Robert The Bruce, Before Bannockburn

Set against the backdrop of Edward I "The Hammer of Scots", Scotland's freedom was in danger!

Robert the Bruce, known as the Good King of Scots was born 11 July, 1274 at Turnberry Castle, Scotland. When Alexander III, King of Scots, died unexpectedly in 1296, without an heir, young Margaret of Norway, Alexander’s granddaughter was invited to take the throne. She departed Norway and, on her voyage to Scotland, fell ill and died. King Edward I was asked to intervene and help choose from the remaining eligible claimants.

Three competitors stepped forward to lay claim to the throne:

•John Balliol

•John Comyn

•Robert the Bruce

Edward installed the weak and wavering John Balliol, receiving homage from him as a vassal of England that next Christmas, to the disgust of the Scottish nobles. After John Balliol abdicated the throne in 1296, Robert realized that if the country wasn’t unified behind one King, England would soon take the tiny country to itself.

Exasperated, Robert approached John Comyn with an offer of truce on 1305. "Help me to be King and I will give you my estates, or give me your estates and I will help you." John preferred the Crown, and they made an exchange of signed and sealed documents to that effect. Later John Comyn exposed their pact to King Edward. As a result, Robert had to flee England for his life.

Robert convinced John Comyn to meet him at Greyfriars Church in Scotland. John and Robert withdrew to the high alter at which Robert confronted John with his treachery. They argued violently. Both drew their daggers, and Robert struck the first blow, leaving John wounded at the alter, but alive.

Joining Bruce's followers outside, Roger Kirkpatrick saw Bruce's agitation and the blood on his clothes. Robert simply replied,” I doubt that I have slain Red Comyn."

"Do you doubt?" asked Kirkpatrick, "Then I will make sure!" He entered the church and dispatched Comyn.

Most historians have called this the murder of John Comyn, but the circumstances seem to raise questions. With Bruce ranking as one of the three best knights in Europe, surely he could have finished Comyn himself if he had chosen to. He certainly wouldn't have left him wounded if he had wanted the man dead. Weight must also be given to their temperaments as well. Comyn was known for his fiery rage and Robert for his generosity to friends and supporters, but more importantly, his mercy toward his enemies.

Whether Robert was defending himself or not, the incident left Bruce with only two choices. He could run to Norway and seek asylum at his sister's court, or hazard all in the final pursuit of the Throne of Scotland. During those years of fighting for Scotland’s freedom, Bruce’s wife and daughter were taken prisoner, and held for 12 years by the English, and several of his brothers were killed. This was a deplorable situation for a man who frequently offered forgiveness to his captives, and even a place in his own army.

Hiding in a cave one rainy afternoon, disappointment and weariness taking their toll, he saw a small spider struggling to build a web. When finally the spider reached its mark and attached its web, Robert fashioned the famous phrase, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

On a gentle hill near Stirling Castle,in June of 1314, at Bannockburn, he was finally triumphant. With an army numbering about 6,000, he faced Edward's army of more than 20,000. Outnumbered and lacking sophisticated weaponry, he none-the-less led that tiny army to an unexpected and glorious victory; he would be Scotland’s hero for many years to come.

Medieval Apocalypse: Black Death, What was the plague?

Were rats really responsible for the death of nearly 1/3 of Europes population?

The Black Death or the Plague seems to appear literally out of nowhere. Looking for a scapegoat, many Europeans blamed the Jews for poisoning the wells, or they looked upon it as a judgment from God. Barbara F. Harvey (Introduction: The Crisis of the Early fourteenth Century) "Once it had struck… it set Europe on a new path almost totally unrelated to its late medieval past".

An Italian chronicler in Chronica di Matteo Villani gives this narration of the plague "They began to spit blood and then they died-some immediately, some in two or three days, and some in a longer time. And it happened that whoever cared for the sick caught the disease from them, or infected by the corrupt air, became rapidly ill and died in the same way. Most had swellings in the groin, and many had them in the left and right armpits and in other places, one could almost always find an unusual swelling somewhere on the victim’s body.”

