At the Williamsburg Scottish Festival, held September 25, 2004 at the Jamestown Beach Campground,
Bruce International North America welcomed retired US Air Force
Col. and Mrs. Telford “Ted” Eggleston to the main
stage for a special presentation.
The Virginia Beach couple donated and formally presented to the Bruce Family and the
family organization an original rubbing from the brass plate
covering the gravesite of Robert I, King of Scots, also known as
“Robert the Bruce.”
Receiving the framed
rubbing on behalf of the Family was Thomas Allen Bruce,
Commander of the Order of St. John and Lieutenant to the 37th Chief
of the Name and Family of Bruce, Sir Andrew Bruce, Earl of Elgin
and Kincardine, Knight of the Thistle, CD, of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Col. Eggleston’s
ancestry
includes the surname Carlisle, which is a sept of the Family of
Bruce.
While stationed in Europe for part of his Air Force career
he amassed a significant collection of brass rubbings having
personally produced hundreds from gravesites “all
over” England and the Bruce gravesite in Scotland. His collection is
exceeded only by those in the Victoria
and Albert Museum, London, and the Ashmolean Library, Oxford
University, making Col. Eggleston one of the world's few authorities
on such works.
After some months and a
number of requests for permission to create a rubbing of The Bruce’s
19th century funerary monument, Col. Eggleston was at
last given the green light. Traveling to Fife on his next leave, he
and his family arrived to find that the contact he was to see was
“on holiday” and he was, at first, denied access to the grave.
With much persuasion, he was finally granted permission late in the
day.
Working as quickly as possible in the fading light, he had to
complete the project beneath an immovable wooden pulpit barely high
enough for him to crawl under. Still, he persevered, creating an
exquisite seven-foot image of the great Scottish hero and king, as
visualized by his countrymen 500 years after his death.
Since the time of Col. Eggleston's
efforts
the pulpit has been raised for easier viewing of the grave, but
permission is no longer given for rubbings to be made, making this a
rare gift.
Born in 1274, probably at Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire, Robert I
reigned as Scotland’s monarch from 1306 until his death in 1329.
Most of his reign was occupied with driving the forces of England’s
kings Edward I and II out of his homeland.
Possibly the most important action taken during his reign, however,
was the April 6, 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, a statement of
Scottish determination to remain a free and independent people. That
document is said to have greatly influenced the authors of the
American Declaration of Independence 450 years later.
After his death at age 55, Robert I was buried at Dunfermline Abbey
(sans heart, which rests at Melrose Abbey), and a marble slab was
brought from France to mark his tomb.
The passing centuries saw growth and many additions to the Abbey,
but all was undone with the Reformation. In 1560 Protestant mobs
sacked the Catholic Abbey and its surrounding buildings, after which
it was abandoned as a religious community. Eventually, parts of the
Abbey’s walls collapsed, crushing the marble on Robert’s grave and
effectively removing his resting place from the public’s
consciousness.
Discovered during new construction preparations in 1818, the royal
bones were disinterred and reburied within the church that stands on
the site today. As befits Scotland’s greatest hero, a striking brass
memorial plate patterned after
medieval monumental brasses of the Crusader period replaced the
shattered marble.
It is the larger-than-life image from that funerary plate that was gifted to the Bruce Family by Col. and Mrs. Eggleston at the
Williamsburg Scottish Festival in September 2004.
