The Murder of the Red Comyn, 1306: The Hinge of the War

Background — two men, one crown

By 1306 two men had the strongest claims to lead Scotland: John “the Red” Comyn, nephew of the exiled King John Balliol and head of the Comyns, and Robert Bruce, grandson of a claimant in the “Great Cause.” The families were old enemies. The two had briefly served as joint Guardians from 1298, but the partnership collapsed — at a Peebles council in 1299 a spy reported that Comyn “seized Bruce by the throat.” Tradition holds the pair made a secret pact that Comyn then betrayed to Edward I; whether that is true is unknown.

What happened in Greyfriars Kirk

On 10 February 1306 the two met on consecrated ground, before the high altar of the Franciscan friary at Dumfries. The meeting broke down and Bruce drew a dagger and stabbed Comyn. He rushed out shaken, and — by the famous tradition — told his men he feared he had killed the Red Comyn, at which Sir Roger de Kirkpatrick replied “I’ll mak siccar” (“I’ll make sure”) and went back in to finish him. In the same violence, Bruce’s brother-in-law killed Comyn’s uncle, Sir Robert Comyn.

Consequences

Killing before an altar was grave sacrilege: Bruce was excommunicated (only absolved by the Pope in 1310), though Bishop Wishart of Glasgow gave him local absolution and backed his rising. Bruce moved fast, and was crowned King Robert I at Scone on 25 March 1306 — about six weeks later. The murder split Scotland and set off a Bruce–Comyn civil war; Comyn’s son would die fighting Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314.

Significance

This single act was the hinge of the whole war. In one stroke Bruce turned himself from a hedging magnate into an excommunicated outlaw with no way back — forcing him to seize the crown and fight for it, first against the Comyns (see Barra and the Harrying of Buchan) and then against England. Without Greyfriars, there is arguably no King Robert I.

The clans & people involved

• Clan Cumming — John the Red Comyn, the victim.
• Robert the Bruce — the man who wielded the dagger, and Scotland’s future king.

The site today

The medieval Greyfriars friary where Comyn was killed is long gone — the church you see on Castle Street, also called Greyfriars, was built in 1868 and stands opposite the actual site. The spot is marked by a plaque on Castle Street, with an interpretive panel added in recent years by the Robert the Bruce Trust. There is a wry modern footnote: a bakery now trades over the ground where the high altar is thought to have stood. So there is no field to walk here — but you can stand, in the middle of Dumfries, on the spot where the Wars of Independence turned.

Sources

• John Comyn III of Badenoch — Wikipedia; Greyfriars, Dumfries; Undiscovered Scotland.