The King and the Spider

In the year 1306, Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scots. Within months, it looked as if he had lost everything.

Scotland was at war with England. King Edward I of England, a powerful and ruthless ruler, was determined to control Scotland, and he sent his armies north to crush the new king.

Robert's small army was defeated at the Battle of Methven. Then it was beaten again. His supporters were scattered. Several of his brothers were captured and executed. His wife, his daughter and his sisters were taken prisoner. Robert himself became a fugitive, hunted through the hills and islands with a price on his head.

The cave

The legend says that one winter, Robert hid alone in a cave, or perhaps a poor hut, sheltering from the rain and from his enemies.

He was cold, hungry and exhausted. He had fought six battles against the English, it is said, and lost every one. He lay on a heap of straw and asked himself whether he should give up the fight. Perhaps he should leave Scotland for ever and go to fight in the Holy Land instead.

As he lay there thinking, he noticed a spider above him.

Six tries

The spider was trying to build its web. It swung on a thin thread from one beam, trying to reach another beam across the gap so it could fix its line there.

It swung, and missed.

It climbed back up and swung again. And missed again.

Robert watched. Six times the little spider tried to swing across. Six times it failed and fell back.

It struck him that the spider had tried exactly as many times as he had fought and lost.

"Now," he thought, as the story goes, "I will be guided by this spider. If it tries a seventh time and succeeds, I will try my fortune once more in Scotland. If it fails, I will give up and leave."

The seventh time

The spider gathered itself and swung a seventh time.

This time, the thread caught on the beam. The spider fastened its line and began to spin its web.

Robert got up from the straw. He decided he would not give up.

What happened next

What followed is history, not legend.

Robert gathered his supporters again. He fought a new kind of war, using surprise attacks, raids and ambushes instead of facing the larger English armies in open battle. One by one, he captured castles across Scotland.

In 1307, King Edward I died on his way north to fight him again. His son, Edward II, was a less able commander.

In June 1314, near Stirling Castle, Robert the Bruce faced a much larger English army at the Battle of Bannockburn. Over two days, the Scots won a famous victory.

The war went on for years after that. But in 1328, England finally recognised Scotland as an independent kingdom, with Robert the Bruce as its king.

Is the spider true?

Nobody knows. The story does not appear in any record from Robert's own time. It became famous in 1828, when Sir Walter Scott told it in Tales of a Grandfather, a history of Scotland he wrote for his grandson. Scott himself noted that it was a tradition, and a similar story had been told about another Scottish leader, James Douglas.

But the saying it is often linked to, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, has been repeated to children ever since. And it is said that, for generations afterwards, many people with the name Bruce refused to kill a spider.

Want to read more?

Sir Walter Scott's Tales of a Grandfather is free to read online. For the real history of Robert the Bruce, Michael Penman's biography, Robert the Bruce: King of Scots, is a detailed modern account.