#king robert i

[scotianostra]

On 17th February 1818 the grave of Robert Bruce was uncovered at Dunfermline Abbey.

The body of King Robert was disturbed by workmen clearing the rubble of the collapsed Abbey tower in 1818. It was still wrapped in the winding sheet of gold cloth in which it had been buried in 1329. Following exhumation the body remained unburied for 22 months. During this time a mould was made of the king’s skull and several casts were made.

King Robert I of Scotland – Robert the Bruce as most of us know him – is undoubtedly one of Scotland’s most celebrated monarchs. Much of what we know about his life and reign comes to us through written sources, but archaeology has also furnished us with several artefacts that offer a tangible link with Scotland’s hero-king.

Perhaps the most dramatic archaeological discovery associated with Bruce was the unexpected unearthing of a body believed to be Bruce’s during building work at Dunfermline Abbey in 1818.

As early as 1314, Bruce had expressed a desire to be buried at Dunfermline with ‘our royal predecessors’, as he put it. Seven previous Scottish monarchs had been buried at the abbey, including St Margaret, whose shrine attracted pilgrims from across Europe.

To that end, Bruce paid for an ornate tomb to be made for himself and his queen, made from white marble shipped from Italy with a slab of black Frosterley marble from northern England beneath it. Sadly, the tomb was smashed during the Scottish Reformation, but several fragments of the expensive Italian marble have survived – some of which are now on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

In 2017, specialists digitally recreated Bruce’s tomb and you can read all about it in case study on the ScARF website here https://scarf.scot/thematic/future-thinking-on-carved-stones-in-scotland/future-thinking-on-carved-stones-in-scotland-case-studies/case-study-the-tomb-of-robert-the-bruce/

While it is not entirely clear whether the body found in 1818 was Bruce’s, but the sheet of gold cloth is the clincher for me. I don’t know how much of it remains, but the second pic shows a remnant on display at the National Museum. The body was examined by Alexander Munro, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh, and briefly displayed to the public before being reinterred in 1819.

The cast of the skull, as seen in the first pic, has been the basis of several facial reconstructions of the king, with the most recent being undertaken in 2016 using the cast belonging to The Hunterian in Glasgow, as seen in the last pic.

Following his death in June 1329, Bruce’s body was buried at Dunfermline but his heart was removed and – after a brief but eventful trip to Spain – was buried at Melrose Abbey in the Scottish Borders.

While this practice was often frowned upon by the Church (Bruce had to get permission from the Pope before doing it), it appealed to Bruce because it would mean that prayers and masses would be said for his soul by the religious communities of both Melrose and Dunfermline, which would decrease the time he would have to spend in Purgatory for all of the sins he had committed during his lifetime, which would have been considerable, given his fearful reputation.....HOWEVER! For those of you who are religious out there, at least to the Roman Catholic “flavour” King Robert is now definitely in his Heaven as Pope Francis has abolished the places where souls were supposed to go after death

Pics three and four are how the originally tomb would have looked, and how it is today.

[trhor]

It should be noted the inclusion of HRH The Duke of Rothes created quite the media speculation after the Duke was notable absent for several years following the abdication of his role as heir. Many proposed, the Duke's inclusion was meant to finally put to rest the years of speculation that there was bad blood between the royal household and the former heir. The Press office has stayed silent regarding the matter which continues to be a topic of discussion.

Inspired by both @warwickroyals and @theroyalthrones

[thankstothe]

Liners

[robertdowneyjjr]

"I was just thinking this morning; I love critics. It's all I think about. The Critics Choice Association, you know, they've given me such beautiful feedback. Really, just so many great moments and some of it so poetic."

Robert Downey Jr. at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards

[robert-deniro]

- The second thing you'll have to do is appoint Hans Bethe to run the theoretical division.

- Wait, what was the first?

[papa-evershed]

RJC ft. His One Blazer™ FRUGAL KING 👑

[ibrithir-was-here]

Her Ascended Majesty Greets her Husband on the Lake of Hali

(Follow up to the previous picture I did here of the lady in "The Yellow Wallpaper" clawing her way into apotheosis in Carcosa)

[la-pheacienne]

Continuing my post about Jaime and Rhaegar’s respective roles in the sack of KL, let’s talk about Jaime and Rhaegar’s last conversation which I didn’t mention in that post and it deserves its own analysis. I find it extremely funny how both (some) Lannister stans and (some) Targ stans seem to think that the last convo between Rhaegar and Jaime was actually like this :

"Jaime, a sack is about to happen very soon. Elia and my kids are in a high risk of getting brutally murdered inside the very capital by the orders of your father who has ghosted us for some time but is deep down an enemy planning all of this in secret. Meanwhile, my father is planning to blow up the entire city any minute now because reasons. I’m leaving you here, alone, to take care of all this and keep all these people, my wife, two kids, father and the people of the city, safe from harm. If you fail to do any of that at any point, you’re incompetent, a traitor and a coward. Now I have to leave to do my thing with the others, don’t forget your duty and your vows, bye".

