Isabella MacDuff, Countess of Buchan

After Robert the Bruce killed John III Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, at Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries, the Earl of Buchan joined the English side in the Scottish Wars of Independence.

According to tradition, the ceremony of crowning the monarch was performed by a representative of Clan MacDuff but Isabella, Lady Buchan, arrived at Scone Abbey, near Perth, the day after the coronation of Robert the Bruce in March 1306.

Bruce was defeated at the Battle of Methven in June 1306, so he sent Isabella and his female relatives north, but they were betrayed to the English by Uilleam II, Earl of Ross.

Edward I of England ordered her sent to Berwick-upon-Tweed with these instructions: "Let her be closely confined in an abode of stone and iron made in the shape of a cross, and let her be hung up out of doors in the open air at Berwick, that both in life and after her death, she may be a spectacle and eternal reproach to travellers.

[4] This was not necessarily a humanitarian move; it is suggested that by this stage Bruce was gaining support, his female relatives were potentially valuable hostages, and the English did not want them to die of ill-treatment.