Scotland Back in the Day: Robert the Bruce and his steps to the empty throne

His most famous works included the Bruce Trilogy published between 1969 and 1971, and the three books were among his finest and most successful publications.

That’s why in this three-part series on Robert the Bruce, we shall follow Tranter’s lead and divide the king’s life into three divisions starting with The Steps to the Empty Throne, as Tranter called his first book.

So how to tell the life of Robert the Bruce in less than 6,000 words? As a result of his valiant deeds being recorded in contemporary chronicles, and because he became king and royal charters and documents survive from his reign, we know more about Robert I, King of Scots, than any Scottish monarch before him. Yet we also "know" a great deal of myth and nonsense compared to fact and legend.

That is largely due to one of our principal sources for Bruce’s life, John Barbour, author of the long narrative poem The Brus, aka The Bruce, which, among other things, is the reason why we think of King Robert I as Robert the Bruce – in his own lifetime, the King was still known as de Brus, though he came to be known as The Bruce by his Scots-speaking followers.

It is difficult to underestimate the influence of Barbour’s The Brus on how we view the king. The poem was written less than 50 years after Bruce’s death – less of an interval than that between the death of Christ and the writing of at least two of the Gospels – and was written in Scots and not Latin.

It was clearly devised as a propaganda piece for Scotland’s first Stewart king. For Barbour was a cleric in the royal household of Bruce’s grandson King Robert II, first monarch of the Stewart dynasty, and being paid ten Scots pounds and a life pension of 20 shillings a year. Barbour was hardly going to put in any nasty stuff about Bruce.

Significantly, The Brus does not mention Sir William Wallace at all, and is full of the kind of high-flown appeal to chivalry that featured in a lot of the literature of the time, including perhaps its most famous lines: A! fredome is a noble thing!

Fredome mayss man to haiff liking; Fredome all solace to man giffis: He levys at ess that frely levys!

There are several other sources about the deeds of Robert The Bruce, most tellingly the contemporary English chronicles such as Lanercost and Scalacronica, and the later works Chronica Gentis Scotorum and Gesta Annalia by John of Fordun, who may well have been a priest in St Machar’s Cathedral in Aberdeen at the same time as Barbour. Fordun’s history was continued in the Scotichronicon of Walter Bower written in the 1440s. There are also chamberlain’s rolls and the King’s charters and acts, all of which have enabled historians to piece together a pretty accurate account of Bruce’s life.

That life began in considerable privilege in Turnberry Castle on July 11, 1274. His father was Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale, descended from the original Norman knight Robert who came to England as part of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy and became friends with David I, son of King Malcolm Canmore and Queen, later Saint, Margaret.

David made Robert the first Lord of Annandale, and even though they fell out spectacularly over David’s support for his niece Matilda to become Queen of England, de Brus’s family kept Annandale as his younger son Robert fought for David at the Battle of the Standard in 1138 while Robert and his elder son fought for King Stephen against the Scots.

The de Brus dynasty prospered and acquired hugely profitable lands in England through marriage – the 4th Lord of Annandale wed King David’s great-granddaughter Isobel of Huntingdon, and it was through her that the family would lay claim to the Scottish throne.

Robert The Bruce’s mother Marjorie was Countess of Carrick in her own right, and the story goes that when Robert’s father, the 6th Lord of Annandale, came to tell her that her first husband had died in the Crusades, she kept him prisoner at Turnberry until he agreed to marry her.

He cannot have shown much resentment at the unusual courtship as they went on to have nine children, including Robert. In reality, it was probably a dynastic union between two of the greatest families of south-west Scotland, and after her death, Robert The Bruce acquired the title of Earl of Carrick at the age of 18.

As a result of his parentage, young Robert grew up learning Scots, English, French and some Gaelic. From childhood, he was also conditioned to think of himself as a future King of Scots.

The Bruce’s grandfather was Robert, the 5th Lord of Annandale, known as The Competitor. That was because the throne of Scotland became vacant on the death of Margaret, the Fair Maid of Norway, in 1290, and Robert laid claim to become King of Scots through his descent from Isobel of Huntingdon. The Competitor had also been Regent of Scotland and heir presumptive while the Fair Maid’s father, King Alexander III, had been a child.

There were 13 "competitors" in all, but de Brus and John Balliol had the two best claims. King Edward I of England was asked to judge who should be king in what became known as The Great Cause, and after all the competitors paid homage to him, the self-interested Edward chose the weaker man in 1292. Balliol would become "Toom Tabard", the empty shirt, for his failure to stand up to Longshanks.

In the convoluted politics of Anglo-Norman Britain, the 6th Lord of Annandale, as well as fighting in the Crusades, fought for Edward Longshanks and swore loyalty to him. He also engaged in international affairs, his daughter Isabel marrying the King of Norway. He also eventually acknowledged but resented Balliol as king, and hoped that Edward would one day back his claim for the Scottish throne.

