When Sir William Wallace, the sole apparent hope of Scottish independence, died at the foot of the gallows in Smithfield, and was torn limb from limb, it seemed that at last 'the accursed nation' would quietly submit to the English yoke. The spectacle of the bleaching bones of the heroic Patriot would, it was anticipated, overawe such of his countrymen as might yet cherish perverse aspirations after national freedom. It was a delusive anticipation. In fifteen years of arduous diplomacy and warfare, with an astounding expenditure of blood and treasure, Edward I. had crushed the leaders and crippled the resources of Scotland, but he had inadequately estimated the spirit of the nation. Only six months, and Scotland was again in arms. It is of the irony of fate that the very man destined to bring Edward's calculations to naught had been his most zealous officer in his last campaign, and had, in all probability, been present at the trial—it may be at the execution—of Wallace, silently consenting to his death. That man of destiny was Sir Robert de Brus, Lord of Annandale and Earl of Carrick.

The Bruces came over with the Conqueror. The theory of a Norse origin in a follower of Rollo the Ganger, who established himself in the diocese of Coutances in Manche, Normandy, though not improbable, is but vaguely supported. The name is territorial; and the better opinion is inclined to connect it with Brix, between Cherbourg and Valognes. The first Robert de Brus on record was probably the leader of the Brus contingent in the army of the Conqueror. His services must have been conspicuous; he died (about 1094) in possession of some 40,000 acres, comprised in forty-three manors in the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire, and fifty-one in the North Riding and in Durham. The chief manor was Skelton in Cleveland.

The next Robert de Brus, son of the first, received a grant of Annandale from David I., whose companion he had been at the English court. This fief he renounced, probably in favour of his second son, just before the Battle of the Standard (1138), on the failure of his attempted mediation between David and the English barons. He died in 1141, leaving two sons, Adam and Robert.

This Robert may be regarded as the true founder of the Scottish branch. He is said to have remained with David in the Battle of the Standard, and, whether for this adherence or on some subsequent occasion, he was established in possession of the Annandale fief, which was confirmed to him by a charter of William the Lion (1166). He is said to have received from his father the manor of Hert and the lands of Hertness in Durham, 'to supply him with wheat, which did not grow in Annandale.' He died after 1189.

The second Robert de Brus of Annandale, son of the preceding lord, married (1183) Isabel, daughter of William the Lion, obtaining as her dowry the manor of Haltwhistle in Tyndale. His widow married Robert de Ros in 1191. The uncertainty as to the dates of his father's death and his own has suggested a doubt whether he ever succeeded to the lordship.

William de Brus, a brother, the next lord, died in 1215.

The third Robert de Brus of Annandale, son of William, founded the claim of his descendants to the crown by his marriage with Isabel, second daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon, younger brother of William the Lion. He died in 1245.

The fourth Robert de Brus of Annandale, eldest son of the preceding lord, was born in 1210. In 1244, he married Isabel, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. Next year he succeeded to Annandale, and, on his mother's death in 1251, he obtained ten knight's fees in England, her share of the Earldom of Huntingdon. He took an active part in public affairs. In 1249–50 he sat as a Justice of the King's Bench, and in 1268 he became Chief Justice of England, but Edward, on his accession (1272), did not reappoint him. He served as Sheriff of Cumberland and Governor of Carlisle Castle in 1254–55, and in 1264 he fought for Henry at Lewes, and was taken prisoner.

At the same time, de Brus was a prominent figure in the baronage of Scotland. The alleged arrangement of 1238 whereby Alexander II., with the consent of the Scots parliament, appointed de Brus his successor in the event of his dying childless, was frustrated by the King's second marriage (1239), and the birth of a son, Alexander III. (1241). As one of the fifteen Regents (1255) during the minority of Alexander III., he headed the party that favoured an English alliance, cemented by the young King's marriage with Margaret, daughter of Henry III. At the Scone convention on February 5, 1283–84, he was one of the Scots lords that recognised the right of Margaret of Norway. The sudden death of Alexander III., however, in March 1285–86, and the helplessness of the infant Queen, put him on the alert for the chances of his own elevation.

