To estimate the religious impulses of a long dead ruler is just one aspect of trying to determine their character and the more public facing and orthodox in form their devotions are, the more difficult it is to determine their underlying beliefs. As a ruler Robert Bruce is judged by military exploits, both in those rather few set piece full scale battles which he won and as a guerrilla ruler before his ascent to power. His political achievements and statesmanship were also great, but his devotion to his nation's saints also needs examined, not least because it throws light on his interaction with the complex native culture in Scotland.
Bruce's family in background were little different from the other dynastic players active in the period, such as the Comyn and Balliol families. All were descendants (in sometimes disputed degrees) from the native Celtic kings of Scotland, and all saw their chance at the prize of the throne when that direct line died out in the later 13th century. Norman and English blood of course mingled with Scottish ancestry and they had extensive land holdings and associated loyalties south of the border. Bruce himself was probably born in south-west Scotland, where the region of Galloway (larger then than the area is understood to be now) was a bastion of Gaelic language and culture. Did the king himself speak Gaelic and participate in the the native culture of the area, including the veneration of native saints?
Raised at Turnberry Castle in Carrick, the area would still have been within the Gaelic speaking milieu. Obviously there would be a family inheritance of Norman French, as well as some knowledge of Scots dialect and Latin. Having a scant understanding of the tongue of the peasantry is one thing, but understanding their culture is quite another. John Barbour's epic account The Brus tells how the king, in the wilderness before his final triumph, encouraged the flagging spirits of his guerrilla band with tales of heroes who overcame great adversity. The tale of Hannibal attacking Rome is mentioned, but Bruce also told tales of other ancient heroes, among them Caesar, but could he also have drawn on native legend and folklore to encourage his men with great deeds closer to home?
Bruce's family in background were little different from the other dynastic players active in the period, such as the Comyn and Balliol families. All were descendants (in sometimes disputed degrees) from the native Celtic kings of Scotland, and all saw their chance at the prize of the throne when that direct line died out in the later 13th century. Norman and English blood of course mingled with Scottish ancestry and they had extensive land holdings and associated loyalties south of the border. Bruce himself was probably born in south-west Scotland, where the region of Galloway (larger then than the area is understood to be now) was a bastion of Gaelic language and culture. Did the king himself speak Gaelic and participate in the the native culture of the area, including the veneration of native saints?
Raised at Turnberry Castle in Carrick, the area would still have been within the Gaelic speaking milieu. Obviously there would be a family inheritance of Norman French, as well as some knowledge of Scots dialect and Latin. Having a scant understanding of the tongue of the peasantry is one thing, but understanding their culture is quite another. John Barbour's epic account The Brus tells how the king, in the wilderness before his final triumph, encouraged the flagging spirits of his guerrilla band with tales of heroes who overcame great adversity. The tale of Hannibal attacking Rome is mentioned, but Bruce also told tales of other ancient heroes, among them Caesar, but could he also have drawn on native legend and folklore to encourage his men with great deeds closer to home?
Thus gat thaim comfort the king/And to comfort thaim gan inbryng/ Auld storys off men that wer/Set intyll hard assayis ser/And that fortoun contraryit fast,/And come to purpos at the last.
Bruce and the 'Celts' - The Wider Picture
The audacious Bruce incursion into Ireland fell victim to that country's factionalism(a pattern which echoes through every subsequent century) and should not be viewed as an attempt to create a kind of pan-Celtic vision for the Bruce dynasty. They did, for certain, recognise the shared culture of Gaelic Scotland and Ireland, but the sense of kinship between other 'Celtic' countries was probably absent.
As the historian Michael Penman puts it, Bruce was not slow in copying the English example of covering a wide veneration base of saints: 'As a bachelor in Edward I’s household before 1296, and often in attendance on the English king in England and Scotland up to 1305, Robert surely came to understand the political value of... public devotions.' ('“Sacred Food for the Soul”: In Search of the Devotions to Saints of Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, 1306–1329,' Speculum 84, 2013.)
