#john comyn

[introvertedpedant]

Stephen Dillane as King Edward I in Outlaw King (2018) - Set One

[kemetic-dreams]

Why did the Templars just disappear in the early Middle Ages when they were so powerful?

They didn’t disappear. They were purged.

Most of them, anyway. Think Order 66 with swords.

But in order to understand why the Knights Templar were rounded up on Friday the 13th, 1307, you need to understand the context of the time in which it happened. Several factors contributed to the fall of the Templars, but the biggest one was this guy:

This is Philip IV, King of France, who ruled from 1285 until his death in 1314. He was the main architect in the fall of the Templars—but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The fall of the Knights Templar was set in motion when the Siege of Acre ended in 1291. When it fell to the Mamluk forces, it marked the loss of the entire Holy Land for Christendom. Acre had been the last piece of territory in the Holy Land held by Christians, so its fall was a grievous blow to Europe. It was an unmitigated disaster.

That’s where the Templars come in.

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or Templars for short, were originally established after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem at the end of the First Crusade. Their mission was to guide and protect pilgrims on the road to the holy city, as traveling in those days was fraught with peril. Those who joined the order in those early days took vows of poverty, chastity, piety and obedience, and their sigil even showed two men riding on the same horse to emphasize the Templars’ rejection of worldly goods.

Their self-imposed poverty didn’t last long, however. The Templars soon found a powerful advocate in a priest named Bernard of Clairvaux, who wielded a great of amount of influence in the Catholic Church. Clairvaux was so psyched about the Templars that he wrote books talking about how awesome they were, and this got everybody so pumped that in 1189 Pope Innocent II issued a papal bull saying that the Templars were exempted from paying taxes to anyone and didn’t have to obey local laws or customs. Instead, the Templars would answer only to the Pope himself. With this kind of public prestige, the Knights Templar soon became a popular charity: powerful lords and peasants alike donated their money, businesses, and even vast tracts of land to their cause, and sons from noble families from across Europe clamored to join them.

The Order quickly grew to be one of the most powerful military and financial institutions in Europe. They achieved famous victories such as the Battle of Montgisard in 1177, when some 500 Templar knights, backed up by a force of only several thousand foot soldiers, took on more than 26,000 enemy soldiers and absolutely crushed them. At the height of their power, the Templars were so rich and so powerful that even the crowned heads of Europe didn’t want to cross them. They controlled vast tracts of land throughout Europe and the Middle East, built massive cathedrals and castles, and were heavily involved in manufacturing as well as imports and exports, which is why they controlled a large fleet of trading ships and an even larger navy. They even set up an early kind of banking system and bought the whole freaking island of Cyprus.

A century after their founding, the Templars had become an independent state in all but name. Some historians have even called them the first true multinational corporation.

But when Acre fell and the Christians lost their grip on the Holy Land, the Templars lost their reason for being. Even as they grew in power they never neglected their original purpose of protecting pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem. But now that the Holy Land was lost, there weren’t any pilgrims to protect. The loss of the Holy Land also did a lot to diminish their reputation in the eyes of peasants and nobles alike, some of whom even blamed them for the catastrophe that Christendom had suffered. Public support for the order began to wane.

I mean, imagine that you’re a European king or feudal lord for a just second. The Templars have returned to Europe in the aftermath of the Third Crusade. Maybe they’re even travelling through your land. They’ve got a massive army, a massive navy, they don’t pay taxes, they’re richer than sin, and they can do pretty much whatever the hell they want because the laws literally don’t apply to them. The only person with the authority to command the Templars to do anything is the Pope, and Rome’s a long way away. If they decide to camp outside your castle and eat your food and drink your wine for three weeks as your “guests,” there’s nothing you can do about it. The idea of such a powerful force with so little accountability would have made you pretty uneasy. And the Templars themselves did little to relieve that anxiety. Many of them could, and did, take full advantage of their immunity to local laws and customs. The phrase “drunk as a Templar” became popular for a reason. To be sure, all this might have been more easily borne before the tide of the Crusades turned against the Crusaders, but now these jokers are walking around all lordly-wise and they’re not even winning anymore. All of this made a lot of very powerful people very nervous and increasingly disgruntled.

