Individual Notes

Note for: Robert I "The Brus" King Of Scotland, 11 JUL 1274 - 7 JUN 1329 Index

Event:
     Type:   Crowned
     Date:   25 MAR 1306
     Place:   King of Scotland

Event:
     Type:   Outlawed
     Date:   ABT 1298
     Place:   By Edward I, King of England

Burial:
     Place:   Dunfermline, Scotland

Individual Note:
     [Fields.FTW]

On 25 March 1306, Robert the Bruce was chosen to be King of Scots and to lead the fight for Scottish independence against Edward I of England. Born in 1274 in Ayr, the son of Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, he was the grandson of the Robert Bruce who had been one of the competitors for the throne after the death of the Maid of Norway. Robert I had been on the English side when Edward moved against Balliol, but he had subsequently joined Wallace's revolt. When Wallace gave up the Guardianship of Scotland in 1298, Robert became joint Guardian with Sir John Comyn of Badenoch (Balliol's nephew). A few weeks before his coronation, Robert killed his greatest rival for the crown - his joint Guardian - in a Dumfries church, during the last of many arguments between them. For this murder, Robert was outlawed by Edward I and excommunicated by Pope Clement V.
His reign did not begin well. He was defeated by the English at Methven in Perthshire; his wife, daughter and sisters were imprisoned; and three of his brothers were executed by the English. Robert fled westward to the Antrim coast. (The story of Robert drawing inspiration from a persistent spider mending its web in a cave dates from the sixteenth century.) However, he possessed real military genius and he was helped by the fact that in 1307 Edward I, the self-styled 'Hammer of the Scots', died and was succeeded by his less effective son Edward II. From 1307 onwards, with energy and determination, Robert waged highly successful guerrilla warfare against the English occupiers, establishing control north of the Forth, and gradually won back his kingdom; by 1314, Stirling was the only castle in English hands. His campaign culminated in resounding victory over Edward II (whose larger army of 20,000 outnumbered Robert's forces by three to one) at the Battle of Bannockburn, near Stirling on 24 June 1314. Bannockburn confirmed the re-establishment of an independent Scottish monarchy. Two years later, his brother and heir presumptive, Edward Bruce, was inaugurated as High King of Ireland (which increased pressure on the English), but was killed in battle in 1318.
Even after Bannockburn, and the Scottish capture of Berwick in 1318, Edward II refused to give up his claim to the overlordship of Scotland, and so in 1320 the Scottish Earls, Barons and the 'community of the realm' sent a letter to Pope John XXII declaring that Robert I was their rightful monarch. This 'Declaration of Arbroath' has become perhaps the most famous document in Scottish history.
The Declaration asserted the antiquity of the Scottish people and their monarchy: '...we gather from the deeds and books of the ancients, that among other distinguished nations our own nation, namely of Scots, has been marked by many distinctions. It journeyed from Greater Scythia by the Tyrrenhian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long span of time in Spain among the most savage peoples, but nowhere could it be subjugated by any people, however barbarous. From there it came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea and, having first driven out the Britons and altogether destroyed the Picts, it acquired, with many victories and untold efforts, the places which it now holds ... As the histories of old time bear witness, it has held them free of all servitude ever since. In their kingdom one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock have reigned, the line unbroken by a single foreigner.' The Declaration also had a stark warning for Robert: 'were he to desist from what he has undertaken and be willing to subject us or our kingdom to the king of the English or the English, we would strive to expel him forthwith as our enemy and as a subverter of right, his own and ours, and make someone else our king who is equal to the task of defending us.' In 1324, the Pope recognized Robert as king of an independent Scotland. Two years later, the Franco-Scottish alliance was renewed in the Treaty of Corbeil, by which the Scots were obliged to make war on England should hostilities break out between England and France. In 1327, the English deposed Edward II in favour of his son Edward III and peace was then made between Scotland and England with the treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton, which began with England's total renunciation of all claims to superiority over Scotland. Robert had achieved all he had fought for: ejecting the English, re-establishing peace and gaining recognition as the true king. By that time, King Robert was seriously ill, probably with leprosy, and he died at Cardross, Dunbartonshire on 7 June 1329, aged 54. A few days later, in response to an earlier request by him, the Pope granted permission for kings of Scots to be anointed at their coronation (Scottish kings had previously been enthroned in a mainly secular ceremony at Scone). This was a clear acknowledgement that the Pope recognized Scotland's independence. Robert I was buried at Dunfermline and, in fulfillment of his dying wish, Sir James Douglas set out to carry his heart to the Holy Land. Sir James was killed fighting the Moors in Granada, in Spain, but the heart was retrieved and brought back to Scotland, to be buried in Melrose Abbey, Roxburghshire.

