Robert the Bruce's heart, body and organs rest in three separate Scottish churches
Scotland's hero-king was buried in three places: his body at Dunfermline Abbey, his heart at Melrose Abbey and his embalmed organs in a church at Dumbarton. Robert the Bruce's path to that honour ran through a killing in a church, excommunication, defeat, years as a hunted outlaw and finally victory at Bannockburn.
Robert was born on 11 July 1274, most likely at Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire. Through his father he inherited the lordship of Annandale and descent from King David I, a claim to the throne; through his mother, the earldom of Carrick. He grew up between Anglo-Norman and Gaelic worlds and probably spoke Anglo-Norman French, Gaelic and early Scots, with working Latin. His grandfather, known as Bruce the Competitor, had himself claimed the crown and seems to have deeply shaped him.
His early career was a tangle of shifting loyalties. He joined William Wallace's campaign against Edward I of England, served in 1298 as a Guardian of Scotland alongside his rival John Comyn, resigned after quarrels, and submitted to Edward in 1302. In February 1306 he was involved in Comyn's killing, which brought excommunication by Pope Clement V, though the Bishop of Glasgow absolved him. He had himself crowned on 25 March 1306, was beaten at Methven and went into hiding. His chronicler Barbour says he kept his followers' spirits up by reciting a Charlemagne romance from memory.
Re-emerging in 1307, he beat an English force at Loudoun Hill and waged a successful guerrilla war, crushing Scottish rivals too. In 1314 at Bannockburn he defeated a much larger army under Edward II, and he later carried the war into northern England and Ireland. Berwick, the last English stronghold, fell in 1318.
England still would not recognize him. In 1320 Scottish nobles sent Pope John XXII the Declaration of Arbroath, asserting Robert as their rightful king and Scotland as independent, and the Pope recognized him in 1324. After Edward II was deposed, the 1328 Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton had Edward III renounce all claims over Scotland. When Robert died in June 1329, his son took the throne as David II.
Source: Robert the Bruce