While it was actually like this :

"Jaime, there’s a war, we are in a pretty tight position and I gotta go to battle taking some men with me. Unfortunately my father wants to keep you close because he believes Tywin will not turn against him this way, and he’s kind of insane so there is nothing we can do about it without risking an even bigger outburst. Give me some time to get out of this mess, and then I’ll come back and we’ll fix this. All this will be over soon, bye".

So the first reading of Jaime and Rhaegar’s last convo completely misses the mark in many ways.

Some Lannister stans are screaming crying throwing up that Rhaegar left a literal cHiLD with all tHiS rEsPoNSIbILIty he doesn’t give a FUCK about anyone how dare he what kind of tHOUGhT PrOCesS is that !!!! Some Targ stans say that Rhaegar gave specific orders to Jaime to protect his father, wife, kids and city against multiple and opposite threats and thus honor his vows, and Jaime failing to do that means he is basically a traitor and a coward. And incompetent.

None of this is correct, because this isn’t what Rhaegar asked him to do, at all. Rhaegar did not know, could not know, could not possibly conceive or imagine or suspect that a sack was about to happen at the orders of Tywin no less and that his family was in immediate danger in.the.very.capital. Nobody.knew. That is why this sack is so horrifying. Also he may have been well aware that his father was insane but not to the point that he could expect him to literally want to blow up his own city. That is a whole other level of insanity he very legitimately didn’t expect. Thirdly, Rhaegar had no power to take Jaime or his family away at this point (« I dare not » is not an epheumism. He literally dares not. We’re talking about Aerys here).

All he asked Jaime to do is wait for Rhaegar to come back and in the meantime try to keep his father at bay. That.is.literally.it. Rhaegar said : « Give me some time, I’ll come back and fix this » And Jaime did wait and he did hope that Rhaegar would come back, but Rhaegar didn’t come back not because he decided to go on vacation with his new chick but because he got killed. Nothing went according to plan, and Jaime had to take matters in his own hands.

So :

Rhaegar did not leave """""all that responsibility""""" to a """"literal child"""".  He left his father the king with the one member of the Kingsguard the king specifically wanted with him, and he told that member of the Kingsguard to literally, wait it out and be a KG. Apart from the fact that Rhaegar couldn’t take Jaime away because Aerys wanted him there, Jaime was not a random child, he was a member of the KG. Him staying with Aerys is technically what he was supposed to do as a member of the KG anyway, there is nothing abnormal or particularly stupid or outrageous or naive in this """"thought process"""", despite Jaime’s age. That order seemed both inevitable (it was Aerys’ order) and reasonable (Jaime was a KINGSguard after all), at the time.

Likewise, Rhaegar did not reasonably expect Jaime to go all Superman on both his father and Tywin’s men and save like the entire population of KL including his own family, all by himself. Again, what he actually told Jaime to do was literally wait for him to come back and try to keep his father at bay. He hoped Jaime’s presence would satiate his father until he comes back. That’s all. He did not know that Aerys would want to blow up KL, he did not know what Jaime would be forced to do and he did not expect the sack and the fact that his family would be murdered in the capital. He didn’t entrust Jaime with all these things simply because he wasn’t expecting these things. All these things were definitely not part of """the job""" Rhaegar gave him. Rhaegar’s GHOST saying to Jaime in his dreams "I left my wife and children in your hands" is manifesting Jaime’s guilt for not being able to save the family. It is a ghost in Jaime’s dream. This doesn’t mean that Rhaegar literally expected Jaime to prevent his father from blowing up the city and simultaneously protect his family from an entirely different threat that wasn’t even remotely a possibility then. Jaime failing to do all of the above by himself doesn’t make him a traitor, an incompetent loser or a coward.

The distortion of their actual convo led the entire fandom to engage in a strawman argument ad nauseam. Lannister stans are attacking Rhaegar for leaving "all this responsibility" to Jaime and Targ stans are attacking Jaime for failing to honor this responsibility, while "all this responsibility" was never part of their actual conversation to begin with because none them had the slightest idea of what was about to happen in the first place.