So there is no suggestion that Bruce somehow showed a preference for 'native' saints of either Scotland or Ireland as an effort to differentiate his fragile regime and foster a sense of cultural difference from England. It does show, however, that the saints of these two nations were powerful components - allies - in his spiritual armoury which helped him defeat an overwhelming foe. The 15th century Scotichronicon details a supernatural event which carried the righteous cause of Bruce into the heartland of the enemy. On the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn, the sacrist of Glastonbury Abbey was surprised in the evening by the appearance of two knights on white steeds. He offered them hospitality, but they refused and informed him that they had case to fight that very day at sunrise in a battle between Scots and English at a place named Bannockburn, on the side of the Scots, to provide revenge for the death of Simon de Montfort, killed by the royal army of England at the Battle of Evesham fifty years before. They then 'glided from the sight of the listener and were seen there no longer' much tom the man's astonishment.
At Bannockburn, Bruce commanded that the relic of Colum Cille, the Brecbennach, be paraded before his native horde, and this was doubtless a divine inspiration which reinforced the army's identity and demonstrated to the community of the realm of Scotland that the kingdom of heaven, as represented by local saints, was firmly on their side. It is obvious that the deployment of saints was a political act which emphasised allegiance to a broad spectrum of beliefs and those who ascribed to them in the kingdom. Conventional piety had its limits and Bruce was able to function - for periods at least - on the dark side of the line, within the territory of damnation as defined by the Church. So when he was excommunicated for his claiming the Scottish crown, he continued regardless to press this claim. And, when he sacrilegiously killed his rival Comyn in a church in Dumfries, in February 1306, the repercussions were grave, but he was prepared to live with them.
On a personal basis, the king's own health shows that he believed in the possible power of saints' intercessions as much as the next man or woman in his day and age. His leprosy was cured, or at least ameliorated by, a holy well in Ayr. He afterwards erected houses around the well for eight lepers and paid for sustenance for them. The place became known as 'King's Ease'. After he was on the throne he paid for the prayers of Dominicans to assist his ill health; they prayed for the well-being of his soul after he died. When he was suffering his final illness in 1329, Bruce made the arduous pilgrimage to seek the benediction of St Ninian at Whithorn on the coast of Galloway.
The king enlarged the chapel dedicated to Fillan in Strathearn in 1318, placing in the care of the canons of Inchaffray Abbey. Later, in 1329, his natural son Sir Robert Bruce of Liddesdale gave £20 to that church. Fillan was well established in Strathearn and was reputedly an 8th century Irish saint who settled in the area. His crozier was kept in the strath and was reputed for its magical ability to locate lost goods and cattle. A document from 1487 states that the current keeper of the crozier was Malice Dore, whose forebears had 'ane relik of Sanct Fulane callit the Quargich in keping,' even since the time of Robert Bruce. The important resonance of Fillan as a truly national saint lasted at least into the late 15th century at the highest levels. At the coronation of James IV in 1488 there was a procession led by a man holding St Fillan's Bell, renowned for its power in curing mental problems. A decade later the king confirmed his personal devotion to the saint when he confirmed the Dewars’ privileges as relic keepers. The king's allegiance to the saint is supposed to have arisen in situ. In 1306 Bruce fought the pro-English Macdougalls of Lorne in an encounter later termed Dalrigh, 'the king's field'. Bruce prayed to the great saint of the district, St Fillan, whose shrine was nearby at Kilry, and assured himself of victory. It was at this battle that Bruce is supposed to have lost the famous silver jewel which later became the property of the Campbells and then the Macdougalls, known as the Brooch of Lorne.
A Superstitious King? Prophecies and Marvels
Bruce was a king of many cultures. His family, before the necessary duality of the Wars of Independence, held lands in England and Scotland. Languages he would have been familiar with in south-west Scotland would have included Gaelic, Scots, Latin, Norman French. How credulous was he as a man. We know, as will be seen below, that he used popular legendary characters to further his agenda, but that is some distance from viewing him as an expert in the traditional lore of his native land. John Barbour in The Brus (book four) has Robert Bruce being assured of his ultimate success by a seeress in his home region, and yet Bruce does not give her supernatural endorsement unqualified welcome. He listened to her whole prognostication and thanked her fully, being somewhat heartened by it. And yet he did not wholly believe, for he wondered how she or anyone could entirely have knowledge of things to come:
The king that herd all hyr carpingThankit hyr in mekill thing,For scho confort him sumdeill,The-quhethir he trowyt nocht full weill hyr spek, for he had gret ferlyHow scho suld wyt it sekyrly...
