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
Scots language language of the original Parliament of Scotland. Because Scotland retained distinct political, legal, and religious systems after the Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English. From the mid-sixteenth century, written Scots was increasingly influenced by the developing Standard English of Southern England due to developments in royal and political interactions with England. When an English herald spoke to Mary of Guise and her councillors in 1560, at first they spoke in the "Scottyshe toung", but then he "not well understanding", they continued in her native French. King James VI, who in 1603 became James I of England, observed in