Isabel Buchan

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Isabel Buchan crowns Robert Bruce. Modern display in an exhibition in Edinburgh Castle

Isabel Buchan, Countess of Buchan (also Isabel of Fife or Isabel Macduff ) (* around 1270, † after 1313) was a Scottish noblewoman and rebel.

Origin and marriage

Isabel came from the Macduff family in Scotland . She was the daughter of Colban, 7th Earl of Fife and his wife Anna . Her mother may have been a daughter of Alan Durward . Isabel was married to John Comyn, 7th Earl of Buchan . Her husband was captured by the English at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296 during the war with England . He was released in 1297 and returned to Scotland. Isabel is mentioned for the first time when she is said to have administered her husband's English possessions during this time. The marriage to Comyn was childless.

Role in the coronation of Robert Bruce

On 25 March 1306 Isabel was notorious, as they in the enthronement of Robert Bruce that put on the crown of the Scottish king. This privilege traditionally belonged to the Earls of Fife and is said to have been very important at the ceremony. Since the then Earl of Fife, Isabel's nephew Duncan, was still a minor and lived in England, Isabel acted in his place. In addition to acting in place of her nephew, Isabel is said to have left her husband without permission to attend the ceremony. It is more likely, however, that her husband was living in England at the time while she lived in her own home in Balmullo , Fife . From there she could easily travel to Scone , where the enthronement took place. After the ceremony, she never saw her husband, who died in 1308, again, because the coronation of Bruce, who had previously murdered John Comyn of Badenoch , a close relative of her husband, was unforgivable for the Comyn family . Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that it has been claimed that she was also a mistress of Bruce.

Escape, capture and imprisonment

After Robert Bruce's coronation, Isabel stayed in the wake of his family. After the defeat in the Battle of Methven in June, the family initially fled to Kildrummy Castle in Mar . When English troops approached the castle, Isabel, led by the Earl of Atholl , moved to northern Scotland with Elizabeth , Bruce's wife and other relatives of him. In September 1306, however, took William, 3rd Earl of Ross women in violation of church asylum at the shrine of St Duthac in the chapel of Tain caught and handed them over to the British. Because of her role in Bruce's coronation, Isabel was treated severely. She was locked in a wooden cage at Berwick Castle that was hung from the castle wall. Although she was granted some privacy, these detention conditions were humiliating and degrading to a person of her class. This harsh punishment shows how severely the English King Edward I judged their offense, but also how frustrated he was about the continued resistance of the Scots against his supremacy. On the other hand, several contemporary chroniclers did not criticize this punishment, but rather regarded it as generous because the king did not have Isabel executed. On behalf of their nephew Duncan of Fife, Sir Robert Keith and Sir John Mowbray tried unsuccessfully to obtain their release. How long she had to endure this punishment is unknown. In June 1310 the new English King Edward II handed it over to the Carmelite settlement in Berwick . In 1313 it was handed over to Henry de Beaumont , who had married a niece and co-heir of her husband. Her further fate is unknown.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Isabel MacDuff on thepeerage.com , accessed January 6, 2019. The Peerage incorrectly mentions her brother Duncan, 8th Earl of Fife, as her father
  2. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 213.
  3. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 509
  4. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 230.
personal data
SURNAME Buchan, Isabel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Buchan, Isabel, Countess of Buchan; Isabel of Fife; Macduff, Isabel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish noblewoman and rebel
DATE OF BIRTH around 1270
DATE OF DEATH after 1313