On September 20, 1286, de Brus met a number of his friends at Turnberry Castle, the residence of his son, the Earl of Carrick. There fourteen Scots nobles, including de Brus and the Earl of Carrick, joined in a bond obliging them to give faithful adherence to Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, and Lord Thomas de Clare (de Brus's brother-in-law), 'in their affairs.' One of the clauses saved the fealty of the parties to the King of England and to 'him that shall obtain the kingdom of Scotland through blood-relationship with King Alexander of blessed memory, according to the ancient customs in the kingdom of Scotland approved and observed.' The disguise was very thin. The instrument meant simply that the parties were to act together in support of de Brus's pretensions to the crown when opportunity should serve. It 'united the chief influence of the West and South of Scotland against the party of John de Balliol, Lord of Galloway, and the Comyns.' There need be no difficulty in connecting this transaction with the outbreak of 1287–88, which devastated Dumfries and Wigton shires. The party of de Brus took the castles of Dumfries, Buittle and Wigton, killing and driving out of the country many of the lieges. There remains nothing to show by what means peace was restored, but it may be surmised that Edward interfered to restrain his ambitious vassal.

For, by this time, Edward was full of his project for the marriage of the young Queen with his eldest son, Prince Edward. The Salisbury convention, at which de Brus was one of the Scottish commissioners, and the Brigham conference, at which the project was openly declared, seemed to strike a fatal blow at the aspirations of de Brus. But the death of the Queen, reported early in October 1290, again opened up a vista of hope.

When the news arrived, the Scots estates were in session. 'Sir Robert de Brus, who before did not intend to come to the meeting,' wrote the Bishop of St Andrews to Edward on October 7, 'came with great power, to confer with some who were there; but what he intends to do, or how to act, as yet we know not. But the Earls of Mar and Athol are collecting their forces, and some other nobles of the land are drawing to their party.' The Bishop went on to report a 'fear of a general war,' to recommend Edward to deal wisely with Sir John de Balliol, and to suggest that he should 'approach the March for the consolation of the Scots people and the saving of bloodshed.' The alertness of de Brus and his friends is conspicuously manifest, and the foremost of the party of Balliol is privately stretching out his hands for the cautious intervention of the English King.

The Earl of Fife had been assassinated; the Earl of Buchan was dead; and the remaining four guardians divided their influence, the Bishop of St Andrews and Sir John Comyn siding with Balliol, and the Bishop of Glasgow and the Steward of Scotland with de Brus. Fordun thus describes the balance of parties in the early part of 1291:

The nobles of the kingdom, with its guardians, often-times discussed among themselves the question who should be made their king; but they did not make bold to utter what they felt about the right of succession, partly because it was a hard and knotty matter, partly because different people felt differently about such rights and wavered a good deal, partly because they justly feared the power of the parties, which was great, and partly because they had no superior that could, by his unbending power, carry their award into execution or make the parties abide by their decision.

The most prominent competitors were liegemen of Edward, and, whether they appealed to warlike or to peaceful methods, the decision must inevitably rest with him.

At the Norham meeting of June 1291, de Brus, as well as the other competitors, fully acknowledged the paramount title of Edward. He had no alternative; he had as large interests in England as in Scotland, and armed opposition was out of the question. Availing himself of his legal experience, he fought the case determinedly and astutely. If Fordun correctly reports the reformation of the law of succession by Malcolm, de Brus was, in literal technicality, 'the next descendant'; as son of David of Huntingdon's second daughter, he was nearer by one degree than Balliol, grandson of David's eldest daughter. But the modern reckoning prevailed. De Brus's plea that he had been recognised both by Alexander II. and by Alexander III. was not supported by documentary evidence, and his appeal to the recollection of living witnesses does not seem to have been entertained. His third position, that the crown estates were partible, was but a forlorn hope. He must have seen, long before November 1292, that an adverse decision was a foregone conclusion. He entered a futile protest. Already, in June, he had concluded a secret agreement with the Count of Holland, a competitor never in the running, but a great feudal figure, for mutual aid and counsel; he had also an agreement with the Earl of Sutherland, and, probably enough, with others. But an active dissent was beyond the powers of a man of eighty-two. Accordingly, he resigned his claims in favour of his son, the Earl of Carrick, and retired to Lochmaben, where he died on March 31, 1295, at the age of eighty-five.

