On this day in 1306, Robert Bruce was inaugurated as King of Scots at Scone. Bruce was the last King of Scots to receive an inauguration rather than a coronation, the main difference being king's were anointed with holy oil at a coronation (a right that could only be granted by the Pope). By 1306, Scotland had been without a king for almost ten years. The previous king John Balliol had been forced to abdicate by Edward I in 1296 and since then Scotland had been governed by a succession of guardians - including Bruce himself from 1298-1300 - who had nominally acted on Balliol's behalf. However, Balliol had been absent from the kingdom since his abdication and in the meantime Bruce and his family had been looking for an opportunity to openly press their own claim to be king. Bruce's opportunity was somewhat thrust on him when, in February 1306, he stabbed his rival John Comyn lord of Badenoch to death in front of the high altar at Dumfries. This left Bruce little choice but to openly declare his intention to become king, since he would now be facing the attention of the English authorities one way or another. Bruce rode from Dumfries to Glasgow, where he at least secured the support of the Scottish clergy in return for offering them a greater role in the governance of the kingdom than they had enjoyed under the English administration, and then Bruce moved east to the traditional site for the inauguration of Scottish kings - Scone. The exact nature of Scottish inauguration ceremonies is somewhat obscure due to a lack of reliable sources, but it seems to have at least involved the crowning of the new king in Scone Abbey and then a procession to nearby Moot Hill, where the king would be enthroned and the assembled nobles would individually pledge their loyalty to him. Tradition dictated that the right to crown the new King of Scots fell to the MacDuff earl of Fife, but in 1306 the earl of Fife was both a minor and in English custody, and so at Bruce's inauguration his aunt Isabella carried out this duty. Isabella was married to John Comyn, earl of Buchan and a cousin of the John Comyn Bruce had recently killed, but this does not seem to have deterred her from crowning Bruce. Later hostile accounts claim that this is because she and Bruce were conducting an affair together, but there is no contemporary evidence of this. Isabella would certainly pay a high price for her role in Bruce's inauguration, as by the end of the year she had been captured by the English and sentenced to be hung in a cage from the walls of Berwick! Poor Isabella spent four years in that cage and is not named among the other Bruce women released by the English after the Battle of Bannockburn, which may mean she had died in the meantime. In the aftermath of Bruce's inauguration, he and his men set to work seizing castles and strong-points and as much support as they could. Edward I was old and sick in 1306 and so he at first dispatched long-standing royal servant Aymer de Valance, earl of Pembroke, with an army to bring Bruce, as he saw it, to justice. Bruce met Pembroke in battle at Methven near Perth in June and was soundly defeated, forcing the new king and his supporters to go on the run. It seemed that the grim prediction of Bruce's wife Elizabeth, which she reportedly expressed at their inauguration, was going to come true: that she and Bruce might be summer king and queen, but not winter ones.

The Battle of Bannockburn is getting ready for Easter! Join us over the Easter Weekend and during the schools' Easter Holidays for some family-friendly fun!

On this day in 1286, King Alexander III of Scotland was found dead on a beach in Fife. The night before he had left Edinburgh Castle to ride twenty miles north to Kinghorn in Fife to be with his wife, Yolande of Dreux, who he had married only six months earlier. Accompanied by only three squires, the king is believed to have lost his way in the storm that had been raging since before he left Edinburgh and plunged over a cliff in the darkness. This turn of events was fairly disastrous for Scotland, as Alexander had outlived his two sons from his first marriage and his only direct heir was his granddaughter Margaret, who at the time was living in Norway. However, the Scottish nobility responded remarkably well to the crisis, appointing from their number a group of guardians of the realm that seems to have balanced the various political and cultural divisions of the kingdom fairly well. These men arranged for Margaret to be brought to Scotland and through the Treaty of Birgham arranged for her to marry Edward I of England's heir, which was intended to ensure a continuation of the Scottish royal line through any male heirs this union might produce while keeping Scotland's laws and customs intact. Unfortunately, Margaret died en route to Scotland and the guardians turned to Edward I to become directly involved in settling the on-going dispute between the Balliol and Bruce factions - holders of the steongest claims to succeed after Alexander III's death - over who should now become king. The decision to look to England to arbitrate Scotland's problems may seem like an odd one with hindsight, but the history of the two kingdoms in the thirteenth-century was one of relative peace and increasing cooperation - in contrast to the conflicts of previous centuries. However, Edward's attempts to exploit the succession crisis to assert his own authority in northern Britain led to a catastrophic breakdown in this cooperative relationship, beginning a two centuries of intermittent warfare between England and Scotland.

