Attached are pages of the accounts of the Great Chamberlain of Scotland for the year 1286. After the death of Alexander III and the birth of a stillborn child to his widow, Queen Yolande, there was an inevitable scramble for the vacant Scottish throne.
Leading the charge was Robert de Bruce, called the Competitor and grandfather of the victor of Bannockburn. Over the winter of 1286-7 Bruce and his kinsmen laid waste to Galloway. Their first target was Dumfries, held by Sir William Sinclair, a close ally of the Comyns. They followed up by taking the Balliol castle of Buittle, fifteen miles to the southwest. Bruce’s son, another Robert, took a separate force to storm Wigtown, which was probably held by Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan.
The aim of the Bruces was to block any attempt by the Guardians to set up Alexander’s daughter, the Maid of Norway, as Queen of Scotland, or put the crown on John Balliol. Everyone was playing for high stakes, and the accounts of the Bruce campaign in Galloway show this: lands and manors burnt, fields left uncultivated, flocks scattered, and a crippling loss of revenue for the next two years. The response of the Guardians was to strengthen the defence of royal castles from Edinburgh to Ayr, ‘to defend the peace and tranquillity of the realm’.
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