Bruce & Edward: Forever Linked

Happy 752nd birthday, Robert the Bruce! In a world of 9 billion, I'm not going to presume I'm the only one to still recognize his birthday, but if there's anyone else, I'd love to know. What I find interesting about the Bruce's birthday, of July 11, is that his arch-nemesis, King Edward I, died only 4 days before his (Bruce's) 33rd birthday, on July 7, 1307. He died at Burgh on Sands, looking across the border to Scotland, as he strove to destroy Scotland and the Bruce, once and for all. His dying wish--or rather demand--to his son the aptly named Edward II, was that Ed Junior boil his bones (that part is said to be apocryphal but darn it sounds good!) and carry those bones at the head of an army marching to fulfill Ed Senior's dreams.

Ed Junior ignored this request. To be fair...would you boil your father's bones and carry them with you as you attack Canada (if you're reading this in America?) Yeah, me neither. Ed Junior spent the next almost seven years ignoring Scotland more or less until Ed the Younger Bruce forced his hand. But that's a different story. [Which you can read HERE.]

I've always found the birth and death dates of Bob and Ed symbolic of how their lives and fates intertwined. Ed died just four days before Bob's birthday, shaking his fist at Bob, in eyesight of Bob's land--the land Ed believed was his--still screaming for blood. What a way to go meet your Maker.

But I diverge. How did their lives intertwine? I love Braveheart--but it's full of holes, historically. The more I learned about Robert the Bruce, the more I objected to Mel Gibson's portrayal of him as a bit of a waffling weasel. (Waffling Weasels--what a great name for a band! You have my permission to use it, but please send me a free CD in recompense.) 

A lesson from the past, for our own time, is that politics and situations are never black and white. They're never so dry-cut as our press or our history books or our movies make them out to be. It's true that Bruce let William Wallace down when Wallace most needed the support of the nobles at the Battle of Falkirk, as Braveheart tells us. We must always find that balance between excusing and understanding the fuller picture.

The Battle of Falkirk was July 22, 1298. Robert was only days past his 24th birthday. He was heir to a powerful Anglo-Norman family, with lands in both Scotland and England--and going against Edward meant losing his lands and income in England, which was true of many Scottish nobles at the time. Before we judge, we must consider whether we, ourselves, are willing to stand on principle if it means losing our jobs, our incomes...our homes. He was still under the influence of his father and learning to navigate the political waters between the Scottish and English nobility, titles, and power.

Edward I of England, a great statesman and warrior by the time Robert was born, and Robert the Bruce, future King of Scots, were born into the same world of aristocracy, chivalry, and the land-driven values of 13th century Britain. Bruce was born at Turnberry in Scotland, to an Anglo-Saxon family. His grandfather was a competitor in the Great Cause, the succession crisis that Edward was asked to intervene in. (Spoiler alert: he chose John Baliol, not Bruce's grandfather.)

To Bruce's generation, Edward I was the great Crusader, the man who crushed rebellions, and one of Europe's most formidable kings. He was the embodiment of Royal Authority. (Please roll your Rs long and hard when saying that!)

Bruce grew up in a world where Scotland and England were friendlier. He and Edward were both steeped in chivalric ideals of loyalty, honor, and prowess in battle. They lived in a world of Anglo-Norman families with cross-border estates--like having property in both Iowa and Minnesota, or Kentucky and Tennessee. They both saw the world in terms of land, lineage, and loyalty. Their families often worked together and Bruce was raised to be a nobleman who could work in both Scotland and England. He had no reason to ever see himself as a rebel.

Perhaps the first fracture in all this camaraderie was when Edward chose John Baliol as King of Scots, rather than the elder Bruce. When Balliol rebelled in 1296, Bruce was barely 22 at the time. His family had lands in England. His father had sworn fealty to Edward. Bruce himself had served under Edward.

I believe Bruce's stance changed with Edward's increasing harshness: 

• He removed Scottish symbols of sovereignty
• He imprisoned and killed nobles and rebels, including William Wallace
• He installed English officials in Scottish castles
• He attacked Berwick ruthlessly

In short, he slowly dismantled Scottish independence. He threatened Robert, himself, leading to the 1306 murder of John Comyn at Greyfriars, which led to a hasty coronation of Robert as King of Scots. 

Edward took vengeance for the Bruce's act:

• He declared Bruce a traitor
• He executed in a very horrible way, some of Bruce's brothers
• He imprisoned and/or hung in cages on walls, Bruce's wife, daughter, and female supporter, Isabella
• He confiscated his lands (and income)
• He hunted down his supporters.

Wow, is it any surprise, the young Bruce re-thought his loyalty to the English king? His early years were fraught with failure instead of the happy alliance his family had once shared with Edward and England. At points he is said to have hidden in a cave. In the winter of 1306-1307, he and his supporters hid out, possibly in the Isles. 

Then, in 1307, he began a remarkable comeback with his landing at Turnberry, his family's home, in the spring of 1307, the Battle of Glen Trool in April of 1307, the Battle of Loudon Hill in May of 1307, and the raids and castle harassments in the summer of 1307 when Edward had taken so many of the Scottish castles as his own.

It was in this setting that Edward I of England, once known as the First Knight of Christendom, now in his 60s, stormed north to Scotland to subdue the man he saw as a rebel. And there, with the land he wished to conquer in his sights, Edward I died at Burgh on Sands with vengeance and retribution in his heart. Not the best way to die, in my humble opinion. Just saying.

Ed Senior's death, only weeks past his 68th birthday, was a turning point, all that Robert could have wished for as a birthday gift. With Edward I's death, Edward II, barely 23, became king. He was, by all historical accounts, nowhere near the man his father was. Or at least, had not the interest in Scotland that his father did, nor his military experience, discipline, or strategic skill. The Bruce steadily regained all the Scottish castles Edward I had taken, until the great confrontation at Bannockburn, seven years later. 

His life had been shaped by Edward I's actions and their lives remain linked in the fate and history of both countries. Perhaps Bruce's greatest coup, is that, through his only child, Marjory who died young, just after the birth of her only child, Bruce became the ancestor of every monarch who has sat on the throne of England from 1603 to the present day!

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