'...the common folk and people of the aforesaid kingdom of Scotland...unable to bear any longer such numerous, great [and] heavy injuries, more bitter than death, often befalling their affairs and bodies for default of a captain and faithful leader, they agreed on the said Lord Robert, the present king, in whom the rights of his father and grandfather to the aforesaid kingdom still reside and thrive incorrupted in the judgement of the people, by authority of the Lord.' http://rps.ac.uk/trans/1309/2 Happy St Patrick's Day everyone! On this day in 1309, the so-called 'Declaration of the Clergy' was produced, a letter from the clergy of Scotland to Philip IV of France laying out Robert Bruce's right to rule Scotland and declaring their support for those rights. The letter was produced at a parliament at St Andrews, the first parliament known to have been held by King Robert. The timing of this first parliament is telling, coming after significant victories of the rump of the Comyn/Balliol faction at Inverurie and the MacDougalls at the Pass of Brander the previous year. These victories did not deliver the whole kingdom to Bruce just yet, but they had decisively broken the power of Bruce's 'native' Scottish enemies, who after this point could no longer resist Bruce without active English support, which had not been forthcoming in recent years. As the name suggests, the letter is something of a precursor to the so-called 'Declaration of Arbroath' of 1320, and it shares a number of similarities with the later document. Both emphasise the miseries visited on the Scots by the English, both claim that it is in light of the evils of English aggression the community of the realm had chosen Robert to be their king - echoing the supposed 'elective' model of kingship sometimes said to be present in the DoA - and both cite (somewhat mythologised) precedent for the current struggle in the form of the Scots' 'warlike labours' against the Picts. This last point is interesting as Barrow has pointed out that it seems to evoke a letter from the clergy of Scotland to Pope Boniface VIII in 1301 and suggests that Bruce was willing to draw on documentation and arguments produced even before he was first recognised as king in order to support his position. Unlike the DoA, the 1309 letter also addresses John Balliol's brief reign as king, providing us with the earliest surviving example of the argument that Balliol was merely an English puppet, and rehearses Bruce's claim to be king through his father and grandfather. This is probably connected the fact that on the 16th, the parliament had also produced a letter to Philip IV of France making similar points about Bruce's position relative to Balliol. These letters seem to have had their intended effect, since after this point Bruce not Balliol is referred to as 'king of Scots' in Philip's correspondence. As in 1320, a letter from the nobles of Scotland was also produced at the 1309 parliament. The text of the barons' letter does not survive (we have the opposite problem for 1320) but an eighteenth-century abstract is available and suggests that the tone was very much similar to the clergy's letter. Such diplomatic offensives, it seems, were to be a common feature of Bruce's parliaments.