The fifth Robert de Brus of Annandale, the eldest son of the Competitor, was born in 1253. On his return from the crusade of 1269, on which he accompanied Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., he married Marjory (or Margaret), Countess of Carrick, and thus became by the courtesy of Scotland Earl of Carrick. Marjory was the daughter and heiress of Nigel, the Keltic (if Keltic be the right epithet) Earl of Carrick, grandson of Gilbert, son of Fergus, Lord of Galloway, and she was the widow of Adam of Kilconquhar, who had died on the recent crusade. De Brus is said to have met her accidentally when she was out hunting. Fordun gives the romance as follows:—

When greetings and kisses had been exchanged, as is the wont of courtiers, she besought him to stay and hunt and walk about; and, seeing that he was rather unwilling to do so, she by force, so to speak, with her own hand made him pull up, and brought the knight, though very loth, to her castle of Turnberry with her. After dallying there with his followers for the space of fifteen days or more, he clandestinely took the Countess to wife, the friends and well-wishers of both parties knowing nothing about it, and the King's consent not having been obtained. And so the common belief of all the country was that she had seized—by force, as it were—this youth for her husband. But when the news came to the ears of King Alexander, he took the castle of Turnberry and made all her other lands and possessions be acknowledged as his lands, for the reason that she had wedded with Robert de Brus without consulting his royal majesty. Through the prayers of friends, however, and by a certain sum of money agreed upon, this Robert gained the King's goodwill and the whole domain.

It may be, of course, that the responsibility was thrown on the lady in order to restrain the hand of the incensed king. But she was half a dozen years older than de Brus, who was still in his teens and was never distinguished for enterprise. In any case, she acted only with the legitimate frankness of her time, and the marriage put a useful dash of lively blood into the veins of the coming king.

In every important political step, de Brus followed with docility his father's lead. He stood aloof from Balliol, and, in spite of marked snubbing, steadily adhered to Edward. From October 1295, he was for two years governor of Carlisle Castle. After the collapse of Balliol at Dunbar, he is said to have plucked up courage to claim fulfilment of a promise of Edward's, alleged to have been made in 1292 immediately after the decision in favour of Balliol, to place his father eventually on the Scottish throne. The testy reply of 'the old dodger' (ille antiquus doli artifex), as reported by Fordun, is at any rate characteristic: 'Have I nothing else to do but to win kingdoms to give to you?' The story, though essentially probable, is discredited by the chronicler's assertion that the promise was accompanied by an acknowledgment on the part of Edward that his decision of the great cause was an injustice to de Brus, the Competitor.

But while de Brus took nothing by his loyalty to Edward, he suffered for his disloyalty to Balliol. He had, of course, ignored the summons of Balliol 'to come in arms to resist the King of England,' and consequently Balliol's council had declared him a public enemy and deprived him of his lands of Annandale, giving them to Comyn, Earl of Buchan. At the same time, and for the like reason, his son Robert was deprived of the Earldom of Carrick, which de Brus had resigned to him on November 11, 1292. Annandale, indeed, was restored to de Brus in September 1296, but the state of Scotland was too disturbed for his comfort, and he retired to his English possessions, where, for the most part at least, he lived quietly till Edward had settled matters at Strathord. He then set out for Annandale, but died on the way, about Easter, 1304, and was buried at the Abbey of Holmcultram in Cumberland.

De Brus left a large family of sons and daughters, most of whom will find conspicuous mention in the story of the eldest brother, Robert, Earl of Carrick, the future King of Scotland.