Robert Bruce of Scotland

“ Devotion to her destined savior argues well for bonny Scotland; better do homage unto thee as liege and king, though usurpation hath abridged thy kingdom, than to the hireling of England's Edward, all Scotland at his feet. Men will not kneel to sceptred slaves, nor freemen fight for tyrants' tools. Sovereign of Scotland thou art, thou shalt be, Robert the Bruce! Too long hast thou kept back; but now, if arms can fight and hearts can pray, thou shalt be king of Scotland. ”

“ The death of a traitor I protest against; for to the King of England I am no subject, and in consequence no traitor! I have but done that which every true and honorable man must justify, and in justifying respect. I have sought with my whole heart the liberty of my country, the interest of my lawful sovereign, and will die asserting the honor and justice of my cause, even as I have lived. I plead not for mercy, for were it offered, on condition of doing homage unto Edward, I would refuse it, and choose death; protesting to the last that Robert Bruce, and he alone, is rightful king of Scotland. ”

“ His father was the eldest son of Helen Bruce of Kinnaird, [1] and David Hay of Woodcockdale, descended from an old and respectable branch of the Hays of Enroll, distinguished in ancient Scottish history by their bravery, and who received from Robert I. the hereditary office of high-constable of Scotland. Bruce's mother was the daughter of James Graham, Esq., of Airth, dean of the faculty of advocates, and judge of the high court of admiralty in Scotland: a man distinguished by his abilities, and respected for his public and private virtues. ”

“ Great must have been the temptation to provide so fitting a reward for his brother's priceless services. Bruce had accomplished already, in securing the Scottish crown, a far heavier piece of work than seemed to lie between him and the conquest of Ireland; while, from a strategic point of view, it would be no trifling advantage thus to plant on the flank of England a power friendly to Scotland.
The expedition went forward. The Earl of Carrick landed at Carrickfergus on May 25, 1315, with 6000 men and some of the best knights in Scotland. ”

“ In the reign of Malcolm the Second, the districts now called Aberdeen and Forfar were possessed, and had been so, so tradition saith, since Kenneth MacAlpine, by the Lords of Brus or Bris, a family originally from the North. They were largely and nobly connected, particularly with Norway and Gaul. It is generally supposed the first possessions in Scotland held in fief by the line of Bruce can be traced back only to the time of David I., in the person of Robert de Bruce, an Anglo-Norman baron, whose father came over to England with the Conqueror. ”

“ Of little heed to Edward were the resistance of all Scotland, were Robert in his power. Honor, station, wealth!—oh, knowest thou the human heart so little as to believe these can exist with black treachery and fell remorse? Once and forever, I tell thee thine offers are in vain. Were death in one scale, and free, unshackled liberty in the other, and thou badest me choose between, I would not so stain my soul. Death, death itself were welcome, aye, worse than death—confinement, chains. I would hug them to my heart as precious boons, rather than live and walk the earth a traitor. ”

“ Thou hast wisdom and experience, if not years enough, to answer for thyself.
"Tell Aymer de Valence, would he seek me, he will find me by the side of my sovereign King Robert, in Methven Park, three days hence," boldly and quickly answered the young soldier, stepping forward from his post in the circle, and fronting the knight. "Tell him I am here of my own free will, to acknowledge Robert the Bruce as mine and Scotland's king; to defy the tyrant Edward, even to the death; tell him 'tis no child he seeks, but a knight and soldier, who will meet him on the field." ”

“ Upon his death, this knight bequeathed his English lands to his eldest son, and those in Annandale to his younger, who received a confirmation of his title by a charter of William the Lion. From this root sprung Robert Bruce, the competitor for the crown with Baliol, whose grandson was the more celebrated Robert Bruce, the younger, Earl of Carrick in virtue of his mother's title, and afterward King of Scotland. He was the eldest of three brothers and seven sisters, whose marriages with some of the leading families of Scotland proved an important element of success to the future hero. ”

“ But just as they were on the point of abandoning their lines and marching to the wild district of the Lennox, on the west of Stirling, Sir Alexander de Seton, a Scottish knight in the English service, having deserted King Edward's camp, rode to Bruce's tent in the wood, and told him that if ever he meant to be King of Scotland, now was his time: "for," said he "the English have lost heart and are disconcerted; they are dreading a sudden assault." He described the disposition of their forces, and pledged his life that if Bruce attacked them next morning, he would vanquish them without fail. ”

“ The royal arms of Scotland are graven on one side of the blade, surmounted with a crown; on the other side is represented a heart, towards which two hands point, over one of which are the letters, K. R. B. (King Robert Bruce) , over the other, I. L. D. (James Lord Douglas) . [11] It will be perceived that these initials are quite inconsistent with fourteenth century practice.
Before taking final leave of Douglas Castle and its associations with Robert the Bruce, it may not be out of place to add to its memories one connected with another great Scotsman. ”

“ On the other hand, if, as Fabyan and other English writers report, the King of Scots took refuge during this winter in Norway, it is very unlikely that Barbour should not have heard of it, and even less likely that he should suppress such a romantic episode. Neither is it likely that Bruce, had he gone to Norway, would have chosen for his return to Scotland a moment when his cause seemed utterly broken; when his friends, the Earl of Menteith, Sir Patrick Graham, and others had surrendered to Edward, [18] and the coast was swarming with English and Highland galleys in search of him. ”

“ After receiving the intelligence from Scotland, Bruce was lying one morning on his wretched bed, and deliberating with himself whether he had not better resign all thoughts of again attempting to make good his right to the Scottish crown, and, dismissing his followers, transport himself and his brothers to the Holy Land, and spend the rest of his life in fighting against the Saracens. ”

