The Bruce's Heart Transcript (Scotland: A Scottish History Podcast)
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Scotland - A Scottish History Podcast
Episode 21 - The Bruce’s Heart
MICHAEL PARK: It is June 1329 and King Robert the First of Scotland is dying.
Nobody really knows what the King is dying of. Some said it was leprosy but there’s no way he could have governed in the way that he did - as a king at the head of an army with a condition like that.
More likely - not that you’d know since it’s 1329 - the king is dying of tuberculosis… or cancer… or a stroke… or… err… syphilis. Basically nobody knows and never will know what is killing Scotland’s most noble of kings but whatever it is it’s doing a damned good job of it.
Nobody in Scotland ever writes down the king’s exact cause of death - the leprosy suggestion comes from English chroniclers.
Robert The Bruce needs no introduction, especially not now that he’s dead. You’d have a tough time making an impression.
The King carved Scotland back into being an independent nation and defeated the might of the English armies at Louden Hill and Bannockburn. He had reigned for nearly a quarter of a century - a decent run for a medieval king and now his son David will take over.
He will be a strong and noble king… maybe… he’s only five.
The issue is really what to do with the body of the Bruce. He had died in the Manor of Cardross near Dumbarton and that wasn’t really a burial option.
The doctors removed the king’s guts and other assorted viscera and buried them in a nearby chapel. This made it easier for the body to be embalmed since viscera does have a tendency to go off... rather quickly.
They then sawed open his chest, removing the king’s heart from his chest. Not a traditional move, it has to be said. It had been the king’s last request of his friend Sir James Douglas - the Black Douglas - to take his heart on crusade to the Holy Land.
Robert had never got round to going to fight in the pope’s crusade and ever since Pope John the Twenty Second had lifted his excommunication, he had regretted that he hadn’t. So that was that.
The heart was taken from the chest of the dead king and placed in a silver casket, sealed with a key and hung on a chain which the Black Douglas wore around his neck.
The Bruce’s body was taken to Dunfermline Abbey where it was laid to rest. The heart and its protector then went on tour.
Just one wee problem though. There wasn’t actually a crusade to go on.
The Pope had been meaning to have one but it didn’t really come off in the same way that you might try and have birthday drinks with a few friends and then everybody has to work or wash their hair that night.
So the Black Douglas and a group of Scottish knights decided to run their own wee side gig with King Alfonso XI of Spain who was campaigning in the Moorish kingdom of Granada.
It is 1330 and outside the castle of Teba all hell is breaking loose. After a siege the Moors have broken out of the castle and are mounting a cavalry attack on the Christian army.
Nobody knows exactly what happened to Sir James Douglas.
In his epic poem, The Brus, John Barbour tells that Douglas and his knights are cut off by the opposing force and with one of their number under attack Douglas and his men fly into a fight with fury. They’re outnumbered. According to John Barbour it was 20 to 1.
Douglas cries out:
THE BLACK DOUGLAS: Now pass thou onward as thou wert wont, and Douglas will follow thee or die.
MICHAEL PARK: And hurls the casket containing the heart of the Bruce into the melee before he is eventually overcome and killed.
A Castillian chronicle implies that Douglas died in a minor skirmish days before due to his own error… but nobody likes that version of the story.
The battle cry was added in a fifteenth century addition to the poem, and the heart-hurling was an embellishment added by the arch-embellisher Sir Walter Scott, but it’s not the fate of the Black Douglas that you’re here to know.
It’s the fate of the heart.
In the days following the battle, the surviving Scots knights gather themselves and collect the bodies of their fallen comrades, including that of the Black Douglas and the heart of their king and begin the long journey home.
The Bruce didn’t exactly get to go on crusade but it was probably close enough and since Douglas was now dead too there didn’t seem like there was much of a promise left to fulfill.
The heart was to be buried in Melrose Abbey, which it was. Unfortunately the burial place of the heart was lost to history, and although people knew that it was there, nobody was certain exactly where.
That was until 1921 when workers discovered a casket in the floor of the Chapter House.
And now, it is 1996. An archaeologist working on the abbey hands you a cone of what seems to be lead and you feed the little fibre optic camera into a carefully drilled hole in the top of the container.
Inside is another, smaller container affixed with a little brass plaque.
'The enclosed leaden casket containing a heart was found beneath Chapter House floor, March 1921, by His Majesty's Office of Works'.
Your heart almost stops.
Only one heart has ever been buried at the Abbey in this sleepy little town in the Scottish borders known more now for rugby than royalty.
You hold in your hands the heart of Robert the First of Scotland. You have found the Bruce’s Heart.
It is reinterred in a private ceremony before a sandstone flagstone is unveiled by the then Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar. You’re there, among the first to see it, a heart crossed by the lines of the saltire, surrounded by the inscription…
THE BLACK DOUGLAS: "A noble hart may have nae ease, gif freedom failye"
CREDITS
You’ve been listening to Scotland, it was written and produced by me, Michael Park and is a production of Be Quiet Media.
The voice of Sir James Douglas was Chris Moriarty.
The music for every episode of Scotland is by the human substitution cipher, Mitch Bain, you can check out more of his work by heading over to Facebook and searching for Mitch Bain music.
Scotland is supported by Chris Lingwood and listeners like you on Patreon. Get involved and chuck us a couple of bucks at: patreon.com/scotlandhistorypodcast
You can find out more about the show on our website, thisisscotland.co and on twitter, facebook and instagram by searching Scotland - Scottish History Podcast.
Thanks for listening to Wee Scotland, we’ll see you next time.