New Cumnock known as Castle William, for upon this sted Sir William Wallace held a ryall house, a crown property. On 10 February 1306, Robert the Bruce killed John Comyn at Greyfriars Kirk, Dumfries. By May of that year Bruce was crowned King of Scots at Scone but early setbacks against English forces saw him seek refuge in the Western Isles and then in Ireland. In the spring of 1307 Bruce and his followers returned to the Scottish mainland and ambushed an English force under the command of Sir Aymer de Vallence at Glen Trool, Galloway. Worse was to follow for the
History of the Scots language the land of the English in the Kingdom of the Scots" and why the early 13th century author of "de Situ Albanie" thought that the Firth of Forth "divides the kingdoms of the Scots and of the English". Most of the evidence suggests that English spread further into Scotland via the burgh, proto-urban institutions which were first established by King David I. Incoming burghers were mainly English (especially from Northumbria, and the Earldom of Huntingdon), Flemish and French. Although the military aristocracy employed French and Gaelic, these small urban communities appear to have been using English as something more than