Bruce and the Honourable Thing

 Our history teachers taught us all about Robert Bruce and the spider in the cave but I have discovered the Bruce family themselves were spiders drawing people into their web. We start with 1066. It was not just England that changed following that event, but the whole island. No one is sure if de Brus came with William the Conqueror, or is the canny laddie waited till he saw how things were going and came with reinforcements but when he did come, he was given large estates in Yorkshire.

The next time I stumbled over the family, now Bruce, was when one, Robert, went on a crusade. (the Big Thing in those days. Try it now and you get locked up.) Robert became friendly with a chap from South West Scotland, the Earl of Carrick. Unfortunately, the Earl was killed. When Robert came back to Yorkshire he felt it was his duty to tell his friend’s widow the sad news in person. Rather a decent thought, what! Anyway, when he got to the Earl’s castle he found the charming widow unwilling to let him go and Bruce did the honourable thing. The story goes that she locked and barred the gate and forced Robert to marry her. A malicious rumour was started that by putting the blame on the countess, Robert avoided paying the fine he would have to have paid to the king for marrying the countess without the king’s permission.

So, now we sit with Bruce having estates in Yorkshire and Scotland. I’ve no idea how he came by the Tottenham property but he may have bought it for the occasions when he had to attend Westminster.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober