The Women of Bruce - Part Three
The Two Wives of Robert Bruce
What do we know of the two women
that married Robert the Bruce, king of the Scots? There have been four, maybe more films made
about Bruce’s life in the last 20 years, all iffy history at best, which is sad
since the story of Bruce’s rise from the earl of Carrick to the man who fought
his cousin to determine who would claim the crown is a wonderful tale. Did the women who became his brides fare any
better? For the most part they were
simply omitted, or if included written with questionable inaccurately. Both women were born to be a queen, but only
one reached that pinnacle. They were
both young, both reputed to be lovely, and both came from lineage that had
ancient and royal blood running through the lines.
Isabel of Mar
Arms of Isabel of Mar
Isabel of Mar was born 1278 at
Kildrummy, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. She
was the first wife of Robert Bruce, and she carried blood royal on both sides
of her family. Her father, Donald
"Domhnall mac Uilleim" Mar, 10th earl of Mar, whose lineage goes back
to origins of Clan Macdonald and “King of the Hebrides”—Somerled. He also was the great grandson of Henry I
Beauclerc, king of England, younger son of William "the Conqueror"
FitzRobert, duke of Normandy, king of England.
An impressive lineage but it is matched by Isabel’s mother—Elen “the Younger” ferch
Llywelyn was a princess of Wales, and widow of Mormaer Maol Choluim II, earl
of Fife. Her grandfather on her mother’s
side was Llywelyn Fawr 'the Great' Llywelyn prince of Wales and Gwynedd,
who married Lady Joan Siwan Fitzjohn of Wales, lady of Snowdon, illegitimate
daughter of King John of England. So in
the marriage to Isabel, Bruce was cementing bonds not only to powerful clans of
Scotland, but to the high English and Welsh rulers as well. Isabel was a woman
bred to be a queen, the perfect wife to rule at Robert’s side when the time
came.
Isabel’s father was an ardent
supporter of Robert Bruce, 5th lord of Annandale—Bruce’s grandfather, known as 'the Competitor'—and was there at Annandale’ back during The Great Cause. Of the seventeen lords vying for the crown of
the Scots, Annandale was one of the top three contenders, if not the candidate
to wear the Scottish crown. And it
wasn’t arrogance for Annandale to expect, when all was said and done, that he
would become the ruler of Scotland. When
Alexander II, his cousin, lacked an heir, the king had name Annandale as
tanist—a Scottish term for heir apparent.
If Alexander had died at that point in history, Annandale would have
become king of the Scots with none to lay challenge. Later, he was Regent of Scotland during the
minority of his second cousin, King Alexander III. I am sure it came as a shock, which turned
to outrage, when Edward chose John Balliol over him. Edward had deliberately held the Bruces
close to him, rewarded them richly in ways he wouldn’t do with other nobles,
yet at the back of his mind was the truth—the men of Bruce were not to be taken
lightly. The ultimate goal for the
English king was to fold Scotland into the kingdom of England, along with
Wales, and then to add France.
The Earl of Mar was one of the
seven Guardians of Scotland and he had believed Robert the Bruce was the lawful
King of Scots. Mar could see great advantage in aligning his family with the
Bruces. In 1292, Isabel’s older
brother, Gartnait mac Domhnaill, married Robert’s older sister, Christian. Three years later, by papal dispensation, and
at the age of 18, Isabel married Robert, earl of Carrick, who was four years her
senior. In a time when marriages for
nobles were little more than political power moves, legend has it that Robert
and Isabel were very much in love. Few were
surprised, when a short time later, Isabel was soon with child. They seemed blessed; she had a healthy
pregnancy. Late in 1296, Isabel gave
birth to a daughter. They named her
Marjorie after Bruce’s late mother, Marjorie, countess of Carrick. Then, Fate waved a hand on the night of
December 12th, Isabel died at Castle Cardross, on the Firth of Clyde, in
Renfrewshire.
Paisley Abbey
Following her
death, Isabel of Mar was buried at the Cluniac Paisley Abbey. Her tomb has not
survived. In his last act of revenge
against Robert Bruce, Edward had the abbey burnt to the ground in 1307, thus
destroying both the tomb of Isabel and her daughter Marjorie. William Wallace was born in nearby Elderslie,
and is believed to have been educated in the abbey when he was a boy. Scots not being deterred had the Abbey was
rebuilt. An eerie circumstance arose
when Isabel’s daughter, now grown and married to Walter Stewart, was riding
near the abbey and was thrown from her horse. She was pregnant at the time.
