Sir Alexander Seton, a Scottish knight who was fighting for England, did famously switch sides at a critical juncture on the night after the first day of battle. The information he provided helped persuade Bruce to fight the next day. Seton’s key part in the battle was related by Sir Thomas Gray in The Scalacronica, a historical chronicle written about forty years after Bannockburn. This Sir Thomas Gray is the son of the English knight Sir Thomas Gray, who was taken prisoner by the Scots on the first day of the battle—he is the prisoner who I have addressing Alex as he goes into Bruce’s tent—who was presumably in a position to know.

Alexander Seton is usually said to be the brother of Bruce’s closest friend, Christopher Seton, who was taken prisoner and executed after Methven in 1306. He is also probably the same Alexander Seton who entered into a band with Neil Campbell and De la Hay (Thomas or Gilbert) in 1308 to support Bruce “till the end of their lives” (Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland, Edinburgh: G.W.S. Barrow, Edinburgh University Press, 2005; p. 291).

This promise didn’t last long for Seton. By November 1309 he is in England, receiving a “cask of wine” for his “sustenance,” along with other notable Scots in the English service such as Sir Adam Gordon (also one cask), Sir Edmond Comyn (two casks), Sir Ingrim de Umfraville (four casks), and Malise of Strathearne (four casks) (Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, Vol. III (1307–1357), edited by Joseph Bain, Edinburgh: H.M. General Register House, 1887; p. 23).

What caused Seton to defect to the English after signing the band isn’t known, although it is certainly conceivable that the no-win, catch-22 situation of the Border lords played a factor. There were many Scots who thought their best bet was with the English, and given the circumstances you can’t really blame them. No one could have predicted Bannockburn. Whatever his reasons, after Seton’s timely return to the Scottish fold during Bannockburn, he serves Bruce faithfully until his death.

After the battle, Seton was rewarded by the king with more lands in East Lothian and was appointed a steward in the royal household. As I noted in the epilogue, Seton is one of the signatories on the seminal Declaration of Arbroath (“. . . for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom—for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself”), a precursor to our Declaration of Independence, and is appointed governor of the Castle of Berwick in 1327. The marriage of Prince David to Princess Joan did indeed take place at Berwick Castle the following year. Bruce dies about a year later, on June 7, 1329, but he is said to have been ill for some time.