Lot 60
Bruce, Sir David (c.1650-c.1700), Laird of Clackmannan
'The Genealogical Historie of K. Robert Bruce', 1686
Auction: 16 June 2026 from 10:00 BST
Description
Holograph manuscript on vellum (29.7 x 20.8cm), [6] ff., first leaf recto containing full-page arms of ‘Davidis Brusii à Clackman[n]an’ in pen and ink heightened with red and gold pigments (verso blank), the following 5 leaves each with text written on rectos and versos in a fine humanist-style hand in roman and italic, approx. 40 lines to the page, gilt frames, second leaf containing decorative headpiece containing the title ‘The Genealogical Histories of K. Robert Bruce’ on a banderole grasped by a pair of hands, with 2 initial blanks (both vellum), the first with signatures ‘Sr David Bruce Laird of Clackmannan 1686. 22. Febr’ and ‘Sr David Bruce’ (both in the the same hand as the main text), the text with a later continuation providing a genealogy of the Bruces of Clackmannan up to Margaret, born in 1807, only child of ‘Henry the 13th and last laird of Clackmannan’ (5 pp.), and a further continuation apparently in the hand of David Ogilvy (1785-1849), 9th Earl of Airlie, recording his marriage to Margaret Bruce and the births of their children, and transcribing a letter sent to him by Margaret shortly before her death (3 pp., both sections signed ‘Airlie’), followed by numerous blanks (all vellum). Binding: contemporary leather (possibly deerskin) over bevelled wooden boards, covers tooled in blind with various stylised rolls in pattern of three concentric frames enclosing central diamond lozenge, brass clasps and catches with incised initials ‘R S B’. Rear inner hinge cracked
Footnote
The author presents this ‘Genealogical History’ as the preface to an updated version (not present and presumably never completed) of The Brus, the 14th-century Scots poem on the life of Robert the Bruce, which he compares favourably to its English counterparts: ‘I present, good reader, the Historie of King Robert Bruce (corrected from the faults of Former Editions) … written by a learned man Mr John Barber … Do but compare this author with Chaucer and Gower … then Mr Barber it cannot be denyed, but that both in diction and convey of purpose he excelleth them both … It will be expedient that first we sett down ye causes & occasions of that calamitous war. Secondly the beginning and most memorable passages thereof; especially which are omitted, or lightly touched by this author. Thirdly the genealogie and pedegree [sic] of that most renowned prince King Robert Bruce'.
Little is known of Sir David Bruce, who is identified in some sources as the twelfth laird of Clackmannan, but as the eleventh in the later genealogy contained in the present volume. He was present at the Convention of Estates for 1678 and 1689, though it seems that his loyalty to the Jacobite cause led to his political undoing, his seat being declared vacant following his failure to sign the 1693 Act for Security of Their Majesties' Government declaring William and Mary as ‘the only lawful undoubted sovereigns’. He married a daughter of the Earl of Cromarty, but died without male issue, the lairdship passing to a brother.