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  King Robert the Bruce

This page contains some information about King Robert the Bruce.  The tartan shown, Bruce, is there for color and does not imply the historical existence or use of any Robert the Bruce tartan.

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Links

Links to sites with information about King Robert the Bruce:

• Robert I, the Bruce: Robert Bruce is surely the greatest of all the great Scottish heroes, yet the Hollywood movie Braveheart gave all the heroics to his compatriot William Wallace, making Bruce out to be nothing more than a self-serving opportunist.  However, it was the patience and cunning of Bruce that Scotland needed, not the impetuousness of Wallace, especially facing such formidable enemies as the English, first under Edward I and then under his son and heir Edward II.  Bruce bided his time; he first had to establish his authority as King of Scotland.  By the time of Bannockburn, he was ready. The article is worth reading.
   
• King Robert the Bruce - a chronology page by Drs. David Cross & Nowell Donovan 
   
• Scottish Historical Figures: Robert I - 'The Bruce' - a Scotsmart.com article. 
   
• King Robert the Bruce and the spider
   
• The March to Bannockburn
   
• Clan Bruce
   
• The Brus by John Barbour
   
• The Declaration of Arbroath - provided by the Constitution Society http://www.constitution.org/ - in English.  "The Declaration of Arbroath was and has been unequalled in its eloquent plea for the liberty of man.  From the darkness of medieval minds it shone a torch upon future struggles which its signatories could not have foreseen or understood.  The author of this noble Latin address is unknown, though it is assumed to have been composed by Bernard de Linton, Abbot of Arbroath and Chancellor of Scotland.  Above the seals of eight earls and forty-five barons, it asked for the Pope's dispassionate intervention in the bloody quarrel between the Scots and the English, and so that he might understand the difference between the two its preamble gave him a brief history of the former.  The laughable fiction of this is irrelevant.  What is important is the passionate sincerity of the men who believed it, who were placing a new and heady nationalism above the feudal obligations that had divided their loyalties less than a quarter of a century before.  In its mixture of defiance and supplication, nonsensical history and noble thought, two things make the Declaration of Arbroath the most important document in Scottish history."
   
• The Declaration of Arbroath - provided by the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/ - Latin and English versions available on-line.
   

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Articles

Remains Of King Robert the Bruce

Excerpted from SCRAN

A reader of soc.culture.scottish asked: My memory tells me that Bruce's heart is buried at Melrose, but where is the rest of him laid? Most of his body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey.  There is also a bone fragment in St. Conan's Kirk in Lochawe.

Another reader replied with an excerpt from SCRAN

The remains of King Robert the Bruce were discovered on 17 February 1818 when workmen were preparing the foundations for the new Abbey Church.  The identity of the skeleton was verified on account of the displaced breast bone, which had been cut to remove the heart (taken on Crusade by Sir James Douglas), and the fact that it had been wrapped in cloth of gold and placed in a costly coffin.  The news of the discovery caused a sensation throughout Scotland.

A cast of the skull was made as part of the archaeological examination process.  Copies were obtained for the National Museum of Antiquities and for display in Dunfermline Abbey.  The skeleton was interred and sealed in pitch on 5 November 1819, 626 days after its discovery.

In the 1960s, the sculptor Charles d'Orville Pilkington Jackson obtained a cast of the skull, and using techniques developed in Soviet Russia, sought to rebuild the face of Bruce, for his monumental sculpture at Bannockburn.  Pilkington Jackson's cast was purchased from his estate by Dunfermline Heritage Trust in 1993, and this cast a copy of his.  Jackson's facial representation of Bruce took account of the missing front teeth.  However these had been accidentally put to one side when the original cast was being taken, and were passed to the safe keeping of the Earl of Elgin in 1819, and are still with his descendents.

Source:
From: Ian O. Morrison
Newsgroups: soc.culture.scottish
Subject: Re: A Bruce! At least a part of him!
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000

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Rare Art Donated to Bruce International North America

by Charles Randolph & Carolyn Hale Bruce, the authors of The Rebel King.

