Saturday, July 19, 2008

The Legion takes the field

In response the post earlier today, on Sir Thomas, I received the picture below from Evelyn.



It shows the Royal British Legion's pageant entry at the Meldrum Sports.
Evelyn was able to tell me that Robert the Bruce was played by the late Donald Kirkpartick, of Ardfork. The date of the picture is not known at the present nor is the identity of Sir Thomas.
Can anyone provide this information? Also if any one remembers participating in that particular pageant, and has any stories, it would be great to include them in the blog.

Some of you may have noted that the date in the picture is 1307, and not 1308. This was not that the participants “got it wrong”, but that up until very recently historians were still divided over the date. Of the medieval sources, Barbour gave the date as Christmas 1307, whilst Fourdon gives it an unspecified 1308 date, and some versions of Bower’s Scotichronicon give Ascension day 1308 (May 23rd).*
The latter date now being the commonly accepted one.

I am looking forward to receiving your responses to the above questions


  • G.W.S. Barrow : Robert Bruce and the community of the realm of Scotland 1988

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