On this day in 1322 the Battle of Boroughbridge took place, in which an army of rebellious English barons was defeated by a royal army loyal to - but not led by Edward II. This victory - and the subsequent purge of rebellious elements within the English nobility - marked a high point in Edward's reign, although arguably that says more about Edward's reign than about the battle. Edward had experienced problems with the nobility throughout his reign, and much of this noble dissatisfaction wa led by the king's cousin - Thomas, earl of Lancaster. Many of these problems Edward had inherited from his father, particularly the burden of the war in Scotland and issues surrounding the financial mismanagement of the kingdom, but Edward's tendency for favouritism (a very dangerous habit for medieval kings) only intensified baronial unrest. One of Edward's previous favourites - Piers Gaveston - had been summarily executed by a party of barons led by Lancaster in 1312 but this did not dissuade Edward from promoting another of his favourites - Hugh Despenser the Younger - to increasing prominence within the royal administration from 1316 onwards. This was partly an attempt by Edward to counter Lancaster's growing influence over the governance of England in the aftermath of the English defeat at Bannockburn, which Lancaster had used to undermine the king's position. The choice of Despenser - apparently motivated by his personal closeness with the king - was hugely provocative, as Despenser's father (also Hugh) had a long-standing rivalry with Lancaster. Furthermore, the younger Despenser had landed interests in the Welsh marches, which he expanded - thanks to his newfound influence at court - at the expense of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford. Hereford was an experienced soldier and a very wealthy magnate who had already been alienated by the king, not least after a dispute over the command structure of the English army at Bannockburn. By 1321 Hereford had become so frustrated with his treatment that he began openly attacking Despenser's lands in Wales, and Lancaster joined Hereford in open, armed rebellion against King Edward. Towards the end of 1321, Lancaster entered secret negotiations with the Scots, using the codename 'King Arthur' in an attempt to hide his identity should his letters to the Scots be discovered. Barrow has cast doubt on how seriously the Scots took these negotiations, since Lancaster could offer them relatively little in material terms, but there can be no doubt that the Scots stood to benefit from civil conflict in England and must surely have been keen to encourage Lancaster to pursue violent means to secure redress for his greivances. At Christmas 1321 a two-year truce between England and Scotland ended and in January 1322 the Scots descended on northern England, moving as far south as Richmond without encountering resistance. Lancaster and Hereford joined forces and moved north, apparently hoping to join the Scots. However, a levied army led by a Cumbrian knight named Sir Andrew Harclay cut the rebels off from the Scots and defeated them at Boroughbridge. According to the Lanercost Chronicle, Harclay's force fought 'in schiltrom, after the Scottish fashion'. Lancaster was captured and taken to his own castle at Pontefract, where he was tried and convicted of treason by King Edward, with Despenser in attendance. Due to his royal heritage (his father had been Edward I's brother), he was spared the ignominy of the traditional traitor's death - hanging, drawing and quartering - and was instead beheaded. Victory at Boroughbridge effectively eradicated the leadership of the baronial opposition to Edward and seems to have hugely boosted the king's confidence, despite the relatively minor role he played in achieving it. However, defeat by the Scots at the Battle of Byland later in the year soured the sense of triumph and, more significantly, Edward seems to have learned nothing about the dangers of favouritism. In fact, he appears to have convinced himself that, since his most prominent opponents had been removed, he could now promote his favourites to ever greater power. But baronial dissent against his rule continued, albeit now largely leaderless, and when Queen Isabella returned from a diplomatic mission to France in 1327 at the head of a French army, those who remained dissatisfied with the corrupt royal administration flocked to her cause and swept Edward from power.

On this day in 1314 Edinburgh Castle was captured for the Scots by Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray. Not only was this a significant step on the road to the Battle of Bannockburn later in the year, the circumstances by which the castle was taken were also very dramatic! By the beginning of 1314 the momentum of the war had shifted strongly in favour of the Scots. Only the south-east of the kingdom retained any strong English presence, and early in the year King Robert's chief lieutenants began putting pressure on the remaining English garrisons to surrender to the Scots. On 19th February, James Douglas - who would later become one of Bruce's closest companions - captured Roxburgh Castle by, if you can believe it, disguising himself and his men as cattle to sneak up to the walls undercover of darkness, climbing over the walls and overwhelming the garrison before they could mount an effective resistance. Douglas may have acted on his own initiative in taking Roxburgh, but his actions were at least given subsequent royal approval when the king dispatched his youngerr brother Edward to demolish Roxburgh Castle. It is unclear whether Edinburgh Castle was already under siege by the time Douglas took Roxburgh, but the later fourteenth-century Scottish poet John Barbour certainly thought it was and he tells us that when Randolph heard about Douglas's exploits he began to look for an equally ingenious way to capture Edinburgh Castle - all in the spirit of chivalric competition of course. Randolph's opportunity - again according to Barbour - came when he was approached by one William Francis, whose father had been keeper of Edinburgh Castle in Francis's youth. The young William used to sneak in and out of the castle to visit his sweetheart ('a wench' in Barbour's words) in the town below, and he offered to show Randolph and his men a way to climb the north face of Castle Rock and stealthy gain access to the castle. Accounts differ on what happened next. Barbour - ever the dramatist - claims that Randolph and co. made the climb under cover of darkness but the earlier Lanercost Chronicle claims that the bulk of the Scottish army launched a diversionary assault against the southern defences to distract the garrison while Randolph and his men made their ascent. Whatever the case, the result was the same; the castle fell to the Scots and was subsequently demolished in accordance with Bruce's general strategy of denying the English the opportunity to re-garrison such strongholds in the future. With Roxburgh and Edinburgh now in Scottish hands, Stirling Castle was now the most northerly English outpost and was utterly isolated. Stirling was placed under siege by Edward Bruce - presumably shortly after he had finished demolishing Roxburgh Castle - and Edward II was forced to ramp up his preparations to launch another campaign into Scotland in the summer. It was in anticipation of this planned campaign that the garrison at Stirling made an agreement with Edward Bruce to surrender the castle if they had not been relieved by Midsummer's Day, and this agreement that led directly to the Battle of Bannockburn.

