Robert the Bruce him control of much of Scotland, and at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Robert defeated a much larger English army under Edward II of England, confirming the re-establishment of an independent Scottish kingdom. The battle marked a significant turning point, with Robert's armies now free to launch devastating raids throughout northern England, while also extending his war against the English to Ireland by sending an army to invade there and by appealing to the Irish to rise against Edward II's rule. Despite Bannockburn and the capture of the final English stronghold at Berwick in 1318, Edward II refused to
Robert the Bruce years. A team of researchers, headed by Professor Andrew Nelson from University of Western Ontario have determined that Robert the Bruce did not have leprosy. They examined the original casting of the skull belonging to Robert the Bruce's descendant Lord Andrew Douglas Alexander Thomas Bruce, and a foot bone that had not been re-interred. They determined that skull and foot bone showed no signs of leprosy, such as an eroded nasal spine and a pencilling of the foot bone. The king's body was embalmed, and his sternum sawn open to allow extraction of the heart, which Sir James Douglas placed