Bruce certainly deployed ancient but nevertheless effective cultural weapons against his enemies. The prime prophet of the island of Britain, recent regenerated by Geoffrey of Monmouth, was of course Merlin. On May 15 1307, several days after the engagement between Scots and English at Loudon Hill, a pro-English Scot reported that the allies of Bruce were being strengthened by the continual efforts of false preachers in his army. These propagandists were disseminated the forthcoming death of Le Roy Coveytous - the English monarch - after which happy event the people of Wales and Scotland would band together and recover full lordship and live in peace together until the end of the world. According to Barbour again, the people of Scotland had knowledge of the predictions of that more recent seer, True Thomas, or Thomas of Erceldoune, who had apparently foreseen his ascent. Bishop Wishart of Glasgow is made to ponder, after hearing of Bruce's decisive slaying of Comyn: 'I hop thomas prophecy off ercildoune shall werefyd be'. Such was the magnitude of the struggle that supernatural support had to be gathered from whatever source it could be found, be that sacrilegious or not.
A Religious King? The Record of His Religion
In speaking to his troops before the Battle of Bannockburn, Robert Bruce mentioned - among others - the national saint Andrew, whose cult had become preeminent in the nation perhaps a century before. After his death, Archbishop Bernard Linton likened the Bruce to that apostle. As a king, and before that date as a leading noble Bruce had participated in the recognition and veneration of St Thomas Becket also, which was also evident in the reign of his son David II. Did Robert Bruce see significance in the date of 7 July 1307, the Translation feast of Becket, when Edward I died at Burgh-on-Sands, near Carlisle, an event which prevented another English invasion of Scotland?As the historian Michael Penman puts it, Bruce was not slow in copying the English example of covering a wide veneration base of saints: 'As a bachelor in Edward I’s household before 1296, and often in attendance on the English king in England and Scotland up to 1305, Robert surely came to understand the political value of... public devotions.' ('“Sacred Food for the Soul”: In Search of the Devotions to Saints of Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, 1306–1329,' Speculum 84, 2013.)
So there is no suggestion that Bruce somehow showed a preference for 'native' saints of either Scotland or Ireland as an effort to differentiate his fragile regime and foster a sense of cultural difference from England. It does show, however, that the saints of these two nations were powerful components - allies - in his spiritual armoury which helped him defeat an overwhelming foe. The 15th century Scotichronicon details a supernatural event which carried the righteous cause of Bruce into the heartland of the enemy. On the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn, the sacrist of Glastonbury Abbey was surprised in the evening by the appearance of two knights on white steeds. He offered them hospitality, but they refused and informed him that they had case to fight that very day at sunrise in a battle between Scots and English at a place named Bannockburn, on the side of the Scots, to provide revenge for the death of Simon de Montfort, killed by the royal army of England at the Battle of Evesham fifty years before. They then 'glided from the sight of the listener and were seen there no longer' much tom the man's astonishment.
At Bannockburn, Bruce commanded that the relic of Colum Cille, the Brecbennach, be paraded before his native horde, and this was doubtless a divine inspiration which reinforced the army's identity and demonstrated to the community of the realm of Scotland that the kingdom of heaven, as represented by local saints, was firmly on their side. It is obvious that the deployment of saints was a political act which emphasised allegiance to a broad spectrum of beliefs and those who ascribed to them in the kingdom. Conventional piety had its limits and Bruce was able to function - for periods at least - on the dark side of the line, within the territory of damnation as defined by the Church. So when he was excommunicated for his claiming the Scottish crown, he continued regardless to press this claim. And, when he sacrilegiously killed his rival Comyn in a church in Dumfries, in February 1306, the repercussions were grave, but he was prepared to live with them.
On a personal basis, the king's own health shows that he believed in the possible power of saints' intercessions as much as the next man or woman in his day and age. His leprosy was cured, or at least ameliorated by, a holy well in Ayr. He afterwards erected houses around the well for eight lepers and paid for sustenance for them. The place became known as 'King's Ease'. After he was on the throne he paid for the prayers of Dominicans to assist his ill health; they prayed for the well-being of his soul after he died. When he was suffering his final illness in 1329, Bruce made the arduous pilgrimage to seek the benediction of St Ninian at Whithorn on the coast of Galloway.
Two Particular Saints Particular - Malachy and Fillan
The Bruce family in the west of Scotland had a long and interesting relationship with the Irish saint Máel Máedóc (Malachy). According to the Chronicle of Lanercost, the second Lord of Annandale, Robert Bruce, was visited the saint in the 1140s, who interceded with him to spare the life of a condemned thief. But, when Bruce hanged the man, Malachy laid a curse on the Bruces and on the town of Annan (which was subsequently flooded). The effect of the malediction is mostly unrecorded, but we know that a later Bruce prayed at the saint's tombs later in the century and asked for the malison to be annulled. Robert Bruce the King paid for a candle and lamp for St Malachy before the saint's altar at Coupar Angus Abbey in 1326.
