Despite evidence of some structure on the site that early, there are no actual records of Urquhart Castle until the 1200′s.  The land on which it is built was once the home of the Durward family, leading many to believe they built the castle.  In 1250, Alan Durward, a powerful Scottish noble and brother-in-law of King Alexander III, held Urquhart.  When Durward died in 1268, the castle went to the powerful Comyn family, Lords of Badenoch, who in later years became enemies of the Bruce family.

Through the years, however, Urquhart has gone through many hands.  In 1296, Edward I (Longshanks) of England,  threw the might of his trebuchet against Urquhart, tearing down its walls and taking it.  2 years later, the Scots regained it.  In 1303, Longshanks took it again, only to have it re-captured in 1308 by Robert the Bruce, who gave it to his nephew, Sir Thomas Randolph, future Earl of Moray.

From the 1500′s until 1912, it remained mostly in the hands of the Grants, although it was frequently attacked, and on occasion captured by, the MacDonalds in the 1500′s, and by the Covenanters in 1644.  1689 saw the last government troops living in Urquhart, and in 1691 or ’92, depending on the source, Williamite forces blew up the castle to prevent it being used as a Jacobite stronghold.  For part of its history, in the 1700′s, it lived the ignominous life of a stone quarry, but today is the third busiest of Historic Scotland’s sites.

And Bruce himself seems to have been a rather devout Catholic.  He counted among his close friends and associates Bishops Lamberton and Wishart, and Bernard de Linton, Abbot of Arbroath.  He carried the relics of both St. Columba and St. Fillan to the Battle of Bannockburn in June of 1314.   And on the morning of the main battle, Bruce started the day with Mass, his army of thousands on its knees before Maurice, the blind and barefoot abbot of Inchaffray, not only saying Mass, but receiving absolution.  The Declaration of Arbroath, sent to the Pope in 1320, compares Bruce to the Biblical figures of Joshua and Judas Maccabeus, who led their people against oppressors.  One of his unfulfilled dreams was to go on a Crusade.  Such was his wish that, though he was unable to fulfill it himself, he exhorted a promise from his closest friend, James Douglas, that, after Bruce’s death, James would take his, Bruce’s, heart on Crusade.  This James Douglas did, carrying Bruce’s heart in a silver casket. 

As to excommunication, it is a formal declaration of exclusion from the community, and within the Catholic Church typically means one is no longer allowed to partake of communion. 

For a devout Catholic, Robert Bruce had a bad knack for getting ex-communicated.  It started with the murder of John Comyn, the Red Comyn, Lord of Badenoch (yes, these were all the same man– just to be clear which of several John Comyns we’re talking about) before the altar of Greyfriars Church in 1306.  In Blue Bells of Scotland, Shawn expresses disbelief that a man should be excommunicated for killing, as it seems, to him, to be the national pastime of medieval Scotland.  And it is true that the real issue was not so much the killing, as the killing of a man on holy ground.

The thing to remember about excommunication is that it’s like drenched.  You can’t get more drenched, and you can’t get more excommunicated.  Unlike drenchings, though, excommunication does not ‘dry out.’  You remain so until it is formally lifted.  And this is why it’s an almost amusing story, that in 1317, with the former excommunication never having been lifted, and no more severe penalties to inflict, Pope John XXII once again excommunicated Bruce.  This time, however, he applied the punishment to all of Bruce’s associates, the whole of Scotland, really, and furthermore, declared that the prelates of York and London were to repeat the excommunication ceremony every single Sunday and every holy day for a whole year.  As if a drenched man might become even more drenched.

Interestingly, many sources credit the Pope’s ridiculous order as the inspiration for the Scottish nobles writing the Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland’s most famous document on a par with, and many say largely the basis for, our own Declaration of Independence. 

I wonder how Bruce or his comrades felt about all of this.  I suspect that they were strong enough in their faith in the rightness of their cause, declaring the independence that had always been theirs before Edward Longshanks invaded,  that it was little more than a source of amusement to them, although I would think it might also have saddened them, to be on the wrong side of a faith and church that they obviously valued.