They carried her to abbey for medical care. I suppose saving the life of a princess came
second to the child who might be king.
Robert II was born by caesarean section.
Considering the lack of anesthetics, it was small wonder she did not
recover. Marjorie was interred at the
rebuilt abbey, as her mother before her had been once, and as the line of
Stewarts after her.
Elizabeth de Burgh
Arms of Elizabeth de Burgh
Elizabeth de Burgh was likely
born in 1284 at Connaught Province, Ireland.
Some sources cite Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland as her place of
birth. However, since her father had been
fighting in Wales with the king of England, and another daughter, Eleanor (named
after Edward’s queen) was born in Wales, there is an outside chance
Elizabeth might have been born there as well.
Without question she was conceived in Wales. At this point in history, male historians
barely noted the arrival of another de Burgh female, little need in their minds
for accuracy of place and date of birth; they never suspected she would be one
of the most famous queens of Scotland,
her legend only eclipsed by Mary queen of the Scots.
She was the third daughter of
seven, out of eleven children of Richard
Óg de Burgh, the ‘Red Earl’. He was the
2nd earl of Ulster, 3rd baron of Connacht, Lieutenant of Ireland, Keeper of
Athlone, Randown, and Roscommon Castles—and unarguably the most powerful man in
Ireland. His wife was Margaret Guines,
daughter of Arnoul de Guines III and Alice de Coucy. Margaret was a 2nd cousin once removed of
Queen Eleanor. Margaret was also a first
cousin of Alexander III of Scotland, Edward I's brother-in-law. Edward was Elizabeth’s godfather. As
impressive as Margaret’s lineage was, her husband Richard matched it. He was educated at the Court of Henry III
(Edward’s father), thus cementing a lifelong friendship between Edward and
Richard. Through the years Richard was
Edward’s closest friend and one of his most trusted advisers. At nearly every battle Edward fought in
England, Wales and Scotland, Richard was there at his back.
Elizabeth most likely met Robert
Bruce, earl of Carrick, at the English Court.
The Bruces and de Burghs dancing to Edward’s whims, living and fighting
nearly in the other’s pockets, there had to be occasions where both were in
attendance. With Isabel Mar’s death in
1296, Robert was a good catch for mothers looking for arranged marriages for
their daughters. By 1300, there was some hint Edward was considering giving
Robert a new bride. Richard had three
daughters of age at the time—Aveline, Eleanor and Elizabeth, the youngest. The second daughter married Sir Thomas de
Multon, 1st Lord Multon of Egremont, so that left the other two as candidates.
Edward was playing a game of chess with the Bruces, often lavishing money on
Robert after he refused to pay homage to John Balliol, and his lands in
Scotland were seized in punishment. At Court, he was
mocked and called Edward’s Lordling. Some say, Edward paid more attention to
Robert than he did his own son. I truly
think he hoped by keeping Robert close, he could curb the hunger to be the king
of the Scots that had filled Robert’s father and grandfather. And what better way than presenting him with
a new wife? Not just any bride—but one
that was his goddaughter.
The English invaded Scotland in
1301. In 1302, Robert married Elizabeth
at Writtle, near Chelmsford in Essex. Robert would have been close to 28 and
she was 18. In 1304, Edward again
invaded Scotland to regain control of Stirling Castle. So, it’s not surprising to see the political turmoil
around their marriage was coming to a head.
On February 10th, 1306 at
Greyfriars, Bruce met with John Red Comyn to settle, for once and all, who
would be the future king of Scotland.
Comyn or his uncle tried to kill Bruce; in return, Bruce pulled his dirk
from his boot and struck back, wounding Comyn.
Bruce staggered outside and told his trusted friend, Sir Alexander
Seton, that he stabbed Comyn but the man was still alive. Roger de Kirkpatrick
rushed inside to see, and came back with the tides that he killed Comyn. Events that
would soon propel Elizabeth’s life out of control.
After meeting with the Church of
Scotland, it was decided to crown Bruce king as soon as possible. So on 27th March 1306, Robert and Elizabeth
were crowned king and queen of Scots at Scone.
