Prickly & Sour

09/17/2026

⚔️ THE WOMEN BETWEEN WALLACE AND BRUCE

The family connections hiding behind some of Scotland’s most famous names

History gave us three surnames. Genealogy gives us one family.

William Wallace. Roger Kirkpatrick. Robert the Bruce.

We usually meet them as separate characters in Scotland’s Wars of Independence. Wallace gets Stirling Bridge. Bruce gets Bannockburn. Kirkpatrick gets perhaps the most intimidating family motto in Scotland.

“I Mak Sikker.” — I make sure.

But start drawing their family trees and something interesting happens.

The lines begin moving toward one another.

And wouldn’t you know it—the women are hiding in the middle of it. 😂

🌳 Start with Wallace’s mother

We actually know frustratingly little about William Wallace’s immediate family from records written during his lifetime.

His surviving seal on the 1297 Lübeck letter identifies him as the son of Alan Wallace. That is contemporary evidence.

His mother’s identity comes through later evidence and tradition. The Wallace story places his maternal family among the Crawfords, and Blind Harry identifies Sir Ranald Crawford as Wallace’s uncle.

But here’s the part that caught my genealogist brain.

Blind Harry also describes Kirkpatrick as Wallace’s kin and specifically connects that relationship closely through Wallace’s mother.

Well…now you’ve got my attention. 🧐

Because when you begin reconstructing the Crawford, Torthorwald and Kirkpatrick pedigrees, those maternal lines matter.

The traditional reconstruction places Alicia and Isabel of Torthorwald within the network connecting the families that produced Wallace and Sir Roger Kirkpatrick.

Suddenly two different surnames don’t look quite so different.

The connection was hiding in the women.

👑 And then Kirkpatrick leads us to Bruce

Follow the Kirkpatrick pedigree farther back and another famous Scottish family walks into the room.

The Bruces of Annandale.

The traditional Closeburn pedigree records Ivone (Yvo) de Kirkpatrick marrying Euphemia de Brus. Later Kirkpatricks therefore claimed descent from the Annandale Brus family—the same extended dynasty from which Robert the Bruce emerged.

Now our three surnames aren’t standing in three separate boxes anymore:

Wallace — Kirkpatrick — Bruce.

They’re sitting inside an interconnected medieval kinship network.

And that changes how I look at their story.

These weren’t three random Scottish families who bumped into one another during a war. Their families had connections running backward through marriages and maternal lines long before we meet their famous descendants on the battlefield.

🗡️ Then came Dumfries

In February 1306, Bruce’s confrontation with John Comyn at Greyfriars in Dumfries ended with Comyn’s death.

Later tradition gave Roger Kirkpatrick his immortal line:

“I Mak Sikker.”

Whether Kirkpatrick actually uttered those exact words is another question—the famous wording comes from later tradition.

But Kirkpatrick’s association with Bruce became permanently woven into his family’s identity.

So much so that “I Mak Sikker” became the Kirkpatrick motto.

Apparently “I’ll go double-check” just didn’t have the same medieval Scottish ring to it. 😂🗡️

🧬 And the family tree doesn’t stop there

This is where the picture accompanying this story comes in.

Bruce’s daughter Marjorie Bruce married Walter Stewart. Their son became Robert II, first king of the Stewart dynasty.

And that Bruce bloodline keeps traveling.

Through the Stewarts it reaches the family of the Lords of the Isles, and from there into the ancestry of the MacDonalds of Keppoch.

So when you see Robert the Bruce sitting near the top of a Keppoch family tree, he isn’t there for decoration.

There’s a genealogical road that gets him there.

And this is exactly why I keep saying we cannot reconstruct medieval Scotland by following surnames alone.

Follow only the men and you see:

Wallace. Kirkpatrick. Bruce. Stewart. MacDonald.

Five different names.

Put their mothers, daughters and grandmothers back where they belong…

and suddenly you can see the family.

That, my friends, is when genealogy gets REALLY good. 👑🧬

Tiffany McCarter Evans
Author of The Lennox Chronicles
The Lennox Ark

© The Lennox Ark 2026

If Wallace, Bruce, Kirkpatrick or MacDonald appears in your family tree, share this one—and tell me which line you’re chasing. I have a feeling we’re going to find a few cousins in the comments. 😂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

08/17/2026

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