It is such a pity because this last convo between these two men is so tragic and haunting and beautiful, Jaime (grrm) describes his last visual memory of Rhaegar in an unusually poetic manner, and the fact that deep down he is still waiting and hoping for Rhaegar to come back makes me insane. « The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate ». « So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom ». « It is not Aerys I rue, it is Robert ». « I almost mistook you for Aegon the Conqueror ». « How much can a crown be worth when a crow can feast on a king? ». And instead of focusing on that and the symbolism of it all and that fact that it’s literally foreshadowing Dany’s or Jon’s « return » and their meeting with Jaime (Rhaegar will come back in the end in some form or another, all hope is not lost) we’re reiterating bad takes about a supposed conflict between them ad infinitum. It is boring, reductive and uninspired.

Be serious, read the text and stop spreading misinformation about either side. This is not a football game. We all love a fandom fight occasionally but it is important to actually engage with the themes of the story from time to time.

[hansatorium]

Science or something

[scotianostra]

Edinburgh Castle.

Many visitors file through the gates of the magnificent fortress of Edinburgh Castle, I wonder though, how many know that the two statues that “guard” the gates are our two greatest warriors,  Robert the Bruce and Sir William Wallace.

The statues were erected outside the castle in 1929, though the men had been celebrated for centuries before. Both were prominent leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence, which began in 1296 and lasted for roughly three decades.

Robert the Bruce, on the left, declared himself King of Scots in 1306. He, like Wallace, fought valiantly during the war. However, unlike Wallace, Bruce had royal ambitions fueling his desire to free the Scots from English rule. After years of successful guerilla warfare, his battles and raids eventually led to the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton in 1328, which recognized Scottish independence under his rule—at least, until his death a few years later.

Sir William Wallace, famously depicted in the movie Braveheart, was among the first Scottish leaders to revolt against King Edward I of England.  After winning the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, he was knighted and named a Guardian of the Kingdom of Scotland. He continued fighting against the English reign until his capture and brutal execution in 1305.

The Bruce statue is by Thomas J. Clapperton, a Galashiels Sculptor who went on to work extensively in London, and Wallace is by  Alexander Carrick from Musselburgh, he produced a number of  war memorials in stone and bronze across Scotland, perhaps you might have seen some of his work on the Caledonian Insurance Building on St Andrews Square.

[trhor]

From the Royal Archives

Six Generations of Official Wedding Portraits of Rutherford-Kerr Monarchs and their Consorts

Alexandra (b. 1878, d. 1934) and Sir Edward Kerr (b. 1875, d. 1925) — Married on 18 May 1900 (25 years)

Alasdair II (b. 1902, d. 1962) and Lady Eleanor Bowes-Russell (b. 1904, d. 1985) — Married on 23 April 1924 (37 years)

James I (b. 1933, d. 1991) and Lady Catherine Dormer (b. 1935, d. 2006) — Married on 20 November 1958 (32 years)

Alasdair III (b. 1961, d. 2021) and Lady Blythe Spencer-Lyons (b. 1966) — Married on 8 March 1986 (35 years)

James II (b. 1986, d. 2043) and Alibhe Mac Cléirich (b. 1991) — Married on 10 August 2013 (29 years)

Robert I (b. 2016) and Isobel Sutherland (b. 2017, d. 2054) — Married on 29 April 2039

[theclod3215]

Me spending hours drawing this: Man sure would suck if some eldritch god of madness showed up and idk became a voice in my head or sumthing and I helped them learn about being human,,,

[imnotzuza]

so I finished house md and I decided to rewatch some of the early seasons episodes so yesterday I rewatched 1x06 'the Socratic method' and I realised how much hints about chase's relationship with his mother I missed. like seriously. it was so obvious and I didn't catch it. but it's so good. I wish we heard more about him in the early seasons but we were fed in the last three so it's okay. ALSO THE FUCKING WEIRD ASS THING BETWEEN CAMERON AND HOUSE. OMG I FORGOT ABOUT IT COMPLETELY. IT. MAKES. ME. WANT. TO. PUKE. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT!?!?!?

[chirpsythismorning]

When byler is trekking the UD together in s5 and one of them brings up how they’re like Sam and Frodo 😳

[dorianthedoll]

they don't look as cute as i wish they did but i am extremely tired