The point I’m trying to get at here is that the Templars were already having some serious PR issues even before Philip IV of France came along. Speaking of which…

See, Philip IV came to the French throne in 1285, and by 1303 he found himself and his kingdom deeply in debt after several failed—and very expensive—military campaigns. King Phil couldn’t afford to pay for all that on his own, so he went to the only people in Europe who could loan him the cash he needed. Those people—you guessed it—were the Templars, and he opened a huge tab with them that only got larger with time. And since King Philip seems to have had the financial acumen of a freaking goldfish, it didn’t take long for him to bring his kingdom into dire straits.

Now, Philip shared many of the same concerns about the Templars as his contemporaries, but he was probably much more worried about how much money he owed them. He may have even feared that the Knights would try to overthrow him if he wasn’t able to pay them back—and he damn sure wasn’t able to pay them back, not after borrowing such enormous sums.

In short, all of his biggest headaches seemed to trace back to the Templars. So what did he decide to do?

Get rid of the Templars, of course. By destroying them, he could eliminate a potential threat to his authority, wipe out his debt, and replenish his kingdom’s coffers all in one fell swoop.

But the Templars were traditionally protected by the Pope, so Philip IV’s first task was to remove their shield of papal authority. He did this by committing an act almost as audacious as his persecution of the Templars: stacking the papacy. Here is when we first see his Machiavellian brilliance on full display, for it was through this web of machinations—which included bribery, intimidation, and even violence—that he was able to get a puppet Pope, Clement V, installed in the Vatican. Clement issued the edicts, but it was Philip who pulled his strings. The King of France now had de facto control over the Catholic Church, and he used that control to have Pope Clement draw up a long list of charges against the Templars. These included blasphemy, heresy, sodomy, idol-worship and even witchcraft. He also accused the Templars of performing obscene rites in their initiation ceremonies, which was a clever charge to make because the Templars kept the details of those ceremonies a closely-guarded secret. No one knew what those ceremonies entailed, and the Templars were forbidden by oath from discussing them with outsiders, so they couldn’t really refute the charges against them.

Needless to say, few historians take these any of these accusations seriously. They were almost certainly fabrications concocted by the king himself.

Next, Philip lured all the Templar leaders to France on a pretext. He claimed that he wanted to discuss merging them with another knightly order, the Knights Hospitaller. All the most powerful Templars heeded his call and came to France. Many were accompanied by lavish baggage trains, which Philip was no doubt counting on. He then issued secret instructions to all his officials in every city and town where the Templars were staying. So did Pope Clement, at Philip’s behest.

In other words, these orders were sent out not just across France but across Europe, to every village, city, castle and keep with a Templar presence. It was received by princes, judges and civil officials in Spain, England, Germany and Cyprus. But no matter who they were sent to, the orders were the same:

At daybreak on Friday the 13th of October, 1307, every Templar in sight was to be arrested. Nothing was to be said to anyone about the raid before it happened, on pain of death if the plot was given away.

The plan went off like clockwork. It took the Templars completely by surprise. At dawn on the appointed day, they suddenly found themselves under attack all over the Continent. Some managed to escape, but many of them were rounded up and imprisoned or killed. Those unlucky enough to be captured, including their Grand Master Jacques du Molay, were tortured until they confessed to the trumped-up charges that had been leveled against them. Many of them died from this terrible treatment or were burned at the stake, and Pope Clement officially dissolved the Knights Templar several years later. Du Molay himself was eventually burned at the stake along with many of his comrades.

But the immense wealth that Philip had planned on seizing never materialized. The vast treasure the Templars brought with them to France was never recovered, and no one knows what happened to it. We do know that a Templar fleet of more than twenty vessels was anchored in the French city of La Rochelle before the purge and vanished overnight shortly after it began, but no one knows where it went. Some believe that the Templars used those ships smuggle their treasure out of France just in the nick of time, but there’s no way to know for certain. And even if they did, the treasure is just as lost to us today as it would have been had it stayed in France.