One might infer Elizabeth lacked faith that her husband’s bold move to
be king would be a lasting one, for it is reported that she smiled faintly
after the coronation and said, ‘Alas, we are but king and queen of the May that
children crown for sport.’ The May King
and May Queen only rule for one day. On the
other hand, perhaps it wasn’t a lack of faith in Bruce’s ability to hold the
kingship as much as she understood her godfather’s ruthlessness when betrayed,
and knowing also that her father would be backing Edward’s every move to put
the new king down. As well, two-thirds
of Scotland aligned with Clan Comyn would be the hounds for Longshanks hunting
Robert Bruce.
Thus, once again, the English
army invaded. Bruce was forced to
contend with facing the English, and hampered by raising troops to fight for
him. Gold was offered to any man who
could bring Bruce in. Bruce had little
time to form a strong government, or to raise his army, when he was compelled to
meet the English at Methven. Aymer de
Valence, the English general acting for Edward I, had not only arrived with an
established host of English soldiery and knights, the men of Comyn were
flocking to him. To Bruce’s credit he
did have very able commanders in James Douglas, Christopher Seaton and Gilbert
Hay to lead his troops. Aymer de Valence
seemed content to outwait Bruce. In
flamboyant fashion, Bruce invited de Valence to leave the walls of Perth and
join him on the battlefield. To his
mistake, Robert presumed the preliminaries of feudal battle protocol would be
observed. When de Valence failed to take
up the challenge, Bruce figured there would be no battle that day. He and his forces retired for the night at Methven,
expecting to get a good night’s sleep before the coming battle on the
morrow. Instead, before dawn, the
English attacked and nearly destroyed Bruce’s forces.
Bruce had to scramble to see his
family was moved out of harm’s way. He
sent Elizabeth, his young daughter by
his first marriage, Marjorie, and his sisters Mary and Christian to Kildrummy
Castle, under the protection of his brother Nigel. Kildrummy was the castle of Christian’s first
husband Gartnait of Mar, and though she was now newly married to Christopher
Seton, the people there were still very devoted to her. Bruce, I would assume, thought the English
would give chase to him, leaving the women safely out of reach.
Ruins of Kildrummy Castle
Again, underestimating the
choices the enemy would make, the English laid siege to the castle containing
the royal women. The siege finally succeeded when de Valance bribed a
blacksmith with 'all the gold he could carry' to set fire to the
grain store. Nigel gave a valiant defense, knowing the castle was lost, but
giving time for the earl of Atholl to get the ladies safely away. Nigel was captured alive. He was taken to Berwick to be hanged, drawn
and beheaded.
The Bruce ladies were probably
heading to the Orkneys, where they would be beyond reach of Edward. Isabel, another of Bruce’s sisters, had married
Eric II Magnusson, king of Norway and ruler of the Orkneys. Though Magnusson had died in 1299, Isabel had
remained in Norway as dowager queen, and still exerted a great influence in
court matter there and abroad. However,
the women only made it as far as the sanctuary of St. Duthac at Tain in Easter
Ross. There they were captured by a Balliol supporter, William, earl of Ross,
who handed them over to Edward I’s men.
(Odd side note—less than two years later, Robert’s sister Maud would
marry the son the earl of Ross—Aodh 0'Beoland) For his protection of the Bruce women, the
earl of Atholl was hanged, drawn and beheaded.
His head was displayed on a pike on London Bridge.
Elizabeth spent the next eight
years in captivity. While Isabella
Macduff, the woman who had crowned Bruce king, and Bruce’s sister, Mary, were
taken to Berwick and Roxbury Castle, and hanged over the castle walls to punish
Robert, his wife suffered a milder fate.
She was housed from October 1306 to July 1308 at
Burstwick-in-Holderness, Yorkshire. At
first, she was confined with only two elderly women to take care of her needs,
and ordered not to speak with her. A
letter from her during this period complained about her conditions, that she
was limited to three sets of clothing and no headgear or linen bed
clothing. That saw a series of moves to
other manors and castles—Bisham Manor, Windsor Castle, Shaftesbury Abbey,
Barking Abbey and finally Rochester Castle. By
the time she reached Windsor Castle, she had been given six servants and an
allowance to pay them. She was even permitted to have her pet Irish wolfhounds to keep her company. At this point Edward was long dead, and she
was dealing with his son, Edward II.
