[MR] BBC: Robert the Bruce Born in England?

Garth Groff and Sally Sanford mallardlodge1000 at gmail.com
Tue Oct 30 00:15:30 PDT 2018


Noble Friends, Especially Fellow Scots:

Just a day after I posted about Melrose Abbey and Robert the Bruce's heart,
a bombshell exploded on the BBC. An historian, Dr. Fiona Watson, has just
published the first book in a Bruce trilogy, and claims that The Bruce was
actually born in Writtle, Essex, rather than Turnberry in Ayrshire:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-46015580 .

O.K. I haven't seen her book, and it would be unfair to dispute Dr. Watson
without reading her work, plus she's a pro and I'm not. Despite Dr. Watson
being a Scot herself, her claims do echo other English appropriation of
Scottish culture, including the inventions of golf, haggis, and the wee
kilt.

Her proofs are not clear from the article, and Scottish history is pretty
murky (most Scottish documents were destroyed on the orders of Edward I).
Whether The Bruce was born in England is immaterial, as it is likely he
would have grown up in Scotland within his mother's earldom of Carrick.
Certainly his bloodlines are Scottish.

It is widely known that the Bruce family had extensive land holdings in
England, but that was common among the Scottish nobles. The Bruce accepted
Edward's peace in 1302, possibly in order to protect his English lands. So
did almost everyone else.

The other charge attributed by Dr. Watson to Robert the Bruce, also remains
impossible to prove. That he stabbed the Red Comyn in the Greyfriars
Church, Dumfries, is indisputable. There had been bad blood between them
for years, as they were both rivals for the Scottish throne. The Bruce was
forced to flee London when he was tipped off that some of his
under-the-table dealings in Scotland had been revealed to Edward I and an
arrest was immanent. This was information Comyn knew. To say that either
The Bruce or Comyn went into their fatal parlay planning murder is a
stretch, but the outcome is as they say, "History".

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆


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