General Notes

Robert de Brus married Emma, daughter of Alan of Brittany. They had twosons. William and Robert. This Robert de Brus was the first of the family, a noble Knight of Normandy, who accompanied Duke William into England, and was rewarded by him after the Battle of Hastings with no less than ninety-four lordships in the County of York, of which the Manor of Skelton was the capital of his barony. He died about the year 1100, according to some, and to other historians 1094. His successor was his son, Robert.

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This name, now inextricabely linked with the history of the Scottish nation through its association with the victor of Bannockburn, was ancient long before the momentous battle. It is believed that Adam de Brus built the castle at Brix between Cherbourg & Valognes in Normandy in the 11Th century, the ruins which still remain. Robert de Brus followed William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, to England in 1066, & although he is thought to have died soon after, his sons acquired great possessions in Surry & Dorset.. Another Robert de Brus became a companion-in-arms to Prince David, afterwards David I of Scotland, & followed him when he went north to regain his kingdom in 1124. His loyalties were torn in 1138 when, during the civil war in England between Stephen & Matilda, who claimed to be the rightful heiress, David led a force into England. De Brus could not support his king, & resigned his holdingd in Annandale to his second son, Robert, to join the English forces gatering to resist the Scottish invasion. At the Battle of the Standard in 1138, Scottish forces were defeated & De Brus took prisoner his own son, now Lord of the lands of Annandale. He was ultimely returned to Scotland, & to demonstrate his determination to establish his branch of the family in Scotland, he abandoned his father's arms of a red lion on a silver field & assumed the now familar red satire. The arms borne by the present chief allude to both elements