Nor does anyone know for certain what happened to the Templars who were lucky enough to survive the purge. Some of them no doubt faded into the background or lived the rest of their lives in hiding. Others may have vanished into the ranks of the Knights Hospitaller. A lucky few might have been able to bribe or plead enough for clemency if they were caught.

There are stories, though. One of the most persistent legends says that some of the remaining Templars managed to make it to Scotland, where they later fought for Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The Templars had strong connections with Scotland that dated back for more than a century, and Robert had little reason to honor the papal decree to purge the Templars. The pope had excommunicated him and his entire country after he murdered one of his rivals, John Comyn, inside a church on February 10, 1306, and now the King of Scots was fighting a brutal war against the English. If the Templars did indeed show up on his doorstep, he would have been happy to have such experienced and fearsome warriors on his side. But to date, no solid evidence has been found to give this theory credence.

Another legend—and my personal favorite—claims that some of the Templars fled to the Swiss Alps. In fact, there are stories in Switzerland even today of “armed white knights” who helped the Swiss crush an invasion by Duke Leopold of Hapsburg in 1315, just a few years after the purge. Could these “white knights” have been Templars? If they were, they picked a perfect spot. The Swiss Alps are formidable even with today’s technology, so they would have been an ideal location to hide in. They would also have been a great place for the Templars to put their expertise to good use. In fact, some claim that these fugitive Templars trained the very first Swiss pikemen, who went on to win renown as the most fearsome fighters in Europe. It is, after all, fairly remarkable how quickly the Swiss, who had been simple subsistence farmers for centuries before Duke Leopold’s invasion, became some of the finest warriors of their day. The story even goes so far as to claim that the Templars also taught the Swiss their secrets of banking and finance, and that those same secrets eventually evolved into the unique banking system still used in Switzerland today.

But by far the most fantastical—and least likely—story says that a group of Templars fled to North America, and that they used old maritime routes first pioneered by the Vikings centuries earlier to island-hop across the North Atlantic until they landed somewhere along the upper northeastern seaboard. Few historians take this assertion seriously, however, as there is almost no archaeological evidence to back it up.

Ultimately, as with the final destination of their fabled wealth, the true fate of the last Templars will likely never be known.

[scotianostra]

On February 24th 1303 The Battle of Roslin took place. 

This is one of the largest battles within Scotland during the First Scottish War of Independence, and has been largely glossed over in our history books.

Although many of the details are debated nowadays, without victories, like at Roslin on this day in 1303 we may never have been able to secure victory at the most famous of all battles at Bannockburn over 11 years later.

As the English army advanced through Scotland in another retaliatory campaign for the Guardians earlier expulsion of Edward I’s sheriffs and bailiffs, they initially met little opposition. The accounts talk of the army being divided up into three divisions, which approached  Roslin mid February and made camp.

IIt was while in their respective camps that the English divisions were surprised by an attack led by mounted Scottish knights, led by John “The Red”  Comyn and Simon  "The Patriot" Fraser and some sources suggest William Wallace although we don’t know this for sure. The Scots had ridden overnight from Biggar and attacked the occupants of the first camp, the survivors of this assault then warning the occupants of the second camp. The men in the second camp collected their arms and defended themselves against the Scots who had moved on from their first target. There was vicious hand to hand combat, in which the English almost succeeded in gaining the upper hand. However, rallied by their leaders the Scots renewed their assault and took the camp. No sooner had this combat ended than the third English division appeared, presumably better prepared for action than either of the first two. Again with the encouragement of their leaders the Scots re-entered the fray and to the astonishment of all won their third victory, though not before putting the survivors of the first two battles to the sword and taking their horses.

