Elizabeth de Burgh, Queen of Robert the Bruce
Elizabeth de Burgh was the second wife of Robert the Bruce, and queen consort of Scotland from 1306 to 1327.
As is the case with most medieval women, records of Elizabeth are scarce.
However, it is clear that she was caught up in the political turmoil that unfolded between the Scottish and the English, during the reign of her husband King Robert.
Elizabeth was born in 1289 in County Down, Ireland.
She was the daughter of one of the most powerful Norman nobles in Ireland at that time, Richard Óg de Burgh, the 2nd Earl of Ulster, and his wife Margaret.
It is likely that Elizabeth met Robert the Bruce, then Earl of Carrick, at the English court.
Robert was a widower with a young daughter from his first marriage.
They married in 1302 at Writtle, one of Robert the Bruce’s father’s estates in Essex.
Elizabeth would have been about 13 years old, and Robert 28.
On 27th March 1306, Robert and Elizabeth were crowned as King and Queen of Scots at Scone.
Queen Elizabeth and King Robert would have three children who reached adulthood – Matilda, Margaret, and David – the future King David II of Scotland.
After the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Methven on 19th June 1306, Robert sent his wife Queen Elizabeth, his daughter Marjorie by his first marriage, and his sisters Mary and Christina to Kildrummy Castle, under the protection of his brother Niall.
The English laid siege to the castle containing the royal party.
The siege finally succeeded when the English bribed a blacksmith with “all the gold he could carry” to set fire to the grain store.
The victors hanged, drew and quartered Niall Bruce, along with all the men from the castle.
However, the royal ladies had already fled to sanctuary at St Duthac.
They ladies were taken from sanctuary by the Earl of Ross, and dispatched to King Edward.
He imprisoned Bruce’s sister Mary in a wooden cage erected on the walls of Roxburgh castle.
He then sent Bruce’s nine-year-old daughter Marjorie to the nunnery at Watton.
Queen Elizabeth was held under house arrest in severe conditions in England.
She would be imprisoned for eight years by the English.
Elizabeth’s capture would have been a hard blow for Robert the Bruce.
The new King of Scotland still lacked a male heir, and had no chance of getting one while his wife was in English hands.
This made his hold on the throne even more precarious than it already was.
In 1314 Robert the Bruce achieved victory at the Battle of Bannockburn over Edward II and his English forces.
Several notable English lords were taken prisoner, and
negotiations for their release led to a prisoner exchange.
Elizabeth and the rest of the Bruce ladies, finally returned to Scotland, after 8 years of imprisonment.
Reunited at last, Robert set about consolidating his kingdom, with his queen at his side.
Elizabeth died aged 38 years, on 27th October 1327.
Given that her youngest son was born – and died – in the same year as Elizabeth’s death, complications in childbirth or in her recovery from childbirth, could well have contributed to Elizabeth’s death.
Plans were immediately made to transport her body to Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, the resting place of Scottish kings and queens since 1093.
Before Elizabeth’s body was taken to Dunfermline Abbey for burial, her internal organs were removed and buried at Cullen Old Kirk.
Robert the Bruce paid the village an annual sum as a thank you for the treatment of his wife’s body.
When King Robert died 18 months later, his body was laid to rest next to Elizabeth, in the very centre of the abbey beneath the high altar, in an alabaster tomb decorated with gold leaf.
Fragments of the tomb still remain and can be seen in the National Museum of Scotland.
The abbey was sacked in 1560 by Calvinists during the Scottish Reformation and the tomb was lost.
However, King Robert’s coffin was rediscovered in 1819 during construction work on the new abbey and Elizabeth’s coffin was rediscovered in 1917.
Both were re-interred in the new abbey, together again.
Robert the Bruce and his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, from the Seton Armorial, 1591.
