Robert the bruce
Robert was the first son of Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale (d. 1304) and Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, (d. 1292) [2] daughter of Niall, Earl of Carrick. His mother was by all accounts a formidable woman who, legend would have it, kept Robert Bruce's father captive until he agreed to marry her. From his mother, he inherited the Gaelic Earldom of Carrick, and through his father a royal lineage that would give him a claim to the Scottish throne. Although his date of birth is definitely known,[3] his place of birth is less certain, but it was probably Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire.[4]
Very little is known of his youth. He could have been sent to be fostered with a local family, as was the custom. It can be presumed that Bruce was raised speaking all the languages of his lineage and nation and was almost certainly fluent in Gaelic and Norman French, with literacy inLatin. Robert's first appearance in history is on a witness list of a charter issued by Alasdair MacDomhnaill, Lord of Islay. His name appears in the company of the Bishop of Argyll, the vicar of Arran, a Kintyre clerk, his father and a host of Gaelic notaries from Carrick.
He saw the outcome of the 'Great Cause' in 1292, which gave the Crown of Scotland to his distant relative, John Balliol, as unjust. As he saw it, it prevented his branch of the family from taking their place on the Scottish throne. Soon afterwards, his grandfather, Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale—the unsuccessful claimant—resigned his lordship to Robert de Brus, Bruce's father. Robert de Brus had already resigned the Earldom of Carrick to Robert Bruce, his son, on the day of his wife's death in 1292, thus making Robert Bruce the Earl of Carrick. Both father and son sided with Edward I against Balliol.
In April 1294, the younger Bruce had permission to visit Ireland for a year and a half, and, as a further mark of King Edward's favour, he received a respite for all the debts owed by him to the English Exchequer.
In 1295, Robert married his first wife, Isabella of Mar (d. before 1302) the daughter of Domhnall I, Earl of Mar (d. after July 1297) by his wife Helen (b. 1246 d. after Feb 1295).
Some sources claim that Helen was the daughter of the Welsh ruler Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, Prince of North Wales, Llywelyn 'The Great' (1173–1240) and his spouse Joan, Lady of Wales, an illegitimate child of King John of England. However, as both Llywelyn and Joan were dead by 1246, that theory would most likely be incorrect. However, there are suggestions that Helen may have in fact been the daughter of Llywelyn's son Dafydd ap Llywelyn and his Norman wife Isabella de Braose, of the south Wales dynasty of Marcher Lords.