While the defeated army was acting on behalf of the English king, it is also likely to have contained many Scots loyal to Edward. The English army, in line with normal practice of the time, appears to have been split into three ‘battles’, or divisions, while on the march, each commanded by Sir John Segrave, the First Lieutenant of Scotland for Edward I, Ralph Manton, the Cofferer (Treasurer) of Edward I, and the third under either Sir William Latimer or Sir Robert Neville. There is unfortunately no information on the reasons behind the army being split in this way. Fordun, who was writing in the 15th century, states that it was simply due to the lack of suitable camping ground to accommodate the entire army, whereas others, such as Buchanan, writing in the 17th century, think it was a tactical disposition. The fact that medieval armies did generally fight in three divisions does suggest that there is more to the decision than the availability of camping space, as does the fact that the army is reported to have arrived in Roslin already divided into three. Scots:

There is very little specific information available on the Scots army, save that the force were mounted, which allowed them to carry out the surprise attack, and that they were under the command of John Comyn and Simon Fraser.

The earliest accounts seem to offer unrealistically high numbers, especially for the English army. This inflation is likely to be nothing more than pro-Scottish propaganda geared toward glorifying the scale of the victory, but I myself am not too convinced about this, for reasons I will come to after going through the numbers. According to Scotland’s Sovereignty asserted by Thomas Craig the English consisted of 30,000 men split into the three ‘battles’ which consisted of three brigades of knights and at least 10,000 mercenary soldiers. Now Craig’s account wasn’t written until 1695, a time when Scotland was still an Independent country with a great pride in it’s past victories, that’s not to say it should be dismissed, again I will come to that. Here is a brief description of the battle by the Scottish Chronicler John of Fordun, who lived between 1360 and c. 1384

. …there never was so desperate a struggle, or one in which the stoutness of knightly prowess shone forth so brightly. The commander and leader in this struggle was John Comyn, the son… But John Comyn, then guardian of Scotland, and Simon Fraser with their followers, day and night, did their best to harass and to annoy, by their general prowess, the aforesaid kings officers and bailiffs… But the aforesaid John Comyn and Simon, with their abettors, hearing of their arrival, and wishing to steal a march rather than have one stolen upon them, came briskly through from Biggar to Rosslyn, in one night, with some chosen men, who chose rather death before unworthy subjection to the English nation; and all of a sudden they fearlessly fell upon the enemy.

Forduns account also embellishes the story with the tale of a love affair, I have posted about this before, in my own mind it is a good yarn, but medieval battles were not fought over the love of a woman, this is not Braveheart we are describing here!

The Scots are said to have numbered anywhere between 8 and 10 thousand, again all these numbers are from historians telling the story between the 17th and 18th centuries, so we have no real way of knowing for sure how accurate they are.

As to the dead, well I have used Wikipedia in the past and they had numbers on their page, these now seem to have been removed for some reason, in fact the whole post there is quite pathetic, all it says under casualties and losses is that “At least 16 knights captured” on the English side, nothing on the Scots losses. All of the historical sources state that the Scottish army slaughtered many of the English force; however, no specific numbers are quoted, though Sir Thomas Gray says in the Scalacronica, a Northumbrian chronicle of the era states that Ralph Manton was slain, apparently by Sir Simon Fraser, and Sir Robert Neville is also thought to have been killed during the second Scottish attack. Given the information available from the sources and the surviving place-name evidence, it does appear the casualties on the day may have been extremely high, I am from the area and there are some great place names said to have sprung up from the battle, Shin Banes Field; The Hewan and Killburne, Killbrne ( A burn being a small stream) is said to have been discoloured with blood for three days afterwards.

I have to try and bring this long post to an end by explaining why history seems to have so few real facts about, what was a massive victory for the Scots. Well from an English point of view it was a humiliating defeat, so they are not going to write about it in any real depth, it is also said that this was a secret or a punitive expedition, this would suggest their numbers were nowhere near the 30,000 quoted in places.

