The Death of Robert Bruce.

Hastings Standard, Issue 22, 21 May 1896, Page 4

The Death of Robert Bruce.

- > — The death of King Robert the Bruce took place in l:!2it. He was by no means old, being only lifty-four, but he was worn down by disease and infirmities, contracted through the severe exertions, hardships, and exposures endured in his stupendous endeavous for the liberation of Scotland. He entered into contest with an enemy who appeared to most men too powerful for any hope of success, and left his country at peace and independent. With some exceptions, even in that hard and iron iige, his character, says (.'assell's " Illustrated History ot" England," was marked by great tenderness and amiability. His destruction of the Red C'omyn was an act which, though dictated by policy, his conscience never approved. On his death-bed he reverted to it, declaring that he had always meant to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in expiation of the crime, but, as he euuld not do that, he commissioned his dearest friend and bravest warrior to carry his heart thither.

In contrast to and palliation of the slaughter of the Red C'omyn, we may place such actions as that in which he stopped his army in retreat in Ireland, because a poor woman, who had just given birth to a child, had no means of being conveyed on with the troops, and was heard by him lamenting that she should be left to the cruelties of the Irish. No sooner did Bruce understand her complaint than he looked round on his oiiicers with eyes which kindled like fire, and exclaimed, •' Gentlemen, never let it be said that a man. who was born of a woman and nursed by a woman's tenderness, c-ould leave a mother and an infant to the mercy of barbarians. In the name of God, let us tight rather than leave these poor creatures behind us."' The army balled and drew up in order of battle, and Edmund Butler, the English general, believing that Bruce had received reinforcements. hesitated to attack him ; so that Bruce had opportunity to send the woman and child, and retreat at his leisure.

Robert Bruce died at his castle of C'ardross on the 7th of June, 1:;29; and Douglas, some time after, setting out with several brave knights to carry the heart of the king to Jerusalem, enclosed in a silver case, and hung from his neck, stopped to fight infidels in Spain, where he was killed ; but his remains were brought back to Scotland as well as the heart of Bruce, which was buried behind the high altar in the Abbey of Melrose. The body of Bruce was interred in the church of Dunfermline, where some years ago the tomb was opened, and the remains of his bones were found, and clearly identified, after a rest of more than 500 years, by the breastbone having been sawn through to take out; the heart, and by fragments of the cloth of gold in which he was known to have been wrapped.