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Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Scottish Gaelic: Raibeart am Brusach), was King of Scots from 1306 to his death in 1329. [1] Robert led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England.
- Overview
- Background and early life
- King of Scots
- Consolidation of power
Robert the Bruce, who was king of Scotland from 1306 to 1329, freed Scotland from English rule by winning the decisive Battle of Bannockburn and achieving English agreement to full Scottish independence in the 1328 Treaty of Northampton.
How did Robert the Bruce become king of Scotland?
Robert the Bruce’s grandfather was related to the Scottish royal family by marriage and tried to claim the throne when it became vacant in 1290. John de Balliol was granted the throne but was removed in 1296 by King Edward I of England. Scotland resisted English rule, and in 1306 Robert declared himself king of Scotland.
How did Robert the Bruce get his name?
Robert the Bruce was the eighth descendant of a Norman knight who was called Robert de Bruce after a Norman castle known as Bruis or Brix. The first Robert de Bruce came to England with William the Conqueror. The fourth Robert de Bruce married the daughter of William I, king of Scotland.
What was Robert the Bruce’s legacy?
The Anglo-Norman family of Bruce, which had come to Scotland in the early 12th century, was related by marriage to the Scottish royal family, and hence the sixth Robert de Bruce (died 1295), grandfather of the future king, claimed the throne when it was left vacant in 1290. The English king Edward I claimed feudal superiority over the Scots and awarded the crown to John de Balliol instead.
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The eighth Robert de Bruce was born in 1274. His father, the seventh Robert de Bruce (died 1304), resigned the title of earl of Carrick in his favour in 1292, but little else is known of his career until 1306. In the confused period of rebellions against English rule from 1295 to 1304 he appears at one time among the leading supporters of the rebel William Wallace, but later apparently regained Edward I’s confidence. There is nothing at this period to suggest that he was soon to become the Scottish leader in a war of independence against Edward’s attempt to govern Scotland directly.
The new king’s position was very difficult. Edward I, whose garrisons held many of the important castles in Scotland, regarded him as a traitor and made every effort to crush a movement that he treated as a rebellion. King Robert was twice defeated in 1306, at Methven, near Perth, on June 19, and at Dalry, near Tyndrum, Perthshire, on August 11. His wife and many of his supporters were captured, and three of his brothers executed. Robert himself became a fugitive, hiding on the remote island of Rathlin off the north Irish coast. It was during this period, with his fortunes at low ebb, that he is supposed to have derived hope and patience from watching a spider perseveringly weaving its web.
In February 1307 he returned to Ayrshire. His main supporter at first was his only surviving brother, Edward, but in the next few years he attracted a number of others. Robert himself defeated John Comyn, earl of Buchan (a cousin of the slain John “the Red”), and in 1313 captured Perth, which had been in the hands of an English garrison. Much of the fighting, however, was done by Robert’s supporters, notably James Douglas and Thomas Randolph, later earl of Moray, who progressively conquered Galloway, Douglasdale, the forest of Selkirk and most of the eastern borders, and finally, in 1314, Edinburgh. During these years the king was helped by the support of some of the leading Scottish churchmen and also by the death of Edward I in 1307 and the ineptness of his successor, Edward II. The test came in 1314 when a large English army attempted to relieve the garrison of Stirling. Its defeat at Bannockburn on June 24 marked the triumph of Robert I.
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Almost the whole of the rest of his reign had passed before he forced the English government to recognize his position. Berwick was captured in 1318, and there were repeated raids into the north of England, which inflicted great damage. Eventually, after the deposition of Edward II (1327), Edward III’s regency government decided to make peace by the Treaty of Northampton (1328) on terms that included the recognition of Robert I’s title as king of Scots and the abandonment of all English claims to overlordship.
Robert’s main energies in the years after 1314, however, were devoted to settling the affairs of his kingdom. Until the birth of the future king David II in 1324 he had no male heir, and two statutes, in 1315 and 1318, were concerned with the succession. In addition, a parliament in 1314 decreed that all who remained in the allegiance of the English should forfeit their lands; this decree provided the means to reward supporters, and there are many charters regranting the lands so forfeited. Sometimes these grants proved dangerous, for the king’s chief supporters became enormously powerful. James Douglas, knighted at Bannockburn, acquired important lands in the counties of Selkirk and Roxburgh that became the nucleus of the later power of the Douglas family on the borders. Robert I also had to restart the processes of royal government, for administration had been more or less in abeyance since 1296. By the end of the reign the system of exchequer audits was again functioning, and to this period belongs the earliest surviving roll of the register of the great seal.
- Bruce Webster
Six weeks before he seized the Scottish crown in March 1306, Robert the Bruce murdered his closest political rival.
Discover how Robert the Bruce, the medieval King of Scotland secured Scottish independence from England.
Who was Robert the Bruce? Robert came from a noble family that had a claim to the throne of Scotland. After the death of Alexander III and Margaret, Maid of Norway ,...
Dec 16, 2020 · Robert I of Scotland, better known as Robert the Bruce, reigned as King of Scotland from 1306 to 1329 CE. For his role in achieving independence from England, Robert the Bruce has long been regarded as a national hero and one of Scotland's greatest ever monarchs.
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Robert the Bruce, King of Scots 1306 – 1329. "Let Scotland's warcraft be this: footsoldiers, mountains and marshy ground; and let her woods, her bow and spear serve for barricades. Let menace...