On the reasons the Scots history books have little about Roslin, between Fordun in the 14th century until Craig in 1695 there is nothing I can find, well that comes down to history being written by the victors. Yes the Scots won a famous victory, but who was at the head of this victory? Well the subject of a post exactly two weeks ago, John Comyn III of Badenoch, nicknamed the Red, sworn enemy of Robert the Bruce and murdered by Bruce. The Scottish King may very well have suppressed stories of John Comyn’s prowess as a warrior at a time he would have been only interested in his own achievements, even after his death in The Brus  by John Barbour written around 1375 there is no mention of Roslin, The Brus was written for King Robert II to honour his namesake,Barbour was paid a pension for life for this, he wasn’t going to boast about Comyn’s exploits in it was he!

The pics of the memorial were taken by me an a cold February day in 2016.

[hiraethy]

MOREOVER. (x)

[spockvarietyhour]

I was starting Robert the Bruce without remembering/knowing that Jared Harris was also in this

[historybizarre]

Robert the Bruce: champion of Scotland or murderous usurper?

On 23 and 24 June 1314, Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, faced King Edward II at Bannockburn in the decisive battle of the Wars of Scottish Independence. Dr Michael Brown takes a closer look at the Scottish king and his often bloody path to the throne

Those seeking to understand these events saw Comyn’s death as a deliberate step on Bruce’s path to the throne. The English investigation of the murder in 1306 concluded that Comyn was killed because “he would not assent to the treason that Bruce planned against the king of England, it is believed”. In English chronicles of the period, Bruce lured Comyn to Dumfries to kill him. In Scottish accounts, by contrast, Bruce and Comyn agreed to work together for Scotland’s freedom. Comyn, however, betrayed Bruce’s plans to Edward I and was killed in revenge for his treachery.

[scotianostra]

The second of our murder stories today......

On February 10th 1306, John Comyn, a leading claimant to the vacant Scottish throne, was murdered by his arch-rival, Robert the Bruce, whilst in a Dumfries church.

Forget Braveheart, far from betraying William Wallace, the Bruce was inspired by him and, after the battle of Stirling Bridge he realised that Edward’s army could be defeated and Scotland eventually freed from English domination, but how best to go about this?

Setting Scotland free  could not be achieved without an established leader and this would have to be sorted out quickly.

  There were really only two men who could step up and become King, John Balliol had been out of the picture for too long and by this time would have been about 60 years old, Scotland needed a younger, more ambitious monarch, only two men were ready, and able to step up, Robert the Bruce himself or his arch enemy John “The Red” Comyn.

  The two men were always at each other’s throats and distrusted each other completely.

The Bruce suggested that they could both meet in a church and discuss who should be the next king. With their supporters outside, the meeting took place by the high altar of Greyfriars Monastery, Dumfries. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but history tells us that Robert the Bruce murdered the Red Comyn in Greyfriars Monastery Blackfriars that day.

I like to dip into the old newspapers of the day, whatever the post, be it modern or like this ancient, and just like today they had their own agendas and bias, this was a typical English account

  Robert de Brus, aspiring to the kingdom of Scotland, sacrilegiously killed the noble man John Comyn at Dumfries (where the justiciar of the king of England was then sitting in the castle) in the church of the Friars Minor, because [Comyn] would not consent to his treasonable action. Robert de Brus junior, earl of Carrick, grievously killed John Comyn, the greatest man in the whole nation of Scotland after the king, because the same John refused to consent to the treason of the same Robert and of the Scots against the king of England There are also some fuller narratives that give details about what had been going on, or at least their version of the events.

  The first comes from a section of the Flores Historiarum written shortly after 1306 at Westminster Abbey – which of course was closely associated with Edward I.  

In it, The Bruce meets with various Scottish nobles, ‘first secretly and then openly’; he tells them that, as they know, his father was not made king because of Edward I’s trickery, but now, if theycrown him, he will wage their war and liberate Scotland. Many perjurethemselves and agree. But when he asks the noble and powerful John Comyn for support, Comyn ‘firmly replied no’ – ‘so he slaughtered him’ in the Franciscan church at Dumfries.

