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- Robert I (11 July 1274 - 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Medieval Gaelic: Roibert a Briuis; modern Scottish Gaelic: Raibeart Bruis; Norman French: Robert de Brus or Robert de Bruys), was King of Scots from 25 March 1306, until his death in 1329.
His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage (originating in Brix, Manche, Normandy), and his maternal of Franco-Gaelic. He became one of Scotland's greatest kings, as well as one of the most famous warriors of his generation, eventually leading Scotland during the Wars of Scottish Independence against the Kingdom of England. He claimed the Scottish throne as a fourth great-grandson of David I, and fought successfully during his reign to regain Scotland's place as an independent nation. Today in Scotland, Bruce is remembered as a national hero.
His body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey, while it is believed his heart was interred in Melrose Abbey. Bruce's lieutenant and friend Sir James Douglas agreed to take the late King's embalmed heart on crusade to the Holy Land, but he only reached Moorish Granada. According to tradition, Douglas was carrying the heart in a silver casket when he died at the head of the Scottish contingent at the Battle of Teba. He was killed in the battle fighting the Moors, but the king's heart was recovered and brought back to Scotland.
The first of the Bruces or de Brus line arrived in Scotland with David I in 1124 and was given the lands of Annandale in Dumfries and Galloway.
Robert was the first son of Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale and Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, and claimed the Scottish throne as a fourth great-grandson of David I.
His mother, Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, was by all accounts a formidable woman who, legend would have it, kept Robert Bruce's father captive until he agreed to marry her. From his mother, he inherited the Earldom of Carrick, and through his father a Royal lineage that would give him a claim to the Scottish throne.
Although his date of birth is known, his place of birth is less certain, but it was probably Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire.
Very little is known of his youth. He was probably brought up in a mixture of the Anglo-French culture of northern England and south-eastern Scotland, and the Gaelic culture of Carrick and the Irish Sea, French being his paternal-tongue and Gaelic his maternal-tongue. He may have been fostered with a local family, as was the custom (Barbour mentions his foster-brother); it is suspected that his brother Edward was fostered with his second-cousin Domhnall O'Neill. Robert's first appearance in history is on a witness list of a charter issued by Alexander Og MacDonald, Lord of Islay. His name appears in the company of the Bishop of Argyll, the vicar of Arran, a Kintyre clerk, his father and a host of Gaelic notaries from Carrick.
In 1292 his mother died, elevating the 18-year-old Robert to the Earldom of Carrick; this had the side effect of stripping his father of his jure uxoris claim to the title and lands. In November of the same year he saw Edward I of England, on behalf of the Guardians of Scotland, award the vacant Crown of Scotland to his grandfather's first cousin once removed, John Balliol, after a lobbying campaign known as the 'Great Cause'. Almost immediately his grandfather, Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale, resigned his Lordship of Annandale to Robert's father, possibly to avoid having to swear fealty to John as a vassal lord.
Later both father and son sided with Edward I against John, whom they considered a usurper and to whom Robert had not sworn fealty.
In April 1294, the younger Bruce had permission to visit Ireland for a year and a half, and, as a further mark of King Edward's favour, he received a respite for all the debts owed by him to the English Exchequer.
In 1295, Robert married his first wife, Isabella of Mar the daughter of Domhnall I, Earl of Mar and his wife Helen.
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1274 - 1329 (54 years)
