March 7, 2004
Robert the Bruce's toe
He stole into the abbey in the dead of night, intent on stealing a personal memento of Scotland’s greatest king.Read more about the recent rediscovery of the purloined relic in The Scotsman.Not a thief nor a grave robber but a respected town dignitary and "man of science", Joseph Paton found himself irresistibly drawn to the body of this icon of Scotland’s 14th-century fight for independence.
Reaching forward, he snapped off a toe from the remains of Robert the Bruce and held aloft the trophy before wrapping it in a fragment of the king’s golden shroud. In satisfying his urge to steal the Royal digit, Paton was risking his reputation by defiling the Bruce’s skeleton, which had been uncovered by workmen in 1818 where it lay inside Dunfermline Abbey.
He was supposed to be one of the eminent local worthies ensuring the body was well treated. Now this remarkable story of a man’s urge to keep a piece of history for himself is behind a new exhibition at Glasgow’s Hunterian Museum.
Posted by David on March 7, 2004 7:30 PM
Hmmm ... definitely a unique gift idea: you never know what you might stumble across.
More intriguing is the speculation that Robert suffered from leprosy, an idea reinforced by the article and images at The Faces of Robert the Bruce:
Dr. Ian MacLeod, a consultant at the Edinburgh Dental Institute, assisted by Dr. Richard Neave, one of Britain’s foremost forensic medical artists, produced a ‘warts an’ all’ reconstruction of Bruce’s head at the time of his death. This reconstruction took account of the obvious scarring, i.e.: a sword wound to the head, a broken cheekbone, a distended eye socket and upper jaw damage. Drs MacLeod and Neave were sure that Robert I suffered from leprosy and this too is reflected in the reconstruction. Dr. MacLeod described Bruce thus: “The first thing that strikes you about Robert the Bruce is that the guy has tremendous presence. There is almost a Churchillian aura about him. This was a guy you would not want to get into a fight with. He would have stood out from the crowd. What we have here is a battle-scarred old man. You don’t go through wars like he did without receiving a few knocks”.
Whatever his dermatological condition, Robert the Bruce was not a Scotsman to be ignored.
Posted by: Peter Shriner on March 8, 2004 4:56 PM
gmail.com