Jim,
Here is the events article of which we spoke at the Alexandria games.  I also have it up at our site with a visual if you go to http://www.RebelKing.com and click on articles on the left then follow the link.  It will give you the whole story as it is here.  We are working on another article for you and will have that press release for our second book sent to you soon.  We are looking forward to the possibility of coming to DC and talking to your St Andrews meeting, as your program schedule and ours permit.
Thanks for your help,
Randy Bruce

At the Williamsburg Scottish Festival on September 25, 2004, at the Jamestown Beach Campground, Bruce International North America welcomed retired US Air Force Col. and Mrs. Telford Ted Eggleston to their tent for a special presentation.

The Virginia Beach couple has donated and formally presented to the Bruce Family and the Family organization an original rubbing from the brass plate covering the gravesite of Robert I, King of Scots, also known as Robert the Bruce.

Receiving the framed rubbing on behalf of the Family was Thomas Allen Bruce, Commander of the Order of St. John and Lieutenant to the Chief of The Name of Bruce.

The 37th Chief of the Name and Family of Bruce is Sir Andrew Bruce, Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, Knight of the Thistle, CD, of Dunfermline, Scotland.

Col. Eggleston's heritage includes the surname Carlisle, which is a sept of the Family of Bruce.  While stationed in Europe for part of his Air Force career, he amassed a collection of brass rubbings exceeded only by those in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Ashmolean Library, Oxford University, having produced hundreds from gravesites all over England, and the Bruce gravesite in Scotland.

After some months and a number of requests for permission to create a rubbing of The Bruce's 19th century funerary monument, Col. Eggleston was at last given the green light.  Traveling to Fife on his next leave, he and his family arrived to find that the contact he was to see was on holiday and he was, at first, denied access to the gravesite.  With much persuasion, he was finally granted permission late in the day.

Working as quickly as possible in the fading light, he had to complete the project beneath an immovable wooden pulpit barely high enough for him to crawl under.  Still, he persevered, creating an exquisite seven-foot image of the great Scottish hero and king, as visualized by his countrymen 500 years after his death.

Born in 1274, probably at Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire, Robert I reigned as Scotland's monarch from 1306 until his death in 1329.  Most of his reign was occupied with driving the forces of England's kings Edward I and II out of his homeland.

Possibly the most important action taken during his reign, however, was the April 6, 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, a statement of Scottish determination to remain a free and independent people.  That document is said to have greatly influenced the authors of the American Declaration of Independence 450 years later.

After his death at age 55, Robert I was buried at Dunfermline Abbey (sans heart, which rests at Melrose Abbey), and a marble slab was brought from France to mark his tomb.

The passing centuries saw growth and many additions to the Abbey, but all was undone with the Reformation.  In 1560 Protestant mobs sacked the Catholic Abbey and its surrounding buildings, after which it was abandoned as a religious community.  Eventually, parts of the Abbey's walls collapsed, crushing the marble on Robert's grave and effectively removing his resting place from the public's consciousness.

Discovered during new construction preparations in 1818, the royal bones were disinterred and reburied within the church that stands on the site today.  As befits Scotland's greatest hero, a striking brass memorial plate patterned after medieval monumental brasses of the Crusader period replaced the shattered marble.

It is the larger-than-life image from that funerary plate that was gifted to the Bruce Family by Col. and Mrs. Eggleston at the Williamsburg Scottish Festival in September.

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Q. How old are the Scottish regalia? Is it true that Edward I destroyed them after deposing Baliol?
A. King John Balliol had them taken off of him by Edward I of England.James IV received the sceptre from Pope Alexander VI in 1494.  In 1507, he received the Sword of State from Pope Julius II.   James V melted down the sceptre and remodelled it into the present fashion.  The crown is said to derive from a circlet of gold which King Robert the Bruce wore at the Battle of Bannockburn.  James V had it refashioned in 1540, into I suppose, its present form.  This information is gathered from Debrett's "Royal Scotland".  By the way, none of the English regalia survived Oliver Cromwell, who had them smashed up.  The only objects saved were the Black Prince's ruby, the ampulla and spoon, and Queen Elizabeth's salt cellar.  (From soc.culture.scottish)

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