Individual Notes

Note for: Charles V King Of France, 21 JAN 1336/37 - 16 SEP 1380 Index

Alias: /Le Sage/

Individual Notes

Note for: Jean II King Of France, 26 APR 1319 - 8 APR 1364 Index

Alias: The /Good/

Individual Notes

Note for: Louis Duke Of Bourbon, 1279 - 29 JAN 1341/42 Index

Alias: /Le Boiteux/

Individual Notes

Note for: Matilde De Chatillon, - 3 OCT 1358 Index

Alias: /Mahaud/

Individual Notes

Note for: Edward III King Of England, 13 NOV 1312 - 21 JUN 1377 Index

Alias:   The Black /Prince/

Event:
     Type:   Reign
     Date:   BET 1327 AND 1377
     Place:   King of England

Individual Note:
     [Fields.FTW]

Edward III was 14 years old when he was crowned King and assumed government in his own right in 1330. In 1337, Edward created the Duchy of Cornwall to provide the heir to the throne with an income independent of the sovereign or the state. Edward founded the Order of the Garter in 1348.

At the beginning of the Hundred Years War in 1337, actual campaigning started when the King invaded France in 1339 and laid claim to the throne of France. Following a sea victory at Sluys in 1340, Edward overran Brittany in 1342 and in 1346 he landed in Normandy defeating the French King, Philip IV, at the Battle of Crecy and his son, Edward (the Black Prince) repeated his success at Poitiers (1356). By 1360, Edward controlled over a quarter of France. His successes consolidated the support of the nobles, lessened criticism of the taxes, and improved relations with Parliament. However, under the 1375 Treaty of Bruges the French King, Charles V, reversed most of the English conquests; Calais and a coastal strip near Bordeaux were Edward's only lasting gain.

Failure abroad provoked criticism at home. The Black Death plague outbreaks of 1348-1349, 1361-1362, and 1369 inflicted severe social dislocation (the King lost a daughter to the plague) and caused deflation; severe laws were introduced to attempt to fix wages and prices. In 1376, the "Good Parliament" (which saw the election of the first Speak to represent the Commons) attached the high taxes and criticized the King's advisers. The aging King withdrew to Windsor for the rest of the reign, eventually dying at Sheen Palace, Surrey.

Individual Notes

Note for: Maredudd Tudor, - Index

Alias: /Mredith/

Individual Notes

Note for: Robert Bruce Lord of Annandale, - 1295 Index

Individual Note:
[Fields.FTW]

One of the competitors for the throne of Scotland after the death of the Maid of Norway.

Individual Notes

Note for: Charles VI King of France, 3 DEC 1368 - 22 OCT 1422 Index

Alias: The /Mad/

Individual Notes

Note for: William, - Index

Alias: The /Conquerer/

Individual Notes

Note for: Ethelred II King of Britian, 966 - APR 1016 Index

Alias:   The /Unready/

Event:
     Type:   Reign
     Date:   BET 978 AND 1016
     Place:   King of England

Individual Note:
     [Fields.FTW]

Crown of a Thousand Years by M.E. Hudson and Mary Clark
page 7

Ethelred was about twelve years old in 978 when his half-brother was killed. Although he was no responsible for the assassination, it marked a bad beginning to a reign that worsened as it went on. Ethelred came to be known as "Unready," because he was unable to distinguish between good advice and bad... The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle speaks scathingly of the feeble defence put up by Ethelred (from the invading Danes), but one of the King's most brutal and ill-advised acts was to order a massacre of all the Danes living in England in November, 1002, as reported by the thirteenth-century chronicler John of Wallingford: "The English agreed together that each province should kill the Danes at that time resident within its limits, and they appointed a certain day on which they should rise against them. They spared neither sex nor age, destroying together with them those women of their own nation who had consented to intermix with the Danes, and the children who had sprung from that foul adultery. Some women had their breasts cut off, others were buried alive in the ground, and the children were dashed to pieces against posts, stones... Twelve young men who escaped set off for Denmark. With weeping and mourning did they tell Sweign their King what had been done in England, and immediately he, burning to be revenged, summoned his Counsel." The terrible series of punitive raids which followed culminated in 1013, when Swein Forkbeard landed in England at Sandwich, and Ethelred fled for refuge to the Duke of Normandy whose sister, Emma, he had married. Swein was left master of England, but died a few months later at Gainsborough. Although the Danelaw accepted his twenty-year-old son, Canute, as King, the West Saxon Witan, an assembly of wise men, recalled Ethelred, declaring that "no lord was dearer to them than their natural lord, if he would but rule them better than he had before." Ethelred returned and spent two miserable years fighting ill-health and Canute. He died in London in April 1016.

Individual Notes

Note for: Edmund II King of Britian, - Index

Alias: /Ironside/