“ No; nothing is heard of this adventure till long after Bruce and his comrades have passed away, and then it makes its appearance, in company with such trash as the miraculous appearance of the arm-bone of St. Fillan on the eve of Bannockburn, and worthy of just about as much consideration.
"But then," it may be argued by persons unwilling to surrender a bit of favourite lore, "how comes it that spiders are treated with peculiar respect in Scotland, and, especially, that no one who claims consanguinity with Bruce will kill, or suffer one to be killed in his presence?" ”

“ Bruce's Struggles.—For several years King Robert was an outlaw and a fugitive, with but a handful of followers. Their lives were in constant danger. Whenever an opportunity offered, they made daring attacks on the English in possession; at other times they saved their lives by hairbreadth escapes from their pursuit. The Celts of the west and of Galloway, who had been won over to the English interest, were against them, and the Earl of Buchan, husband of the patriotic Countess, and his kinsman, Macdougal of Lorn, were Bruce's most deadly enemies. ”

“ The Bruce is the great national poem, Robert the Bruce the great national hero of Scotland. But although The Bruce concerns Scotland in the first place, it is of interest to every one, for it is full of thrilling stories of knightly deeds, many of which are true. "The fine poem deserves to be better known," says one of its editors.* "It is a proud thing for a country to have given a subject for such an Odyssey, and to have had so early in its literature a poet worthy to celebrate it." ”

“ Scotland would have been of little worth to its more powerful neighbour if it had been cowed into subjection; whereas when, after struggling and suffering for her independence, she offered herself freely as the companion and ally of England to share in common duties and common efforts, the gift was priceless. That Scotland was able to shake off the English yoke was mainly the work of Robert Bruce, the grandson of the Robert Bruce who had been one of the claimants of the Scottish crown at Norham. ”

“ So disheartened were the English with the results of the campaign that, on a renewal of hostilities by the Scots, commissioners were sent to the camp of the Scottish king at Norham with proposals for a treaty of peace, and for a marriage between Joanna, princess of England, and David, only son of Robert Bruce. The result was the treaty of peace concluded at Edinburgh on 13 March 1327–8, and ratified at a parliament held at Northampton on 4 July 1328, in which the independent dignity of Robert Bruce as king of Scotland was fully recognised. ”

“ Sir Thomas Gray also bears testimony to Bruce's activity, and explains the favour he steadily gained, in part at least, by the harsh conduct of English officials 'for purposes of individual advantage.' We have already seen that as early as May Scotland beyond the Forth was ready for the advent of Bruce, and the English officers were looking forward with dread to the death of Edward I. And now Bruce turned from Galloway to the north. ”

“ The chief object of the Earl of Moray's second voyage to Scotland was to convey an earnest entreaty from the new King of Ireland for the personal assistance of the King of Scots, with Edward de Brus's assurance that they would prove irresistible if united in the field. King Robert, therefore, leaving his realm under the guardianship of Douglas and Walter the Steward, sailed from Loch Ryan early in the autumn of 1316, and joined Edward at Carrickfergus. ”

“ Robert de Brus, son of No. 1, married Agnes, daughter of Fulk Pagnel of Carlton. He became a friend of David I. of Scotland at the Court of Henry I. of England, and subsequently received from David a grant of Annandale, extending from the borders of Dunegal, Celtic chief of Nithsdale, to those of the Earl of Cumberland. [2] Before the battle of the Standard, 1138, he renounced his Scottish fief of Annandale, perhaps in favor of his son, and, having vainly tried to dissuade King David from fighting, joined the forces of King Stephen. He died in 1141. ”

“ In the year 1310, King Robert Bruce had overcome many of those extraordinary difficulties that threatened to render all the efforts of mere man unavailable in regaining for Scotland that perfect liberty of which she had so long boasted, and which, though it had never been taken from her absolutely, had been, by the unwarrantable schemes and policy of the first Edward, loosened from her grasp, and lay trampled on by the fierce genius of war. ”

“ Even had there been found a Scotsman so alien from the spirit of his race as to hold the memory of Robert the Bruce as a common thing, unworthy of honour, surely there were noble ashes enough besides in that abbey ground to make it forever sacred. For, so soon as the different peoples inhabiting Scotland had united to form one nation under one monarch, Dunfermline succeeded Iona as the sepulchre of the Scottish kings. Here were laid Malcolm Canmore, his Queen Margaret, and their sons Edward, Edmund, and Ethelbert ”

“ Young, ardent and active, he strove with all his might to win back for England something of the position which it had acquired under Edward I. He bitterly resented the concession of independence to Scotland by the treaty of Northampton of 1328, and the death of Robert Bruce in 1329 gave him a chance of retrieving his position. The new king of Scots, David, who was his brother-in-law, was a mere boy, and the Scottish barons, exiled for their support of Robert Bruce, took advantage of the weakness of his rule to invade Scotland in 1332. ”

“ Edward Bruce is described as a valiant and experienced soldier, but rashly impetuous. He is said to have aspired to share the kingship of Scotland with his brother. This circumstance is supposed to have induced King Robert to favour an expedition against the English in Ireland, which Edward Bruce was invited to undertake by some of the native chiefs there who regarded him as descended from the same ancestors as themselves. Edward Bruce landed in Ulster in May 1315, with about six thousand men, accompanied by the Earl of Moray and other Scottish commanders. ”

“ Having determined to renew his efforts to obtain possession of Scotland, the Bruce removed himself and his followers from Rachrin to the island of Arran, which lies in the mouth of the Clyde. The King landed, and inquired of the first woman he met what armed men were in the island. She returned for answer that there had arrived there very lately a body of armed strangers, who had defeated an English governor of the castle, and were now amusing themselves with hunting about the island. ”