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Originally Posted by Wolfetone Hibee
We should commemorate this Dix.
True the Bruce stabbed a competitor in a church (it was bruce's lieutenants who actually finished comyn off) but Bruce secured Scotland's independence and indeed presided over one of only two scottish armies to have an ascendancy over the english (1307 untill his death in 1329, the other decent scottish army being the one we had until cromwell crushed it at dunbar and worcester in the 1650's)
Bruce got us recognition from Europe and more importantly from the vatican, as after Bruce scottish kings were annointed, like other major european monarchs. They hadn't been before.
He was 10 times the soldier that Wallace ever was and could beat the english in pitched battle rather than just ambushes (unlike Wallace)
Bruce acted the way he did in pursuit of the throne as he genuinely believed his family had the better claim,his family having been promised succession by alexander II. However this verbal promise was not taken into account during the succession crisis of the 1290's and without it, Balliol did have the better claim than Bruce's grandad.
a lot is made by dodgy historians of bruce and other scottish nobles bowing to edward I of england now and then, though it's easy to forget ones patriotism and principles when one has a knife at ones throat, especially when there is no realistic chance of effective resistance at the time.
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All excellent points. But I wonder whether Bruce's usurping of the crown (Balliol was still alive) is anything to crow about? Bannockburn is worth celebrating, manifestly. But Bruce's "coronation" would have been a shockingly contentious event at the time, especially after the murder in Dumfries and his subsequent excommunication. Surprisingly it did not seem to give rise to that many questions about the legitimacy of his line as Scottish monarchs, presumably as his success in battle in 1314 tended to vindicate it, in terms of the thinking of the time.
I also think it is a tad surprising that some avowed Scottish republicans are happy to celebrate the seizure by force of the Scottish crown by a pretty brutal aristocrat.
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