Isabella MacDuff
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Isabella MacDuff (Scottish Gaelic: Iseabail MacDuibh or Iseabail inghean Dhonnchaidh; d. 1358) was a late 13th and early 14th century Scottish noble-woman. She was the daughter of Donnchadh III, Earl of Fife and Johanna de Clare, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Gloucester. She was married to John Comyn, Earl of Buchan and thus was the Countess-consort of Buchan.
After Robert the Bruce murdered John Comyn, the Earl of Buchan joined the English side in the Scottish Wars of Independence. Isobel took the contrary view.
According to tradition, the ceremony of crowning the monarch was performed by a representative of the MacDuff family, but Isobel arrived in Scone the day after the coronation of Robert the Bruce in March 1306. However, the Bruce agreed to be crowned for a second time the day after, as otherwise some would see the ceremony as irregular, not being performed by a MacDuff.
However, she was captured after the Battle of Methven. Edward I of England ordered her sent to Berwick with these instructions:
"Let her be closely confined in an abode of stone and iron made in the shape of a cross, and let her be hung up out of doors in the open air at Berwick, that both in life and after her death, she may be a spectacle and eternal reproach to travellers."
She was imprisoned so for four years, after which she entered a convent.
Isobel is the subject of the fiction novel Kingdom of Shadows by Barbara Erskine.
[edit] References
- Jones, David E. Women Warriors: A History
- Henty, G. A. In Freedom's Cause: A Story of Wallace and Bruce
- Women as Warriors in Scotland
