#dumfries

On February 10th 1306, The Red Comyn, a leading claimant to the vacant Scottish throne, was murdered in a Dumfries church.

This was one of the most defining evens in Scottish history, a pivotal point in the story of the Bruce, and no matter how you try to brush it up and tidy it, the event in Greyfriar’s Kirk, in Dumfries on 10th February 1306 was a brutal ruthless act, it left the way clear for the 7th Lord of Annandale to seize the Scottish throne.

English accounts of the period say Robert the Bruce lured Red Comyn to the church in order to kill him. Scottish accounts say Comyn betrayed Bruce, who killed him for his treachery.

Killing someone was, a big deal. Killing someone in a church was a very big dwal. Killing John Comyn in a church, well…

Comyn was one of , if not THE, most powerful noble in Scotland, and was descended on both sides from previous kings of Scotland. He was the nephew of John Balliol aka Toom Tabard, who’d been forced to abdicate as King of Scots a decade earlier. Comyn’s wife, Joan de Valence, was the cousin of Edward I, King of England.

Bruce was the grandson of Robert de Brus, twhose claim to the throne had been rejected by Edward I. Bruce was descended from David I via two of his great-grandparents. His grandfather, second cousin to King Alexander II, had served as regent during that king’s minority.

As you can probably guess, there was a touch of rivalry between the two families. And it went a bit beyond two nobles jostling for position. In the past, acting as Joint Guardians of Scotland, they’d had a bit of a tiff while fighting the English together, and Comyn is said to have grabbed Bruce by the throat.

It’s all a bit complicated, the two had a various times, been on opposite sides of the war, with Bruce supporting Edward I, and Comyn supporting his uncle, John Balliol. Comyn was captured by the English in the one actual battle of 1296, the Battle of Dunbar. Bruce had also fought with the English at times, such was the power that Edward Longshanks yielded, I think at times he would have been a charismatic character and it suited him to have the two factions “fighting” each other, while not actually shedding blood, this was all about to change. The reason for the chopping and changing can be explained down to a lot of Scottish nobles of the time, including Bruce and Comyn, held lands in both England and Scotland, so they were looking after the own interests at this time.

Ten years after the Wars of Independence began, Bruce and Comyn met at Greyfriars church. This was after the death of William Wallace, and eight years before the victory at Bannockburn tin the absence of a king, Scotland was still being governed by Guardians, by now though King Edward had put in place his own man, John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond.

The most contemporary record of the murder comes from messages by Edward I who sends a couple of friars to Dumfries to find out about Comyn’s death. At the same time, Edward seems pretty meh about it. A couple of months later he’s really angry, possibly cause Bruce has had himself crowned king and is in open rebellion, and he’s accusing Bruce of the premeditated murder of Comyn, premeditated or not, Bruce had just committed a sacrilege, and broken an awful lot of oaths, it saw The Bruce being excommunicated by the Pope, a massive thing back in the day, and a thing that played on him till his dying day.

You know how I like to quote the Chronicles, they were/are basically the nearest thing we hav to the newspapers of the day, thisis from the Flores Historiarum, a chronicle written in 1306, Bruce is said to have murdered Comyn because he stood in his way to the throne: Comyn refuses to rebel with Bruce. The following year, this account is expanded to add in some details, like Bruce drawing a sword on an unarmed Comyn, but Comyn managing to wrestle the sword from Bruce before he’s struck down by Bruce’s attendants.

Another chronicle has poor Comyn lured into a trap at Dumfries, where he’s accused of treachery by Bruce. And his denials mean his violent death. Later chronicles add more details: Bruce was wearing concealed armour, Comyn gets dragged back to the altar to be killed, he has a chance to confess and reaffirm his loyalty to Edward before he dies, there’s time enough between his wounding and death for Bruce to capture Dumfries castle

So there are no shortage of accounts, the thing is they all had their own axe to grind, think of it like the Scottish newspapers The National and The Scotsman writing about the same story and you get the idea.

The evolution of the chronicles is interesting in and of itself, but as accounts of what actually happened, they’re not very useful. The one thing they are consistent in is that the killing was premediated: Bruce planned to kill Comyn because Comyn could stop him becoming king. And their versions are useful. To Edward.

All these chronicles also emphasise Comyn’s loyalty to Edward, and his refusal to betray his oaths of fealty. But this is also the man who was fighting with William Wallace against Edward long before Bruce. And, after being captured and agreeing to fight for Edward on the continent, Comyn deserted and went home to Scotland. Such facts however, were less helpful to Edward. * Spoiler alert in two weeks time I shall post about one of those said occasions when I tell you about The Battle of Roslin.

There are four existing later medieval chronicles that address the murder, all of them written decades after it happened. But they *do* draw on earlier sources that are now lost, and include evidence that there could have been support for Comyn as king, thus upping the rivalry between him and Bruce.

These accounts are by Scottish authors, written under Bruce’s descendants. So this time it’s Comyn who’s the villain: a traitor that agrees to aid Bruce and then betrays him. And this is how John Comyn continues to exist in our cultural memory today. Not as a great leader, or warrior. Not for his victories. Or his defeats. But for betraying our greatest hero to our oldest enemy.

The chronicles are actually quite nice about Comyn’s victory over the English at Roslin; they’re not straight-up BAD COMYN BAD, but they do all use various means, secular and religious, to try and justify Comyn’s death. The religious justification is fascinating: Comyn was a necessary sacrifice to purge the country of the poison of its internal divisions so we could unite and become whole again under Bruce.)

So, did Robert the Bruce go to the Greyfriars church with the intention of murdering John Comyn? We don’t know. We’ll never know. We can only explore and speculate, and bring our own biases and prejudices to the table. The one fact is that Comyn was slain in a house of god, and, as I said earlier, it was a big bad no-no!

This event at the end of the day meant there was now no going back for Bruce: he had committed to war with England and fighting for the throne and the independence of Scotland. No more chopping and changing sides.

The site of the murder is long gone, a plaque marks the supposed spot, it was a pound shop or a Greggs, such is history, a bit vague on actual locations too, it lies beneath the street and a few years ago there was talk of it becoming a night club Greggs also has a blue plaque claiming they are the site!