Editing Robert the Bruce (section)

==Mid-reign (1314–1320)==
[[File:Battle of Bannockburn - Bruce addresses troops.jpg|thumb|300px|Bruce addresses his troops, from [[John Cassell|Cassell]]'s ''History of England''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Arnold-Foster |first=Hugh Oakley |year=1907 |title=A History of England from the Landing of Julius Caesar to the Present Day |publisher=Cassell and Company
|location=London, Paris, New York and Melbourne |page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofengland00arnouoft/page/207 207] |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofengland00arnouoft |chapter=Bannockburn |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/historyofengland00arnouoft#page/207/mode/1up
|access-date=19 June 2009}}</ref>]]

=== Further confrontation with England then the Irish conflict ===
{{main|Bruce campaign in Ireland}}
[[File:Ireland 1300.png|thumb|right|Ireland c.1300 showing the extent of [[Norman Irish|Hiberno-Norman]] control]]

Freed from English threats, Scotland's armies could now invade northern England. Bruce also drove back a subsequent English expedition north of the border and launched raids into [[Yorkshire]] and [[Lancashire]]. Buoyed by his military successes, Robert also sent his brother Edward to invade Ireland in 1315, in an attempt to secure a second crown (having received a reply to offers of assistance from Domhnall Ó Néill, king of [[Tír Eoghain]]), and to open a second front in the continuing wars with England. Edward was even crowned as [[High King of Ireland]] in 1316. Robert later went there with another army to assist his brother.

In conjunction with the invasion, Bruce popularised an ideological vision of a "Pan-Gaelic Greater Scotia" with his lineage ruling over both Ireland and Scotland. This propaganda campaign was aided by two factors. The first was the betrayal of Robert's marriage alliance, of 1302, with the [[Richard Óg de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster]], Robert's second wife being the 13-year-old daughter of Richard, Elizabeth de Burgh, though despite the marriage Richard sided with Edward following Comyn's 1305 murder; second, Bruce himself, on his mother's side of Carrick, was descended from Gaelic royalty in Scotland as well as Ireland. Bruce's Irish ancestors included [[Aoife of Leinster]] (d. 1188), whose ancestors included [[Brian Boru]] of [[Munster]] and the [[kings of Leinster]]. Thus, lineally and geopolitically, Bruce attempted to support his anticipated notion of a pan-Gaelic alliance between Scottish-Irish Gaelic populations, under his kingship. This is revealed by a letter he sent to the Irish chiefs, where he calls the Scots and Irish collectively ''nostra nacio'' (our nation), stressing the common language, customs and heritage of the two peoples:

{{blockquote|Whereas we and you and our people and your people, free since ancient times, share the same national ancestry and are urged to come together more eagerly and joyfully in friendship by a common language and by common custom, we have sent you our beloved kinsman, the bearers of this letter, to negotiate with you in our name about permanently strengthening and maintaining inviolate the special friendship between us and you, so that with God's will our nation (''nostra nacio'') may be able to recover her ancient liberty.}}

The diplomacy worked to a certain extent, at least in Ulster, where the Scots had some support. The Irish chief, Domhnall Ó Néill, for instance, later justified his support for the Scots to [[Pope John XXII]] by saying "the Kings of Lesser Scotia all trace their blood to our ''Greater Scotia'' and retain to some degree our language and customs."<ref>Remonstrance of the Irish Chiefs to Pope John XXII, p. 46.</ref>

Initially, the Scot-Irish army seemed unstoppable as they defeated the Hiberno-Norman forces of Richard De Burgh, Robert's father-in-law and [[Earl of Ulster]], Edward's army levelling his hiberno-norman towns. However, the Scots failed to win over the non-Ulster chiefs or to make any other significant gains in the south of the island, where people couldn't see the difference between Hiberno-Norman and Scottish occupation. This was because a famine struck Ireland and the army struggled to sustain itself. They resorted to pillaging and razing entire settlements as they searched for supplies, regardless of whether they were Hiberno-Norman or Irish. Eventually it was defeated when Edward Bruce was killed at the [[Battle of Faughart]], by an army led by Richard de Burgh. The Irish Annals of the period described the defeat of the Bruces by the Hiberno-Normans as one of the greatest things ever done for the Irish nation due to the fact it brought an end to the famine and pillaging wrought upon the Irish by both the Scots and the Hiberno-Normans.<ref>The Annals of Connacht.</ref> For his 1306 campaign against the English Crown, Robert's excommunication by [[Pope Clement V]] was reaffirmed in 1318 by [[Pope John XXII]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hill |first=Rosalind M. T. |date=January 1972 |title=Belief and practice as illustrated by John XXII's excommunication of Robert Bruce |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/studies-in-church-history/article/abs/belief-and-practice-as-illustrated-by-john-xxiis-excommunication-of-robert-bruce/6EDFF5DBD6F9C3E70CAAD7E88A5DD842 |journal=Studies in Church History |language=en |volume=8 |pages=135–138 |doi=10.1017/S0424208400005477 |issn=0424-2084}}</ref>