This narrative was expanded in the fuller ‘Merton’ version of the Flores, possibly written for Edward II’s coronation in 1307. In this fuller account Comyn is given an eloquent speech saying the king of England has subjugated Scotland four times, and all Scots, knights and clergy, have therefore sworn fealty and homage to him for both the present and the future; so ‘let me take no part in this – truly, I shall never give assent in this matter, lest I am forsworn’. They argue at length, until Bruce draws  sword and strikes the unarmed Comyn on the head; but the extremely strong Comyn tries to seize the sword from his assailant’s hands, and throws him down. However, the traitor’s attendants, rushing up to free their lord, stab Comyn with their swords. Comyn escapes to the altar; but‘Robert followed … and the impious and cruel man sacrificed his holy victim’. It is the most dramatic of all the accounts of the killing.

There are a number of other English versions of the murder, some written a decade or so later, they all believe that Robert Bruce was planning to become king well before Comyn’s death, which, though plausible is obviously based on hindsight.

  One thing that the English chroniclers all agree on is Comyn’s insistence on upholding his homage and fealty to the English king, basically he was happy to be ruled by an English king.  I have to say though, not just the English agreed with this, but it was only natural that the concept of the ultra-loyal, ultra-honourable Comyn was a vital piece of English propaganda against Robert I. Moreover, it would have been vehemently promoted by the rest of the Comyn kin, since the killing at Dumfries had transformed its members from leading upholders of the Scottish cause into dependent allies of Edward I who looked for his support in the bloodfeud with Robert I.

Okay enough of the English versions, let's look at what the Scots were saying and firstly we have The Scotichronicon (what a great name eh?)  by chronicler John Bower who was a canon and abbot at Inchcolm Abbey on the Firth of Forth, a great place to visit by the way!.

  In The Scotichronicon Comyn  is consistently and famously portrayed as agreeing to help Robert Bruce become king in return for Robert’s lands, and then betraying this agreement to Edward I, remember I said about this in my post a few days ago about Bruce taking Dumfries. Well reflecting on this, Bower depicts Comyn as overcome by ‘the spirit of iniquity’; in other words he is an agent of the Devil. It is a theme in these chronicles, on both sides of the border, indeed in Europe as a whole to make statements like this, or comparing men to biblical figures, remember these stories were all written by deeply religious figures.  The Comyns are shown to having a strong aversion towards William Wallace, for instance deserting him at Falkirk out of jealousy and ‘clear wickedness’.

  Gesta Annalia, an important medieval chronicle detailing our history also points to the famous crown-for-land offer between Comyn and Bruce going on to say  Comyn destroys this unity by betraying the agreement to Edward I, and that is why Bruce kills him. I have to say that this is the main gist of the story that I have understood to be true.

  Gesta's accounts again head in the religious directions saying that God makes his greatest intervention in Scotland’s wars etc, etc. He says Bruce decided to put the public good before his own private interests and therefore approached Comyn humbly with the offer and he is clearly acting under divine influence.  How does Bruce respond to God’s call? Only goes and murders Comyn in a church causing him to be excommunicated by the Pope!

  Of course the most partisan version that we have of what happened is from John Barbour, author of The Brus. In this it agrees with Gesta, and other Scottish Chronclers the Comyn had proposed the deal and offered to support Bruce's claim for the crown in return for all of Bruce's existing lands and titles.

