Bruce, the surname of a family illustrious in Scottish history, descended from Robert de Bruis, a Norman knight, who accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066. The name, which is undoubtedly territorial, can probably be traced to the lands and castles of Bruis, near Cherbourg in Normandy. The first Robert de Bruis received extensive lands chiefly in Yorkshire. His son, the second Robert, was a companion in arms of Prince David of Scotland, afterwards David I., from whom he received a grant of the lordship of Annandale. At the commencement of the war in England between Stephen and Matilda, niece of the king of Scots, Robert de Bruis adhered to the former, and renounced his allegiance to David, resigning his lands in Annandale to his son Robert. In 1138 he was sent by the barons of the north of England to negotiate with David, who had advanced in support of his niece's claims as far as Northallerton, Yorkshire. In the battle of the Standard which followed, tradition relates that he took prisoner his son Robert, then fourteen years of age, who, as lord of Annandale, fought on the Scottish side. He died in 1141. His English estates were inherited by his eldest son, Adam, whose male line terminated in
Peter Bruce of Skelton, Constable of Scarborough Castle in 1271. Robert Bruce, second lord of Annandale, had two sons: Robert—who married a natural daughter of William the Lion, and died, without issue, before 1191—and William, whose son, Robert, fourth lord of Annandale, married Isabel, second daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon and Chester, brother of William the Lion, and thus laid the foundation of the royal House of Bruce. He died in 1245.
ROBERT DE BRUCE, fifth lord of Annandale, son of the fourth lord above mentioned, and the competitor with John Baliol for the crown of Scotland, was born in 1210. On the death of his mother, the Princess Isabel, in 1251, he did homage to Henry III. for her lands in England, and in 1255 was made Sheriff of Cumberland, and Constable of the castle of Carlisle. About the same time he was appointed one of the fifteen regents of Scotland during the minority of Alexander III. In 1264 he led, with Comyn and Baliol, the Scottish auxiliaries to the assistance of the English monarch at the battle of Lewes, where he was taken prisoner, but released after the battle of Evesham, the following year. On the Scottish throne becoming vacant at the death, in 1290, of Margaret, the 'Maid of Norway,' granddaughter of Alexander III., Baliol and Bruce claimed the succession, the former as great-grandson of David, Earl of Huntingdon, by his eldest daughter, Margaret; the latter as grandson, by his second daughter, Isabel. Edward I. of England, to whom the dispute was referred, decided in favour of Baliol in 1292. To avoid swearing fealty to his successful rival, Bruce resigned Annandale to his eldest son, Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick. He died at his castle of Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, in 1295, leaving three sons and a daughter.
ROBERT DE BRUCE, Earl of Carrick, eldest son of the preceding, is said to have accompanied King Edward I. of England to Palestine in 1269, and was ever after greatly esteemed by that monarch. On his return to Scotland, he married, in 1271, Marjory, Countess of Carrick, and in her right became Earl of Carrick. In 1292 he resigned the earldom of Carrick to his eldest son, Robert, the future king of Scotland, then a minor. On the death of his father in 1295 he did homage to Edward for his English lands, and was appointed keeper of the castle of Carlisle, and in the following year, when Baliol renounced the authority of Edward, Bruce fought on the side of the English. After the battle of Dunbar, in which the Scots were defeated, and Baliol compelled to relinquish the sovereignty, he made application to Edward for the vacant crown, but was refused it. He afterwards went to live on his English estates, where he died in 1304.
ROBERT BRUCE, the most heroic of the Scottish kings, eldest son of the preceding, was born in 1274. In his youth he favoured the English interests, in the expectation, doubtless, of his father being preferred to the Scottish throne. In 1296, as Earl of Carrick, he swore fealty to Edward I. at Berwick, and the following year he renewed his oath of homage at Carlisle. Shortly after, he abandoned the cause of Edward, and with his Carrick vassals joined the Scottish revolt under Wallace. By the Capitulation of Irvine, however, Bruce speedily made his peace with the English monarch. In 1298, the year of the Scottish defeat at Falkirk, Bruce again rose against Edward. He had his lands wasted by the English, and he burned the town of Ayr. But Edward did not proceed to extremities against him. Though Bruce was one of the four regents of Scotland in 1299, he did not again fight against Edward till the final rising in 1306. But while publicly an adherent of the English king, Bruce had entered into a secret alliance with Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, one of the most patriotic of the Scottish clergy. The decisive step was taken by the murder of Comyn at Dumfries. With John Comyn, called the Red Comyn, the nephew of Baliol, he seems to have entered into some agreement as to their rival claims to the throne. They met in the church of the Minorite Friars, Dumfries (10th February 1306); a quarrel took place; and Bruce, in a paroxysm of passion, stabbed Comyn with his dagger. Rushing out to his attendants, he exclaimed: 'I must be off, for I doubt I have slain the Red Comyn.' 'Doubt!' cried Kirkpatrick of Closeburn; 'I mak sikker!' (i.e. sure), and running into the church, despatched Comyn.
