Bruce: A Clan History: From Scotland to the New World

Early in 1306 Robert Bruce met his rival John Comyn in the Greyfriars church at Dumfries, and the meeting ended with Comyn dead. In March Bruce was crowned King of Scots at Scone. By June his army had been broken at Methven and he was a hunted man. The English hung his sister Mary in a cage on the wall of Roxburgh Castle and kept her there for about four years. The countess who had set the crown on his head was caged at Berwick. This is the history of the family that put the name Bruce on the throne of Scotland. It begins with the Norman lords of Annandale and the claim they lost before Edward I in 1292. It follows the king through the months in hiding to Bannockburn, where he stood in his stirrups on a small palfrey and split an English knight's helmet with one blow of his axe. Six years later came the Declaration of Arbroath. The crown passed out of the family, and the name went on. Bruces held the tower at Clackmannan and became Earls of Elgin. Emigrants carried the name to Nova Scotia, Virginia and Upper Canada, where Bruce County is named for a Bruce who governed Canada. For anyone who carries the name Bruce, or descends from someone who did. Part of the Clan Histories.