Where did Bruce watch the spider?
Sunday, March 26 2006

Did Bruce Watch the Spider in Northern Ireland?Tradition says that Robert the Bruce, having suffered a series of defeats in his fight for Scottish independence (and the throne of Scotland), watched a spider in a cave attempting to build a web...
..and failing on a series of occasions, but finally succeeding. Bruce is then said to have gathered together his army again with the words "If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again."He went on to defeat the English army at Bannockburn.
A number of locations claim to be the hideout where Bruce was sheltering - Bruce's Cave in Dumfriesshire, King's Cave on Arran and Uamh-an-Righ in Craigruie have all been put forward. But now a direct descendant of Bruce, the Earl of Elgin, has given backing to a suggestion that the cave was on Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland. The 11th Earl of Elgin says that Bruce was a seafaring man and the cave there was a perfect location. Bruce had been brought up in the south-west of Scotland and would know the waters between Ayrshire and Northern Ireland very well. The cave gives good views of any approaching boat and could have been well defended.







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