Happy Mother's Day everyone! We'd like to take this opportunity to celebrate the mothers of the two kings who fought here at Bannockburn - Robert I and Edward II. King Robert's mother was Marjory, Countess of Carrick. Her first husband, Adam of Kilconquhar, died on crusade with the future Edward I of England and Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale (Marjory's eventual father-in-law) in 1271. According to the Scottish chronicler John Fordun, Marjory met King Robert's father while he was hunting and was so taken with him that she took him back to her castle at Turnberry and held him prisoner there for fifteen days until he agreed to marry her. Through this marriage the Bruces inherited the earldom of Carrick. There is some evidence that King Robert was quite fond of his mother, as he named his only child from his first marriage Marjory, presumably in her honour. Edward's mother was Eleanor of Castile, a Spanish princess who gave Edward a territorial claim to Gascony in France. The marriage of Eleanor to Edward I was unpopular in England, but Edward was clearly very smitten with her and she accompanied him on crusade to the Holy Land from 1270-1274. The Italian chronicler Ptolemy of Lucca claims that Eleanor saved Edward's life in the Holy Land after he was attacked by an assassin armed with a poisoned knife by sucking the poison from the wound, although this is surely a fabrication. Edward I's affection for Eleanor is demonstrated by the fact that, after she died from a 'low fever' at Lincoln in 1290, the king had elaborate monumental crosses built at each of the stopping points of her funeral procession on the way to Westminster - twelve in total. Edward II also named his eldest daughter Eleanor, perhaps in memory of his mother.

Happy International Women's Day everyone! To celebrate, we'd like to focus on one of the most formidable women of the early fourteenth-century, and for many people the first person they hear from in our exhibition - Isabella of France. Isabella was the only daughter of King Philip IV of France (Philip 'the Fair') to survive into adulthood, and her betrothal to Edward, Prince of Wales, (the future Edward II) was first proposed as early as 1298, when Isabella was only three years old! The negotiations for the betrothal were long and protracted, not least because the conflict between England amd France - which their marraige was intended to end - kept interrupting these talks. However, the pair were eventually married at Boulogne on 25th January 1308, and precisely a month later they were crowned King and Queen of England at Westminster. The unhappiness of their marriage is somewhat overstated - at least in those early years - but the king's preference for favourites, particularly Poers Gaveston, undoubtedly caused tensions between Isabella and Edward at court. Nevertheless, Isabella quickly showed herself to be a capable politician and excelled in the traditional queenly role of acting as intercessor to the king on behalf of his subjects. Between 1312 and 1321 Isabella also gave birth to five children, the eldest son whom would go on to succeed his father as Edward III and the youngest of whom - Joan - would later marry Bruce's son David as part of the peace deal that sought to bring an end to the war. It was not until the 1320s and the rise of Edward's newest favourites the Despensers that Isabella and Edward's relationship truly broke down. The Despensers - Hugh the Elder and Hugh the Younger - increasingly isolated Isabella at court and even sought to undermine her financially by convincing the king to reassign the lands and property she had been given as part of her marriage deal with Edward. However, this coincided with Isabella's eldest son reaching an age where he could start to play a more active role in government, and Isabella soon realised that this made her husband less essential for her own prosperity. Under the pretext of negotiating an end to the long running dispute between her hisband and her brother - Charles IV of France - over Aquitaine, Isabella returned to France in 1325. The deal she reached with her brother strongly favoured the French and required her son Edward to come to Paris to pay homage to the French king for the duchy of Aquitaine. On the face of it, this was supposed to save Edward II the embarrassment of paying homage to another king, but in reality it was a ruse to allow Isabella to gain access to the younger Edward, who she took into her custody almost as soon as he arrived in Paris. Isabella then betrothed her son to Philippa, daughter of the Count of Hainault, used her dowry to hire mercenaries, and in 1326 she returned to England at the head of an army ready to depose her husband. As London rioted in support of Isabella, Edward and the Despensers fled west into Wales, but before long the Despensers wee caught and executed and Edward was handed over to the queen. Edward was forced to abdicate and for a while was kept in captivity, but repeated attempts to rescue him seem to have convinced the new government that he was a liability and he was quietly disposed of at Berkeley Castle in 1327. The new government was dominated by Isabella and Roger Mortimer, an exiled English nobleman who had become Isabella's lover while they were both in France. The new regime was beset with problems however, both internal and external. Firstly, the Scots had used the coup against Edward as an excuse to break the truce that had been in effect since 1324, and after an utterly embarrassing display by Isabella's mercenary army against the Scots in Weardale in early 1327 the new administration was forced to recognise Bruce as the rightful King of Scots later that same year. However, there were still many in England who felt uncomfortable with the way in which Edward II had been dispatched, and Isabella's aggresssive attempts to regain the land and property she had lost during the 1320s did little to placate these individuals. Ultimately though, it was a palace coup in 1330 - led by Edward III himself - himself that saw Isabella's regime come to an end, with Isabella being imprisoned and her lover Mortimer being executed as a traitor. Isabella's confinement did not last long however, and although she was not allowed to weild any official powers she continued to play a role in diplomacy, regularly entertaining foreign officials when they visited England. She died at Hertford Castle on 23rd August 1358 and was buried in the London Franciscan church in Newgate, which she had patronised during her lifetime. Her decision to be buried wearing her wedding mantle may suggest a degree of regret for her part in her husband's demise. Wthathat is not in doubt however is that she was one of the most formidable figures in the politics of early fourteenth-century England.

