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
Removal of the Stone of Scone in 1950 I of England (Longshanks) in 1296 during the struggles against English invasion, which historians call the Scottish Wars of Independence as a spoil of war, kept in Westminster Abbey in London and fitted into King Edward's Chair. Subsequent English and then British monarchs were crowned sitting upon the chair and Stone. At the time, the Stone was viewed as a symbol of Scottish nationhood; by removing the Stone to London, Edward I was declaring himself 'King of the Scots'. In 1950, Ian Hamilton, a student at the University of Glasgow, approached Gavin Vernon with a plan to remove the Stone