Isabella MacDuff

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Isabella MacDuff, Countess of Buchan (Scottish Gaelic: Iseabail MacDuibh or Iseabail inghean Dhonnchaidh was a significant figure in the Wars of Scottish Independence.

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 III Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, 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 Clan MacDuff, 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.

Bruce was defeated at the Battle of Methven in June 1306, so he sent Isabella and his female relatives north, but they were betrayed to the English by the Earl of Ross. Edward I of England ordered her sent to Berwick-upon-Tweed 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. Her eventual fate is uncertain, it has been suggested that she may have returned to Scotland as part of the exchange of prisoners after the Battle of Bannockburn, but there is no clear evidence for this.

Mary Bruce was treated in a similar fashion at Roxburgh Castle.

[edit] Isabella in fiction

She is the subject of two novels: Kingdom of Shadows by Barbara Erskine, and Proud Lady in a Cage by Fred Urquhart. She was also the subject of a song by Steeleye Span, which claims without foundation that she was Bruce's lover.