Robert Bruce

Bruce, Robert (1210-95). Known as the ‘Competitor’. Leading member of the 13th-cent. Scottish nobility and grandfather of King Robert I. His extensive lands stretched from Middlesex to Aberdeenshire, the most important concentrations lying in Essex, Co. Durham, and south-west Scotland. His transnational interests are reflected in his marriage to Isabel de Clare, daughter of the earl of Gloucester. He also served as sheriff of Cumberland and supported Henry III against Simon de Montfort at Lewes. A truly cosmopolitan figure, he went on crusade to the Holy Land (1271-2). Descended through his mother from David I, he was one of the chief claimants or ‘competitors’ for the vacant Scottish throne in 1291-2, and was bitterly disappointed when Edward I declared in favour of John Balliol.