Behind the legend there is of course some truth. The Cumbrian monks who composed the Chronicle of Lanercost were notably dismissive and hostile to their northern neighbours and the tale of the Bruce family's negative interaction with a hero of the western church was written at a time when the latter day Bruces were vying for the vacant Scottish crown with the Balliols and others. So the promulgation of the legend was, in part, a carefully weighted put down of this Anglo-Scottish kindred and their regal aspirations. The saint's own contemporary vita details his departure from Ireland (some time between 1134 and 1143), bound for Rome. Arriving from Scotland he met King David I (1124-1154), who begged the saint to assist his seriously ill son. Malachy blessed the boy with holy water and assured him: 'Have confidence son; this time thou shalt not die.' The boy recovered the next day, of course, to the jubilation of the whole court. (Prince Henry survived until 1152.) The Bruce family's interaction with this cleric who had such impeccable royal connections was likely to have been more straight forward than Lanercost suggests and shows they were in tune with the prevalent channels of power in their age. Linkage with a superstar of the Irish church could only have been a good thing for their prestige.
The 'Fillan miracle' connected with Bannockburn only appears in a somewhat later source, the history written by the unreliable Hector Boece, which was published in 1527. According to this, the king prayed to the saint on the night before the battle and was rewarded by a vision of the silver reliquary of the saint which contained Fillan's arm bone, opening and closing by itself. When a priest examined the case he was surprised to find that the bone was indeed inside, which surprised him as he had removed the artefact and secreted it in Stirling castle before he brought the reliquary to safeguard against its loss on the battlefield. Behind the legend there is of course some truth. The Cumbrian monks who composed the Chronicle of Lanercost were notably dismissive and hostile to their northern neighbours and the tale of the Bruce family's negative interaction with a hero of the western church was written at a time when the latter day Bruces were vying for the vacant Scottish crown with the Balliols and others. So the promulgation of the legend was, in part, a carefully weighted put down of this Anglo-Scottish kindred and their regal aspirations. The saint's own contemporary vita details his departure from Ireland (some time between 1134 and 1143), bound for Rome. Arriving from Scotland he met King David I (1124-1154), who begged the saint to assist his seriously ill son. Malachy blessed the boy with holy water and assured him: 'Have confidence son; this time thou shalt not die.' The boy recovered the next day, of course, to the jubilation of the whole court. (Prince Henry survived until 1152.) The Bruce family's interaction with this cleric who had such impeccable royal connections was likely to have been more straight forward than Lanercost suggests and shows they were in tune with the prevalent channels of power in their age. Linkage with a superstar of the Irish church could only have been a good thing for their prestige.
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| Detail of the crozier of St Fillan |
The king enlarged the chapel dedicated to Fillan in Strathearn in 1318, placing in the care of the canons of Inchaffray Abbey. Later, in 1329, his natural son Sir Robert Bruce of Liddesdale gave £20 to that church. Fillan was well established in Strathearn and was reputedly an 8th century Irish saint who settled in the area. His crozier was kept in the strath and was reputed for its magical ability to locate lost goods and cattle. A document from 1487 states that the current keeper of the crozier was Malice Dore, whose forebears had 'ane relik of Sanct Fulane callit the Quargich in keping,' even since the time of Robert Bruce. The important resonance of Fillan as a truly national saint lasted at least into the late 15th century at the highest levels. At the coronation of James IV in 1488 there was a procession led by a man holding St Fillan's Bell, renowned for its power in curing mental problems. A decade later the king confirmed his personal devotion to the saint when he confirmed the Dewars’ privileges as relic keepers. The king's allegiance to the saint is supposed to have arisen in situ. In 1306 Bruce fought the pro-English Macdougalls of Lorne in an encounter later termed Dalrigh, 'the king's field'. Bruce prayed to the great saint of the district, St Fillan, whose shrine was nearby at Kilry, and assured himself of victory. It was at this battle that Bruce is supposed to have lost the famous silver jewel which later became the property of the Campbells and then the Macdougalls, known as the Brooch of Lorne.
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