Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/51

1286 A.D.] 8. Robert de Brus, seventh Lord of Annandale, and, in right of his wife, Earl of Carrick, was the eldest son of the sixth lord. He married Marjorie, daughter and heiress of Nigel or Niall, Celtic Earl of Carrick, the grandson of Gilbert, son of Fergus, Lord of Galloway. This lady was also the widow of Adam of Kilconquhar. She is said to have met de Brus returning from hunting; to have fallen in love with him straightway, and carried him off to her castle of Turnberry, where, after fifteen days' dalliance, she married him. It has been suspected that this was a ruse, for Dame Marjorie was a royal ward, and de Brus committed a grave offence in marrying her without the King's leave; an offence, however, which could not be visited very seriously if the lady could be supposed to have taken the law into her own hands. De Brus took King Edward's side against Balliol in 1296, in revenge for which Balliol seized Annandale and placed John Comyn in the lordship. De Brus was King Edward's governor of Carlisle from 1295 till 1297, and died in 1304.

9. Robert de Brus, eighth Lord of Annandale and Earl of Carrick, was the eldest son of the seventh lord and Countess Marjorie. He married first, Isabel de Mar second, Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of the Earl of Ulster, and became King of Scotland.

Three things have to be borne in mind in tracing the course of the Scottish struggle for independence, and in analysing the conflicting causes which swayed those who took part in it. First, the comparatively recent consolidation of Scotland