Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/95

 Bruce privy council. He appears after this to have taken no further part in politics. In 1678, however, he exerted himself to save the life of Mitchell, who some years previously had made an attempt upon James Sharp, and who was now murdered through the perjury of Rothes, Sharp, and others, and he endeavoured in vain to save Lauderdale from sharing in the guilt of this crime, which was afterwards the chief cause of the duke's fall. In May of that year, when in London, he was 'scrapt out of the English council' (Lauderdale MSS.) In February 1680 he is spoken of as being 'desperately sick,' and according to Burnet (i. 514) appears to have died in 1681.

 BRUCE, ARCHIBALD (1746–1816), theological writer, was born at Broomhall, Stirlingshire, and, after studying at the university of Glasgow, was ordained, in 1768, minister of the Associate (Anti-burgher) congregation of Whitburn. In 1786 he was appointed professor of divinity by the General Associate Synod, and continued to hold that office till 1806. Being dissatisfied with the action of his synod, he left it and formed, along with three others, the 'Constitutional Associate Presbytery;' this led to a sentence of deposition being passed on him by the former body. He died 28 Feb. 1816. He was a man of great theological learning, of earnest piety, and at the same time of a lively imagination, as his writings showed. The chief of these were—1. 'The Kirkiad, or the Golden Age of the Church of Scotland,' a satirical poem, 1774. 2. 'Free Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery,' 1780. 3. 'Annus Secularis,' the centenary of the revolution 1788, a long dissertation on religious festivals. 4. 'Queries,' on the commemoration of the revolution, 1797. 5. 'The Catechism modernized,' 1791, a cutting satire on lay patronage, and its effects, in the form of a parody on the Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism. 6. 'Reflexions on the Freedom of Writing,' 1794, à propos of a proclamation against seditious publications, bearing the motto 'What Britons dare to think, he dares to tell.' 7. A poem ridiculing the pretensions of the pope, 1797. 8. 'Lectures to Students,' 1797. 9. 'Life of James Hog of Carnock,' 1798. 10. 'Dissertation on the Supremacy of the Civil Power in Matters of Religion,' 1798. 11. 'Poems, serious and amusing, by a reverend divine,' 1812. 12. 'Life of Alex. Morus, a celebrated divine in Geneva and Holland,' 1813. 13. 'A Treatise on Earthquakes' (posthumous).

 BRUCE, DAVID (1324–1371), II, king of Scotland, the only son of Robert the Bruce, by his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, born at Dunfermline on 5 March 1324, amidst the rejoicing natural to the long-wished-for birth of a male heir, came too late to receive his mother's or his father's care, and disappointed the expectations of the nation. Elizabeth died in November 1327, having borne a second son, John, who died in infancy. One of the last acts of his father was the treaty of Northampton in 1328 with Edward III, by which it was agreed that a marriage should as soon as possible be celebrated between the infant David and Joanna, the sister of the king of England, a child scarcely older than himself. Her dowry was to be 2,000l. a year from lands in Scotland, and she was to be delivered to the King of Scots or his commissioners at Berwick on 15 Jan. 1328. The marriage was solemnised on 12 July of that year in presence of the Earl of Moray and Sir James Douglas, as Bruce himself was too ill to attend. Within less than a year he died, on 9 June 1329, and David peacefully succeeded to his father's throne. His coronation was delayed till 24 Nov. 1331, when he was crowned, and first of the Scottish kings annointed by the bishop of St. Andrews, in accordance with the provisions of a bull Bruce had procured from Pope John XXII, too late for his own use (13 June 1329). According to the customs of chivalry he was knighted by Randolph, the regent, and then knighted the regent's son, the Earl of Angus, and others. Details of his marriage and coronation preserved in the Exchequer records show that no expense was spared to give the ceremonies the importance desirable at the commencement of a new race of independent kings. His reign nearly coincides with that of Edward III, who succeeded to the English throne two years before, and outlived David by seven years. The personal character of the two sovereigns reversed that of their fathers. David was a weak successor of the Bruce; Edward inherited the martial and administrative talents of his grandfather, instead of the feeble nature of Edward II.

The life of David naturally divides itself into five parts of unequal length, and as to two of which our information is very limited:—