Image: Robert the Bruce statue, Bannockburn - geograph.org.uk - 1538090

Description: Pilkington Jackson's heroic statue of Scotland's greatest king and war-leader. Bruce holds the axe with which he cleft the head of the impetuous English knight Henry de Bohun on the eve of battle, sending a shiver down the spines of his enemies and filling them with foreboding for the coming fight. The head was modelled on measurements of Bruce's skull following the re-discovery of his skeletal remains in Dunfermline Abbey in 1818. "He died at Cardross, in Dunbartonshire, where he had lived for some time; but he was buried in the Abbey Church of Dunfermline, where a marble monument brought from Paris was put over his grave. In course of time the roof of the church fell in, and the monument was so broken and covered with stones that nobody could tell where it stood. But when workmen were repairing the church, they found pieces of the monument, and on digging underneath, they came upon the skeleton of Bruce. Many people, high and low, came to look upon all that remained of the most famous king who had ever reigned in Scotland, one whose name will never be forgotten as long as there is a Scottish nation." -- P Hume Brown, A Short History of Scotland, 1908
Title: Robert the Bruce statue, Bannockburn - geograph.org.uk - 1538090
Credit: From geograph.org.uk
Author: kim traynor
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
License: CC BY-SA 2.0
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
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