When the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France was signed in 1295, John Balliol summoned all his lords and their retinues for an invasion of England to assist King Philip of France, who was trying to militarily win back Gascony and other English possessions, but neither the 6th Lord of Annandale and his son the Earl of Carrick joined in. Balliol declared their lands forfeit and gave them to John Comyn, the Earl of Buchan – a big mistake for that family, as we shall see.

Balliol and Comyn then sent a small army to deal with the de Brus lords, only for the future king to repulse them at Carlisle Castle in March 1296. Meanwhile Longshanks was marching on Scotland with a huge army, determined to quash all resistance to his rule and make the Scots his subjects. He stopped at Berwick-upon-Tweed and in the first major battle of the Wars of Independence, Longshanks showed his utter brutality by not only capturing the town but killing almost all of its people, perhaps some 7,000 men, women and children.

The Scottish commander William the Hardy, Lord of Douglas, surrendered and was imprisoned until he signed the Ragman’s Roll, the document recording the oath of loyalty to Edward signed by all the leading lords and prelates of Scotland. The future King Robert and his father had both signed it in 1291.

Those who signed in 1296 had little choice. After Berwick, the English army had destroyed that of the Scots, led by John Comyn, outside Dunbar Castle. The English were led by John de Warenne, the Earl of Surrey, who was John Balliol’s father-in-law – they were indeed complicated times for the ruling families in both countries.

Even after Balliol surrendered his kingship and his country to Longshanks, and was sent into exile, the English king continued to lay waste to Scotland, infamously removing the Stone of Destiny from Scone to Westminster Abbey. Satisfied that he had subdued the Scots once and for all, Edward told a companion: “A man does good business when he rids himself of a turd.” Some business, some turd.

With Edward’s treatment of the Scots having become unbearable, Sir William Wallace and Sir Andrew de Moray led the uprising that culminated in the astonishing victory of the Scottish army over a far larger host at Stirling Bridge in 1297.

It is at this point that what we might call the Great Dispute arises over Robert the Bruce, then still the Earl of Carrick. When Longshanks invaded Scotland the following year, did the future king really fight for the English?

John of Fordun says so, but no other chronicler or John Barbour does.The main telling point against Robert is that the de Brus family were allowed to keep Annadale and Carrick. That may have been due, however, to Robert’s father skilfully appeasing Longshanks in order to keep his English lands.

There is another story: that the young Earl of Carrick – having been sent by Longshanks to capture William The Hardy, the first noble to join Wallace – was so impressed by the Lord of Douglas and his family that he switched sides to fight with the Scots. Certainly, the Douglases were to be Bruce’s most important allies in the future.

The simple answer is that we do not know what happened in 1298 at Falkirk, apart from Wallace and his army being driven from the field, effectively ending that uprising. We do know, however, that the office of Guardian of Scotland, which Wallace had briefly held, was now jointly apportioned by the "community of the realm" – the bishops and leading aristocracy – to Robert the Bruce and his great rival John "The Red" Comyn, later joined by Bishop William Lamberton of St Andrews.

What motivated the 23-year-old Bruce to take up that office in defiance of Longshanks? There is little doubt that he had inherited from his father and grandfather the definite conviction that he should be King of Scots. It was this absolute belief that drove him forward for the rest of his life, so he clearly saw being Guardian as a step closer to the empty throne.

The joint Guardianship just about kept peace with Edward I until 1300, and from then on it is clear that Bruce was intent on doing just about anything that would get him on the throne of Scotland. He swore fealty to Edward and even governed part of Scotland for him, but sometime around 1304-5, knowing that Edward was ill, Robert began to agitate for Scottish independence again, a cause that was given a massive boost by Longshank’s horrendous treatment and execution of William Wallace. Scotland’s greatest martyr truly inspired his country.

Bruce wanted the kingship so he could lead the nation, but he knew he had to deal with John Comyn and his powerful family. The two men arranged to meet at Greyfriars monastery in Dumfries on February 10, 1306. Both men were known to have brittle tempers, so it was no surprise that a fight broke out and Bruce stabbed Comyn. His companion Sir Roger de Kirkpatrick then rushed in and finished off Comyn, supposedly saying “I mak siccar” – I make sure.

The insurrection against English rule was already under way, and for good or ill, many – though certainly not a majority – of Scotland’s lords and senior clerics backed Bruce.

He knew he had to act, and quickly. On 25 March, 1306, at Scone, Robert the Bruce sat down at the place from where the Stone of Destiny had apparently been stolen. Isabella of Fife, Countess of Buchan, placed a gold circlet upon his head and Robert the Bruce became Robert I, King of Scots.