IT may not be popular to say this but there are times when you have to feel sorry for President Donald Trump.

There he was, just trying to curry favour with the folk of his mother’s native land by naming his magnificent new course at Turnberry after Scotland’s most famous king, Robert the Bruce.

The King Robert the Bruce course includes the site of the ancient Turnberry Castle and Trump’s management proudly boast on the website: “It was in this medieval castle that King Robert the Bruce was born in July 1274.”

Except that Bruce probably wasn’t born there at all. Indeed the man who led the Scots to victory might well have been born in England.

Prominent historian, Dr Fiona Watson, has made the controversial claim that the Bruce was actually an Essex man and was born in the village of Writtle near Chelmsford where the Bruce’s father, also Robert, had a manor that he was said to love.

The academic said: “The truth may be unpalatable for some, for a chronicler from Southern England states categorically that Robert belonged to ‘the English nation’ and, more specifically, that he came into this world surrounded by the pleasant meadows, vineyards, grass and grain of Essex.

“There was a strong tradition in the South that Bruce was born in Essex, while there is no direct evidence he was born in Turnberry. In modern times it has been presumed Bruce would have been born at Turnberry, but the evidence points to Writtle.”

“Given that Writtle was Robert’s favourite manor, it is quite believable his son should be born there.”

Watson’s theory is contained in her new book Traitor, Outlaw, King which happily is published at the same time as the film Outlaw King starring Chris Pine is about to go global on Netflix.

The Writtle birth theory is not new and has been debated by historians for many years. There is no doubt that Robert de Brus, as the Bruce’s father signed himself, took a very active part in looking after his lands at Writtle that had been granted to his grandmother by England’s King Henry III, and several deeds from his time of ownership are still extant.

There is also no doubt that the Bruce’s father attended the coronation of England’s King Edward I on August 19, 1274, a mere 39 days after the birth of the future king.

When the Writtle theory last surfaced in 2015, Doug Archibald of the Bruce Trust cogently argued that Bruce’s strong-willed mother Marjorie “even if she had wanted to head south, would not have been prepared to make the journey when she was seven months [pregantn] or more”.

Pointing out that Isabel’s family owned Turnberry Castle, Archibald asked: “Is it really likely that such a lady would want to have her first-born son anywhere other than her family home?”

Last word to Trump – he usually gets it anyway – and his course management’s website: “Turnberry is steeped in a strong history, leading us to name our new golf course after the King of Scotland, Robert the Bruce, the historical warrior who led Scotland to claim its right as an independent country in the Battle of Bannockburn in June 1314.”

As the President himself might concede, that’s one piece of factual information that is not fake news, no matter where the Bruce was born.