Stirling. Robert the Bruce. And Independence

Robert the Bruce, Stirling Castle, Scotland

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Update to 2014.  Scotland may press, and possibly succeed, in seeking independence. Who is to judge?  Issue ongoing.

Look back, however, at Robert the Bruce, 1279-1329.  He. as King of Scotland at the time, fought for that against the English with their overwhelming resources and military experience, and lost.  That is the tale and impression.

• Or did he? Robert the Bruce was indeed mortally wounded, and his army was small and badly equipped, but there is more.  The cause was not lost; but instead the battle was a victory for R the B and his men.  Update 2014:  The  Financial Times recounts a more accurate assessment:  see Don your 3D glasses to fight Scotland's 'auld enemy' from April 5-6, 2014 at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/3d31a13c-b9bf-11e3-a3ef-00144feabdc0.html#axzz300RUM4DD 
• Bannockburn brainwashing: the term in the article for revisionist history. And a new video and game at the visitors' center now shows that.

So independence was not wrought by all force;  it took a treaty some 400 years after Bannockburn to establish full political union, and settle the issue.  See Scots independence issues, Global post, at   http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/united-kingdom/120224/scottish-independence-alex-salmond-cameron-referendum.  England is not keen.  They had the military victory, but apparently hearts and minds remain elusive..
How many families, including ours, with both Ireland and Scotland roots, and English, have put a Robert Bruce in every generation.  Does that mean we are related?  Probably not.  Fantasizers like to think so, even if through the time-honored route of bastardy, as was William the Conqueror. A bastard, that was, as probably were our forbears.  Wonderful, but hardly in "the line." Independence for Scotland.  The fantasist likes it. Scots independence. Salute, with a balance needed so the common good is served, both sides.

The usual photos of R the B seem remote, medieval, not connected.  We prefer ours.  ROBERT THE BRUCE.  See above.  A mind, a body, an intelligence, a strength, a leadership, not to be diminshed by statuary presented in the usual way, interchangeable.  He needs to be on his horse. Not this tripe: see yjr BBC -- usually, and here, a reliable fact source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/bruce_robert_the.shtml

This, a tribute to our family's most recent, Robert Bruce McConaghy.  Hi, Rob. Will a niece, a nephew, a child, a cousin, pass on the tradition. Tradition of naming.  The actual genes do not matter.  The heart does. The heart of Robert the Bruce, severable from other remains. Heart at Melrose Abbey, or elsewhere, not diggable. See the fate of the heart at  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/robert-the-bruces-heart-finds-its-final-resting-place-1167359.html

A family value, with or without genes to boot:  autonomy regardless of gender or surrounding ideologies from people with steeples. Go, R the B. See your sword in the displays at Stirling Castle.  Huge.  Enormous.  Whose arm could wield but thine.  Go, R the B.  Fitness with a purpose.

Ayrshire. Culzean Castle. Scots Kennedy Family. Robert the Bruce as well?

Ancestry buffs will enjoy that this is the Scots Kennedy family home, and that they claim ties back to Robert the Bruce.  Sir Thomas Kennedy was killed (murdered) on the beach at Ayr in 1602.  Scots hauntings: A spectral piper pipes on the occasion of each Kennedy marriage, it is said, and on dark and stormy nights, with a second ghostly apparition, a young woman in a ball gown seen, it also is said, in 1972.

 The architecture dates from 1759, so does not sport the walls and turrets and keeps of medieval times.  The echoes of those times are in attached decorative tower-elements.  It is located on the South Ayrshire coastline, about an hour and a half southwest from Stirling Castle.

Culzean Castle, Ayrshire, Scotland

See a room-by-room description at http://www.culzeanexperience.org/experiences.asp

There had been a castle on the cliffs here before the current version,  

Stirling Castle, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.

William Wallace, a la Braveheart, at Memorial, Stirling, Scotland

Attention should be paid to the swords of famous battle leaders.   Robert the Bruce, who led the victory of the Scots over the British at Bannockburn in 1314, see http://www.britishbattles.com/scottish/battle-bannockburn.htm apparentlyearlier (later?)  received the sword of William Wallace, see http://www.forthstimeline.com/downloads/wallace_leaflet.pdf .  Scroll down the sites for representations of medieval swords.  Wallace may not have been a pivotal figure at all for Bruce, but the two later get linked by the proximity of their memorials. See, e.g., http://www.hotelsinscotland.org/scotland/bannockburn-stirling-scotland.php/ Wallace was tortured and killed by the English in 1305 when they finally overcame him by betrayal, capture, butchery.  Wallace was known for his own victory over the British at Stirling Bridge in 1297.

What happened to that particular sword is not known, but the sword attributed to Robert the Bruce in Stirling, is so long and heavy that it is hard to imagine anyone able to lift it. I understand that a young man began with increasingly heavy and long swords so that by the time he was grown, he could wield such a one handily.  Like lifting a cow by beginning as a child with a calf. 

Robert the Bruce, Equestrian Statue, Stirling Castle, Scotland

Melrose Abbey - The Heart of Robert the Bruce; Dunfirmline

Melrose Abbey, burial marker, Heart of Robert the Bruce, Scotland















The heart of Robert the Bruce is buried at Melrose Abbey, one of the border Abbeys in southern Scotland.  See http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/properties_sites_detail.htm?propertyID=PL_210. For more details, see www.aboutscotland.com/melbruce.  The burial of the heart of Robert the Bruce apart from the body was not unusual in that day. See custom still practiced, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14176471.  France has a long history of the practice, see http://www.medicographia.com/2010/07/the-heart-of-the-kings-of-france-cordial-immortality/

The body of Robert the Bruce is elsewhere, at the Abbey Church at Dunfirmline, the capital until 1603. We followed R the B wherever we found a sign. As in many hundreds of thousands (probably) of families with Scots and Scots-Irish backgrounds, there is a Robert Bruce going back generations. That does not mean a relationship, maybe just a revering.

The "Brave Heart" phrase that is attached to Rob Roy MacGregor, historically seems to belong to the story of Robert the Bruce. See the "Scottish Wars of Independence" site at www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/as/warsofindependence/info.shtml?loc=melrose. The account has Sir James Douglas, a close friend of the then King Robert the Bruce, following R the B's wishes in taking R the B's heart on crusade. Blocked in Spain, Douglas is said to have called out, "On, Brave Heart," and more, and hurled the heart toward the Holy Land. How did Brave Heart get attached to Rob Roy? Anyone know?