On July 11th 1274 Robert the Bruce was born in Turnberry Castle, Ayrshire.
I don't like repeating the same old story, especially on posts like this, The Bruce turns up so often in my posts that it isn't any wonder he is part of the Scottish Psyche. In 2006 Robert the Bruce came third in a poll of ‘most important Scots’, behind William Wallace and Robert Burns. Leaving aside what that says about the nation that produced, among others, David Hume and Adam Smith, Alexander Fleming and John Logie Baird, there can be no doubt that a king that ruled 700 years ago is still very much remembered by Scots today and, even more pertinently, that his life and achievements are deemed to be profoundly influential. It is hard to imagine Edward III or Henry V of England being similarly admired.
Not a lot is known about Robert's early life so unfortunately I do end up repeating parts of his life.....
Looking into how he came to be our Monarch, Bruce’s grandfather had come off second best in 1292 to a rival claimant to the Scottish throne, John Balliol, who then reigned for four years until Edward I deprived him of his kingship in 1296. John Comyn of Badenoch, as Balliol’s nephew, had both an arguably better claim by blood and certainly by power, influence and track record than Robert Bruce, for his own ambitions, whether it be just to become King, or for the sake of ridding Scotland of Edwards army Robert had to ‘deal’ with his rival before seeking the throne for himself.
In this fracturing and fevered environment, the would-be king turned to Bishop Robert Wishart of Glasgow, a man who had shown himself consistently motivated since the 1280s by a desire to keep Scotland intact and independent (though he, like most Scots, had on occasions been forced to acknowledge King Edward as ruler of the northern kingdom). We do not know that Bishop Wishart made Bruce ‘swear upon the Holy Gospels and the tomb of St Kentigern’ to pursue the cause of Scottish independence with his life, if necessary. Equally, no chronicler at the time mentions the introduction of elements of sacramental kingship that the Scots had long sought from the pope but been denied thanks to English claims of overlordship on the day that Bruce finally did become king.
If you've seen the new film about The Bruce, you will know it is all about the man himself, rather than the historical facts in his reign, and that's why I liked it, I mean come on, we ALL know the story by now and if you don't what have you been doing for the past few years as you haven't been reading my posts!
Robert Bruce, was a man possessed with the ability to think laterally and effectively on almost every issue but saddled by his own hand with one of the most dodgy starts to a successful reign as any in history. Some say he learned to think this way after observing William Wallace, I also like to think this, but he had enough savvy himself to be his own man.
The problem with looking at Scotland in those heady days is that, unlike England, we hardly wrote anything down, Edward and his constant war waging meant he had to raise money for these attacks on Scotland and Wales beforehand, so the English always had that extra layer of bureaucracy, while historians can look at some of their records to glean information about Scotland, we mainly have to look at Chroniclers, like Lanecrost, or the likes of Blind Harry, the author of "he Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace" And John Barbour who wrote "The Brus". In the first case Harry wrote his epic over 150 years after William Wallace's murder. At least Barbour was living in an age where The Bruce was alive, albeit for nine of the years, but events and stories were still fresh and must have been repeated often about our Kings heroics in unting Scotland and vanquishing the English. But Barbour was never going to write anything negative about Bruce, it was Robert II, the first of the Stewart line, that asked Barbour to write the poem, it was always going to be a great propaganda exercise.
Okay let's go back a wee bit, there has been some debate about where Bruce was born, some mischief makers even suggest he was not born at Turnberry, after all we have no diminutive proof, but at Writtle in deepest Essex. The Bruce family owned swathes of land down south, and there is no doubt the young Robert would have spent time in the depths of the English royal courts, he was not uncouth Scottish brute, he grew up in a world of fluid identities, no doubt speaking a number of languages, and with easy access to both the overtly powerful and impressively formal English court as well as the highly personal and personable style of kingship still preferred in Scotland.
One of the things Robert the Bruce may very well have learned from the English and used most notably was the commandeering of noble seals to be attached to documents of state in order to present a veneer of unity to the outside world, this is most notable in the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, it has been argued he took this inspiration from King Edwards, Ragman Rolls, Edward I’s large-scale demand for Scottish seals to acknowledge his right to rule Scotland in 1296.
After Bannockburn and the Declaration of Arbroath King Robert’s genius as a lawmaker and diplomat to rival his undoubted skill as a military leader has also been admired, he had a fine line to tread, while he had gained the upper hand against Edward II's army, many Scots fought against him that day, or at very least supported the English. Even after his death some of those families on the losing side that would come back to try and regain lands and titles from the second Bruce monarch, his son King David II.
Pics are the scant remains of Turnberry Castle, and statues at Stirling, Bannockburn and Aberdeen.
