Robert de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale

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Robert I de Brus (died 1142) was an early 12th century Norman baron and knight, the first of the Bruce dynasty of Scotland. A monastic patron, he is remembered as the founder of Guisborough Priory in Yorkshire in 1119.

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[edit] Family

According to historiographical tradition, he was the son of a Norman noble named Robert de Brus who is said to have come to England with William the Conqueror, although this is now disputed.[1]

It is clear that the Robert who died in 1142 could not have come to Britain as a knight with the Conqueror in 1066, giving some credence to the Yorkshire records which give him as a brother of Adam de Brus of Skelton who died in 1167, grandsons of the de Brus supposed to have arrived with the Conqueror.[2]

Sir Edmund Burke gives him as Robert de Bruce, Lord of Skelton in Yorkshire (or Cleveland[3]) and adds that "he was a notable figure at the court of King Henry I, where he became intimate with Prince David of Scotland, that monarch's brother-in-law. When the Prince became King of Scots, in 1124, Bruce obtained from him the Lordship of Annandale, and great possessions in the south of Scotland. He was buried in Gisborough Priory, the place of his birth".[4] It is said that "the Bruce family became one of the most powerful in the north of England."[5]

Some modern historians contend that Robert may have come from Brix, Manche[6], near Cherbourg in the Cotentin Peninsula, and came to Britain after King Henry I of England's conquest of Normandy (i.e: at the same time as Alan fitzFlaad, ancestor of the Stewart Royal Family). David fitz Malcolm (after 1124 King David I of Scotland), was present in France with King Henry and was granted much of the Cotentin Peninsula. It is suggested that Robert de Brus's presences and absences at Henry's court seem to coincide with David's.

[edit] Scotland

Whatever his immediate ancestry, what is known beyond doubt is that he went to Scotland, where the new King, David, made Robert Lord of Annandale in 1124,[7]. although there is scant evidence that this Robert took up residence on his Scottish estates.

[edit] Battle of The Standard

After the death of King Henry, David turned against Henry's successor, King Stephen. As a result Robert de Brus and King David parted company, with Robert bitterly renouncing his homage to David before taking the English side at the Battle of the Standard.[8]

[edit] Marriage

Robert is said to have married twice: (1) Agnes, daughter of Geoffrey Bainard, sheriff of York and (2) Agnes, daughter and heiress of Fulk de Pagnall, Lord of Carleton, Yorkshire[9][10]

There were two sons, but it is unclear by which spouse:

  • Adam de Brus, whose descendants continued to hold lands in England as Lords of Skelton. When Peter de Brus III, last Bruce Lord of Skelton, died in 1272, his sisters were co-heiresses. One of them, Laderia, carried Carleton to her marriage with John de Bellew, whose daughter, Sybil married Sir Miles de Stapleton (k. 1314, at the Battle of Bannockburn), whose family were subsequently designated "of Carleton".[11][12] This appears to confirm the de Brus and de Pagnall of Carleton connection. Sir Miles Stapleton's son and heir, Sir Gilbert (d. 1321) married Agnes, daughter of Bryan FitzAlan, Lord FitzAlan,[13] and a granddaughter of Devorguilla of Galloway (d. 1290) wife of John de Balliol, Lord of Barnard Castle, whose son was King John of Scotland.[14]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Robert de Brus, Lord of Annandale (d.1142) in the Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004-2008.
  2. ^ Norcliffe, Charles Best, of Langton, MA., editor, The Visitation of Yorkshire in the years 1563-64 by William Flower, Norroy King of Arms, London, 1881: 40
  3. ^ Tytler, Patrick Fraser, The History of Scotland, New edition, Edinburgh, 1866, vol.1, pps:43 and 55
  4. ^ Burke, Sir Bernard, CB., LL.D., Ulster King of Arms, The Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire, London, 1883: 80
  5. ^ Burton, John Hill, The History of Scotland, New revised edition, Edinburgh, 1876, vol.ii, p.13
  6. ^ see also Burton, John Hill (The History of Scotland, New revised edition, Edinburgh, 1876, vol.ii, p.13n), where he remarks: "attempts have been made to bring the cradle of their race home to Scotland, in Bruse, a son of the Earl of Orkney by a daughter of an early Malcolm of Scotland, whose descendant went with Rollo to France, and built the castle of Brix. Accordington to some Norse authorities, however, Bruse was a son of Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, by his first wife, while the daughter of Malcolm was his second." It seems too much of a coincidence that some modern historians have reached Brix again.
  7. ^ Donaldson, Gordon, Scottish Historical Documents, Edinburgh, 1970, ISBN 7011-1604-8 :19, "David by the grace of God King of Scots, to all his barons, men, and friends, French and English, greeting. Know ye that I have given and granted to Robert de Brus Estrahanent (i.e: Annandale) and all the land from the boundary of Randolph Meschin; and I will and grant that he should hold and have that land and its castle well and honourably with all its customs," &c. This is a new charter and not a reconfirmation.
  8. ^ Burton, John Hill, The History of Scotland, New revised edition, Edinburgh, 1876, vol.1, p.437
  9. ^ Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 1904
  10. ^ Burke (1883) p.80
  11. ^ Burke (1883) p.504
  12. ^ Foster, Joseph, The Dictionary of Heraldry - Feudal Coats of Arms and Pedigrees, London, 1989 (reprint of 1902 original), p.180-1
  13. ^ Richardson, Douglas, Plantagenet Ancestry, Baltimore, Md., 2004, p.682, ISBN 0-8063-1750-7
  14. ^ Norcliffe, Charles Best, of Langton, MA., editor, The Visitation of Yorkshire in the years 1563-64 by William Flower, Esq., Norroy King of Arms, London, 1881, p.295.


[edit] References

Preceded by
New Creation		 Lord of Annandale
1113 x 1124-1138		 Succeeded by
Robert II de Brus