Bruce campaign in Ireland
1315 CE to 1318 CE
The Bruce campaign is a three-year military campaign by Edward Bruce, brother of the Scottish king Robert the Bruce, in Ireland.
It lasts from his landing at Larne in 1315 to his defeat and death in 1318 at the Battle of Faughart in County Louth.After his victory at the Battle of Bannockburn, Robert decides to expand his war against the English by sending an army under his younger brother Edward to invade Ireland.
Another reason for the expedition is that supporters of the exiled House of Balliol had fled to Ireland after fighting at Bannockburn and remain a dangerous threat.
These men are led by John MacDougall of Lorn, who is the cousin of John III Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, nephew of King John Balliol.
The murder of Comyn in 1306 had set off a bloody civil war for the throne of Scotland which King Robert had all but won at Bannockburn and is now attempting to finish by capturing their last remaining stronghold.
Robert is also invited by some of the native Irish to send an army to drive out the Norman settlers and in return they will crown his brother High King of Ireland.
This campaign to revive the High Kingship effectively ends with Edward's defeat and death in the Battle of Faughart in 1318.
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Robert VIII de Bruce, or Robert the Bruce, as King Robert I of Scotland from 1306 to 1329, frees Scotland from English rule, wins the decisive Battle of Bannockburn (1314) and ultimately confirms Scottish independence in the Treaty of Northampton (1328).
The major decisive event in the life of Robert, who is reportedly a redhead, is the murder of John (”the Red”) Comyn in the Franciscan church at Dumfries on February 10, 1306, either by Bruce or his followers.
Comyn, a nephew of John de Balliol, was a possible rival for the crown, and Bruce's actions suggest that he had already decided to seize the throne.
Proceeding quickly to Scone, he is crowned there on March 25.
Edward Bruce, brother of Robert, had in 1315 invaded Ireland with six thousand men in pursuit of some hereditary claim to the earldom of Ulster.
After routing the earl’s forces near Connor and gaining the allegiance of the inhabitants of Connaught and West Meath, Edward is crowned High King in 1316.
Many Anglo-Irish support him, increasing his power base.
Edward the Bruce and his brother Robert had campaigned as far south as Limerick in 1317, but the heavy damage they inflicted has caused them to lose support in Ireland.
Failing to establish strongholds, they and their forces had been pushed back to Ulster by Anglo-Irish forces under Roger de Mortimer, English lord lieutenant.
Robert had returned to Scotland; Edward, emerging from Ulster in 1318, fights Mortimer at Faughard near Dundalk and dies here.
James Douglas, called the Black, has led continual Scottish raids into England from 1315 to 1318, while King Robert the Bruce campaigns in Ireland with his brother Edward.
The Scots recapture the sole remaining English stronghold at Berwick in 1318.
Walter, the sixth hereditary steward of the Scottish monarchy, had married Marjorie, the eldest daughter of Scotland’s King Robert the Bruce by his first wife, Isabella of Mar.
Edward Bruce had been named heir to the throne but he dies without legitimate children on December 3, 1318 in a battle near Dundalk in Ireland.
Marjorie by this time had died in a riding accident—probably in 1317.
Scotland’s Parliament honors the Bruce line with the passage of a 1318 decree that provides for the coronation of Bruce’s grandson should he die without a son.
That grandson will eventually be crowned Robert II of Scotland, the first king of the Stewart line.