None of the religious nonsense for Barbour, this version is much more secular, and when it comes to the actual killing, Barbour’s account is succinct and brutal;

Sa fell it in the samyn tid That at Dumfres rycht thar besid Schir Jhone the Cumyn sojornyng maid. The Brus lap on and thidder raid And thocht foroutyn mar letting 30 For to quyt hym his discovering. Thidder he raid but langer let And with Schyr Jhone the Cumyn met In the Freris at the hye awter, And schawyt him with lauchand cher 35 The endentur, syne with a knyff Rycht in that sted hym reft the lyff. Schyr Edmund Cumyn als wes slayn And othir mony off mekill mayn. Nocht-for-thi yeit sum men sayis 40 At that debat fell other-wayis, Bot quhat-sa-evyr maid the debate Thar-throuch he deyt weill I wat. He mysdyd thar gretly but wer That gave na gyrth to the awter,

To sum things up the best explanation the English sources can offer for the intention to kill his rival is Bruce's innate wickedness, which is an understandable attitude for them to take in the circumstances but not especially convincing. Gesta, Fordun and of course Barbour are going to be more sympathetic to King Robert. All make the explicit claim that a written agreement existed between the two that Comyn had broken.

To go back to Barbour’s poem, in it he exonerated Bruce's sacrilegious murder  as the just slaughter of a traitor. But this is no mere whitewash. The grave suffering which Bruce endures after his inauguration as king in 1306 represent a series of chivalrous and moral adventures in which Bruce proves himself worthy of his prize, but the murder, and it’s ramifications, that he was excommunicated, played greatly on his mind. You only have to look at the last hours of his life when he asked Sir James Douglas to carry his heart on a crusade, one which he was never himself able to take during his life due to the days events of February 10th 1310 in Dumfries.  

You can read the full epic poem The Brus here  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44292/44292-h/44292-h.htm

[scotianostra]

Robert the Bruce: champion of Scotland or murderous usurper?

On 23 and 24 June 1314, Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, faced King Edward II at Bannockburn in the decisive battle of the Wars of Scottish Independence. Dr Michael Brown takes a closer look at the Scottish king and his often bloody path to the throne

On February 10th 1306, John Comyn, a leading claimant to the vacant Scottish throne, was murdered by his arch-rival, Robert the Bruce, whilst in a Dumfries church.

This has went down as the most important political murder in Scottish history. Although we know the outcome historians still to this day argue on the circumstances.

Robert Bruce was not the only noble with a claim to the Scottish throne - his was not even the strongest. John Comyn, once a joint Guardian of Scotland with Bruce, was more closely related to the last king of Scotland, John Balliol.

Bruce and Comyn had been trying to decide how Scotland should be ruled for some time before the winter of 1305-1306. They had been in constant negotiations with one another and had arranged a meeting in Greyfriar's Kirk, in Dumfries on 10 February 1306.

Historians are uncertain about what actually happened at the meeting, but most agree the following:

the two met as rivals - tension would have been high

there was a disagreement

by the time Bruce left the Church, Comyn had been injured

some reports say Bruce’s cousin and supporter, Roger de Kirkpatrick, re-entered the church to ensure Comyn was dead

other reports suggest Bruce himself assassinated Comyn

If Bruce had killed Comyn, he had done so in a holy place. This meant that he had committed sacrilege - a crime against the Church. This demanded punishment. The Pope decided to excommunicate Bruce - banishing him from the Catholic Church, but more importantly Longshanks had persuaded the Pope to excommunicate not just The Bruce, but the whole nation, hoping it would turn the people of Scotland against Bruce, and it almost worked.

This action would have weighed heavily on Bruce. The Church gave legitimacy and protection to kingly authority. Without its support, Bruce would find it difficult to hold on to power if he became king.

Bruce still had the support of Bishop Wishart of Glasgow, who pardoned him for his supposed crime. Wishart convinced Bruce that the time was right to declare himself king. He helped organise Bruce's coronation.

Bruce was inaugurated king of Scotland on 25 March 1306 at Scone. The ceremony took place without the Stone of Scone and the Scottish Crown Jewels. These had been taken to England by Edward I in 1296.

Only a few supporters were present and the ceremony was led by the Countess of Buchan. This emphasised the lack of support Bruce had among Scottish nobles, many of whom were allied to the deceased John Comyn or John Balliol. The threat of civil war loomed once more.

Again,a post that will lead on to others throughout the year. If you want to read a great piece about the murder of John Comyn, check out this link.......