So why had she been treated so
well compared to the dire fates of Isabella and Mary? Simply because she was Richard de Burgh’s
daughter. Edward had been planning on
invading France for over a decade. He
needed men from Ireland to support that invasion, as well to replenish his
forces in Scotland to fight Bruce, and de Burgh could do that.
Bruce’s daughter was kept
prisoner at the nunnery at Watton during those eight years. But a puzzle surrounds Bruce’s daughters by
Elizabeth. They had three
daughters: Maud, Margaret and
Elizabeth. Not surprisingly, historians
seem to have the births of the three mixed up, some even try to deny the
existence of Elizabeth, and one says her birth was in 1364 (that is her
death). Genealogy sites list the dates
of Maud’s birth as 1303, and then Margaret’s as 1307. This seems perplexing. Maud would have been three years old when her
father was crowned king and her mother captured, if that were the case. Yet, there is no reference to Elizabeth
having a baby with her when captured by the earl of Ross. John Fordun in his Scotichronicon refers to
Maud as “did nothing worth recording”. I
would think if she had been held captive with her mother, or take from her
mother by the English, then Fordun might have deemed her worthy of writing
about! And if the second daughter was
born in 1307, that would mean Elizabeth have given birth to her after she was a
prisoner. Nowhere have I come across any
reference to this.
There is no way a daughter could
be born until late 1315. If Maud’s actual
date were 1315, and Margaret in 1316, that would dovetail with Elizabeth’s
birth in 1317, backed up by reference to her as Bruce’s “youngest daughter”.
In the case of this Elizabeth, you
will see some sites fail to list her as Bruce’s daughter entirely, or suggest
she must be the child of one of his mistresses.
Sir David Dalrymple dismisses her out of hand. He declared Fordun had not mentioned
Elizabeth, and that he had not seen any charters of land grants to her, and
that if any such charters existed they needed to be “deposited in the Register
House”. Well, they do exist. There are a number of royal charters, mostly
regrants signed by King David II, in which Elizabeth is described as "dilecte
sorori me" — my beloved sister
or "dilecte sorori nostre" — our
beloved sister. When Dalrymple was
shown the proof, he promised to publish a correction to his The Annals of
Scotland Volume 2, but he died without fulfilling that promise. Thus, historians referencing Dalrymple today
keep perpetuating the lie that she was illegitimate, or not Robert’s daughter
at all.
After the Battle of Bannockburn,
Elizabeth was moved to York. There, she
had an audience with Edward II. In the
end, Elizabeth was released as part of the ransom for Humphrey de Bohun, earl
of Hereford (Edward’s brother-in-law), who had been captured after Bannockburn
on 29th September 1314. In exchange for
Hereford’s release, Edward was forced to give voice that Robert was the legal
king of Scots, and to return Elizabeth, Christian, Mary and Marjorie, along
with the aging Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow. Isabella Macduff was not mentioned in the
transfer, but as I expressed in my article for her, I believe she was dead by
that time.
After being reunited with Bruce,
Elizabeth gave birth to daughters Maud, Margaret and Elizabeth. There were no more children for seven years—miscarriages?—and
Bruce likely feared of ever having a son and heir for the throne when Elizabeth
became pregnant again. This time, on 5th
of March, a son was born. They named him
David, and he would go on to be David II, king of the Scots. Another son, John,
was born in early October 1327, though little is recorded other than he died
soon afterward, likely a short time before Elizabeth’s own death.
Rumors were Elizabeth might have
been pregnant again when she was out riding near Cullen Castle in Banffshire when she
was thrown from her horse. The
circumstances were an eerie echo of the death of Robert’s daughter just ten
years before, almost as if Bruce were cursed. Whether it was from illness
pertaining to the birth and death of son, John, or perhaps the miscarriage of a
child she was carrying, Elizabeth de Burgh closed her eyes on the night of October 27th, 1327 and slipped away from a
world that hadn’t been too kind to her. Her entrails were buried in the Church
of St. Mary of the Virgin at Cullen and her body was interred at Dunfermline
Castle. She was forty-three years old.
Deborah writes Scottish Medieval Historical Romances set in the time of Robert the Bruce in a series, The Dragons of Challon.
coming in July - Women of Bruce - Part Four
The Sisters of Robert the Bruce