The motives and circumstances that led Bruce to the murder of Comyn are not quite clear, but the die was now cast. Bruce hastened to Lochmaben Castle, assembled his vassals, and asserted his right to the throne. Two months later, he was crowned king at Scone. An English army, under the Earl of Pembroke, nominated by Edward governor of Scotland, took possession of Perth, and surprised Bruce in the wood of Methven, compelling him to retreat into the wilds of Athole. At Dalry, near the head of Loch Tay, Bruce was attacked by Alexander, Lord of Lorn, chief of the Macdougals, the Red Comyn's uncle, and compelled to retire. Sending his queen and her ladies to Kildrummie Castle, Aberdeenshire, under the charge of Nigel Bruce and the Earl of Athole, Bruce continued his wanderings in the West Highlands, and then took refuge in the little island of Rathlin, on the north coast of Ireland, where he remained all winter, supposed to be dead. In his absence, the English took the castle of Kildrummie, hanged Nigel Bruce and other chiefs who had defended it, and tore the queen and Princess Marjory from the sanctuary of St Duthac, at Tain. All Bruce's estates were confiscated, and himself and adherents excommunicated by the pope's legate at Carlisle. In the spring of 1307 Bruce landed in Carrick, and at midnight surprised the English garrison in his own castle of Turnberry; but before a superior force he retired into the mountainous districts of Ayrshire. At Loudon Hill in the same year he defeated the English under the Earl of Pembroke.
The death of King Edward in 1307 was the turning-point in the struggle of Bruce. In the following years the English were cleared out of the country and all the great castles recovered, with the exception of that of Stirling. It too was closely pressed by Edward Bruce, who entered into an arrangement with the governor, Sir Philip Mowbray, by which the latter bound himself to surrender it, if not relieved before 24th June following. This led to the memorable battle of Bannockburn (q.v.), 24th June 1314. The English, under Edward II., amounting, it is said, to about 100,000 men, were totally routed by Bruce with an army less than one-third that number. In 1317 Bruce passed over to Ireland to assist his brother Edward, elected king of that country, and defeated the Anglo-Irish at Slane, in Louth. In the year after Bannockburn the Scots repeatedly invaded England, taking the town of Berwick in 1318. The truce of 1323 for some time put a stop to the struggle; but on the accession of Edward III. in 1327 hostilities recommenced with a great Scottish inroad into the northern counties. The war was at last closed by the Treaty of Northampton (1328), recognising the independence of Scotland, and Bruce's right to the throne. His warfare was now accomplished, and suffering under the disease of leprosy, he spent the last two years of his life at Cardross Castle, on the northern shore of the Firth of Clyde. He died in 1329 in his fifty-fifth year, and the twenty-third of his reign. His heart, extracted and embalmed, was delivered to Sir James Douglas, to be carried to Palestine and buried in Jerusalem. Douglas was killed fighting against the Moors in Spain, and the sacred relic of Bruce, with the body of its devoted champion, was brought to Scotland, and buried in the monastery of Mehrose. Bruce's body was interred in the Abbey Church of Dunfermline; and, in clearing the foundations for a third church on the same spot in 1818, his bones were discovered. He was twice married: (1) to Isabella, daughter of Donald, tenth Earl of Mar—issue, a daughter, Marjory, wife of Walter the High Steward, whose son ascended the throne as Robert II.; and (2) to Elizabeth, daughter of Aymer de Burgh, Earl of Ulster—issue, one son, who succeeded him as David II. (q.v.), and two daughters.
EDWARD BRUCE, king of Ireland, brother to the above, a chivalrous but rash and impetuous prince, was actively engaged in the struggle for Scotland's independence; and in 1308, after defeating the English twice, made himself master of Galloway. In 1315 the chieftains of Ulster tendered to him the crown of Ireland on condition of his assisting them to expel the English from the island. With a small army of 6000 men he embarked at Ayr, and reached Carrickfergus in that year, accompanied by Sir Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, and other Scottish knights of renown. His rapid victories soon made him master of the province of Ulster, and he was crowned king of Ireland in 1316, but was slain at the battle of Dundalk in 1318.