On this day in 1324 twin sons - David and John - were born to King Robert I of Scotland and his wife Queen Elizabeth. John sadly would die in infancy, but David would go on to rule Scotland from 1329-1371 as David II. The birth of twin sons to King Robert in 1324 was of huge significance to the king. While Bruce had several illegitimate sons - he had even knighted one of them at the Battle of Bannockburn - and a number of daughters - one Marjory, with his first wife, and at least two with Queen Elizabeth - he had until that point no legitimate male heir to become king after his death. This - coupled with the death of hos younger brother Edward at the Battle of Dundalk in 1318 - had left the Bruce dynasty in a precarious position, with Bruce's most likely successor being his grandson, Robert Stewart. The birth and survival of David ensured that the Bruce dynasty would at least survive King Robert's death in 1329. However, this did not mean that David would have an easy time as king. David was married at the tender age of four - his bride, Joan of the Tower, was only seven herself - as part of the peace deal intended to bring the war between Scotland and England to an end (Joan was the daughter of Edward II, and it was hoped that the marriage would link the royal families of both kingdoms in friendship). David was also the first King of Scots to be anointed as part of the ceremony in which he ws made king, a result of a great deal of diplomatic wrangling between his father and the Pope. However, peace did not last long and when Edward III invaded Scotland in 1333 David - who was after all still a child at the time - was sent to France for his own protection. He would not return to Scotland until 1341, and he initially struggled to assert his personal authority over the men who had been leading the war effort in his absence. His desire to present himself as the natural leader of the Scottish kingdom in war may explain why he led Scots to disastrous defeat at the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346, at which David was captured and forced to spend the next eleven years in captivity in England. On his release, David once again struggled to assert his authority over those who had run the Scottish government in his absence, and his attempts to negotiate a permanent settlement of the war with England created resentment among the Scottish aristocracy. David also grew increasingly suspicious of his nephew Robert Stewart, who had not only played a leading role in governing Scotland during David's captivity but was also David's closest male relative and heir (David had been married twice by the time of his death and may already have been searching for a third wife, but none of these marriages - or his numerous affairs - had produced any children). David sought desperately to find a way to diminish Stewart's chances of inheriting the kingdom, but this all came to nothing when David suffered a seizure - possibly the result of head wounds he sustained at the Battle of Neville's Cross - and died at Edinburgh Castle on 22nd February 1371. Stewart did indeed succeed David as Robert II and in doing so founded the Stewart dynasty of kings, who would rule Scotland (and late Great Britain) for 343 years!

Good morning! We've braved the snow and ice and the Battle of Bannockburn is open for visitors to our 3D experience today! Unfortunately, due to issues regarding the transport of supplies, our cafe will remain closed today. Thanks for your understanding!

Unfortunately, due to the continuing weather warnings and our concerns for travelling visitors and staff we have made the decision to remain CLOSED today and tomorrow (Saturday 4th March and Sunday 5th). Apologies for any inconvenience caused and we hope you're all staying safe and warm!

UPDATED CLOSURE ANNOUNCEMENT: Unfortunately, due to the ongoing weather warnings and our concerns for the safety of our visitors and staff travelling to the centre we have decided to remain CLOSED tomorrow (Friday 2nd March 2018). Apologies for any inconvenience caused. If you have pre-booked tickets for our 3D experience tomorrow please contact the centre when we re-open in order to rearrange you visit or arrange a refund. Stay safe and warm everyone!