The BRUCE Family of Normandy
~ de Bruis ~ de Brus ~ de Brusse ~ de Brix


"The BRUCE family acquired their first land in the British Isles in 1101
when King Henry I of England granted the royal manors
of Collingham and Righton in Yorkshire to Robert de BRUIS.

Robert was one of 5 sons of
ADAM, Lord of BRUIS in Lower Normandy,
who was succeeded by his eldest son Adam II.
The ruins of the latter's castle can still be seen in Bruis (now Brix)
some 30 kilometres south of Cherbourg France.



Robert de BRUIS first met the Scots Prince David in Henry I's company.
When David succeeded to the Scots throne in 1124 as DAVID I,
he enfeoffed Robert in the Lordship of Annandale.

By the turn of the 14th century, the Normandy and Yorkshire branches of the family had died out, leaving the Bruces of Annandale as the sole surviving representatives of Adam of BRUIS.

In 1304, Robert, 7th Lord of Annandale,
succeeded his father in the lands of the lordship with its caput at Lochmaben.
In 1306 he successfully prosecuted the Bruce claim to the Scots throne,
first contested by his grandfather in 1286.

Robert the Bruce, King Robert I of Scotland

King Robert I's brother Edward King of Ireland, had 2 sons by Isabel of Atholl
before he was slain at the Battle of Dundalk in 1318.
Thomas, the 2nd son, was granted the lands and barony of Clackmannan
by his cousin King David II before 1348.
With the death of the King in 1371, Thomas's son Robert became head of the family.


By 1700, the Clackmannan Bruces had spread along the Forth Valley
to Airth, Culross and Earlshall,
and north into Perthshire, Aberdeenshire and Shetland.


A younger son of the Airth branch returned to France
where his descendants survive today as the COMTES de BRUCE.


William BRUCE of Clackmannan
was one of several Scots to settle in Russia in the 17th century.
His eldest son, James Daniel, was created Count BRUCE by Peter the Great
and his house outside Moscow has recently been turned into a Bruce family museum.


Kinsmen of these Bruces settled in Sweden, Prussia and Poland
and by the end of the 17th century, the first Bruces had arrived in America and the Caribbean."

......... (taken from Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland / Edited by John & Julia Keay, 1998)

GEOCITIES