One of the problems facing the researcher is that neither the plague nor the victims can be directly studied. Either way, we know that three kinds of plague existed. The Bubonic affected the glands and was not passed human to human; Pneumonic could be spread from coughing, sneezing, and person to person contact. Finally there was septicemic, where the bacilli enter the bloodstream and multiply and destroy the patient so quickly that buboes can’t form. In this septicemic invasion the patient typically dies within 24-36 hours. This form of the plague can’t be passed from human to human either. The only one capable of doing so was the Pneumonic Plague. The cause of Pneumonic plague, is an untreated case of Bubonic Plague that has progressed to the lungs. When it reaches that point, one person is capable of infecting everyone he comes in contact with. So while rodents and rats are the carriers, they were likely not the biggest culprit in the spread of the plague. It would have been infected patients fleeing the plague that might have struck their family, or neighbors, or the infections caused by caring for sick patients.

Joan of Arc: The Maid of Orleans, What was this "cow girl" really like?

Joan of Arc, a familiar name in late medieval history; her military exploits in saving France from the English are legendary, but the question remains, what was she really like? Can we discover her personality and learn something more from historical records on this subject?

Living in the midst of the Hundred Years War, the two contending sides were:

•The English, aided by the French Burgundians, of whom Joan once said in her trial, "I only knew one Burgundian and I could have wished his head cut off-however, only if it please God"

•The remainder of France's citizens and nobility

She held her own very well for having no formal education. During one day of her inquiry, after her capture, one of the clergy asked her if she wasn’t being disobedient to her parents when she left them behind and traveled with the army. She persistently declared “…Since God commanded it, had I a hundred fathers and a hundred mothers, had I been a King’s daughter, I should have departed.

She was loyal to a fault, and encouraged an ambivalent Dauphin that it was time to claim his throne. “I tell thee… that thou art true heir of France..."

Her compassion transferred into the field also, once when she saw a fellow Frenchman leading away some English prisoners, he struck one of the Englishmen so hard on the head, that they left him for dead. Upset and angry she alighted from her horse, and knelt down next to the dying Englishman. Cradling his head in her hand, she heard his final confession and consoled him in his pain. She cried easily when soldiers died without confession or the last rites. She also sent away the followers of the armies, the women of ill-repute. She explained her decision saying, “…it was for those sins that God allowed a war to be lost" To her, things were simple, she believed in being good, and in doing good.

At one point she was counseled that the nearby city under siege was well provided for and that all of the military leaders at the time believed that they should not try to take the city because their numbers were few, that they would wait for a better time to do so. Angry at their lack of faith in her counsel, not being included, she replied “You have been at your counsel, and I at mine, and I know that my Lord’s counsel will be accomplished and will prevail and that your counsel will perish."


When struck by an arrow, she cried. When the English replied to her letters that demanded their surrender with taunts of being a whore, and a “Cow girl”, she cried. When soldiers were killed on the field, she cried. She had the tender heart of a young 17 year old girl.

In one case several women carrying various religious articles came and asked Joan to touch them, believing her touch would bless them. Joan laughed and told them, “Touch them yourselves; they will be as good from your touch as they are from mine!”

At the beginning of her leadership near the city of Orleans, the generals and other military leaders purposely mislead her to think that they would be somewhere different than they were. When she discovered the duplicity, she immediately went to where they were and exclaimed with great indignation, “In God’s name, the counsel of the Lord your God is wiser and safer than yours. You thought to deceive me and it is yourself above all whom you deceive, for I bring you better succor than has reached you from any soldier, in any city; it is succor from the King of Heaven!"

Perceval de Boulainvilles writes of her, “This maid has a certain elegance…she has a pretty woman’s voice, eats little…greatly likes the company of noble fighting men, detests numerous assemblies and meetings, readily sheds copious tears, has a cheerful face, bears the weight and burden of armor incredibly well, to such a point that she has remained fully armed during six days and nights."
The picture we gain as we study her is that of a well grounded and street-smart young woman. The story gets better as the stakes rise, and Joan unafraid answers the best lawyers, university trained clergymen, and important men of her day in England.