In article <a80e0da3-d7bc-4a51-bf1c-
5e7b53275e7d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, wolfbat359a@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/21/johnmccain.uselections2008
>=20
> John McCain, veteran war hero: yes. But a descendant of Robert the
> Bruce? Baloney
> =B7 Doubt cast on presidential candidate's ancestral link
> =B7 It's a piece of wonderful fiction, says historian
> Paul Lewis
> The Guardian, Friday March 21 2008 Article history
>=20
> US senator John McCain and Robert the Bruce. Photograph: Luke
> MacGregor/Reuters, Hulton Archive
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> Of all the claims in sup****t of John McCain's bid for the White House,
> perhaps none is quite as grand as this. As he arrived in London
> yesterday, the publishers of his new book insisted the Republican
> senator's family was descended from the Scottish king, Robert the
> Bruce.
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> For a veteran war hero staking his presidential campaign on military
> credentials, an ancestral link to a warrior who overcame the English
> to reclaim Scottish independence in 1314 has obvious appeal. But
> according to experts, the story may be no more than that. Asked by the
> Guardian to investigate McCain's family history, genealogists and
> medieval historians described the link to Robert the Bruce as
> "wonderful fiction" and "baloney".
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> The McCain link to Scotland was first mooted several years ago, but
> resurfaced this week on the eve of his trip to the UK, when Gibson
> Square, the publishers behind the senator's book, Hard Call, announced
> that "John McCain's family is of Scottish-Irish descent and related to
> the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, on his mother's side".
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> The firm said the claim was sourced from the US presidential
> candidate's official website. But the ancestral link appears to
> originate from a 1999 family memoir, Faith of My Fathers. In it the
> senator said his great-grandparents "gave life to two renowned
> fighters, my great-uncle Wild Bill and my grandfather Sid McCain."
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> Wild Bill, he wrote, "joined the McCain name to an even more
> distinguished warrior family. His wife, Mary Louise Earle, was
> descended from royalty. She claimed as ancestors Scottish kings back
> to Robert the Bruce." The passage goes on to say that Mary Louise
> Earle was also "in direct descent" from Emperor Charlemagne.
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> Not so, according to Dr Katie Stevenson, a lecturer in medieval
> studies at the University of St Andrews. "What wonderful fiction," she
> said. "Mary Louise Earle's claims to descent from Robert the Bruce are
> likely to be fantasy. Earle is not a Scottish name. I think it is
> incredibly unlikely that name would be related to Robert the Bruce.
> Charlemagne and Robert the Bruce were not connected - that's
> ludicrous."
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> Claims of Scottish medieval ancestry, she said, are virtually
> impossible to prove unless traced through rare do***entation. "There
> are no records of that nature. Any historian will tell you that it's
> virtually impossible to prove ancestry through the middle ages."
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> Dr Bruce Durie, academic manager, genealogical studies at the
> University of Strathclyde, said after initial research into Mary
> Louise Earle's ancestry, that there was "no existing do***ented link"
> to Robert the Bruce in terms of traced lineage. "If you're going to
> track the direct lineage of Robert the Bruce, he is Andrew Bruce, Earl
> of Elgin and Kincardine."
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> Durie pointed out that Robert I was believed to have had up to a dozen
> children - several illegitimately. Basic calculations suggested there
> could be as many as 200 million people distantly related to him. "In
> that sense McCain probably is descended from Bruce. So am I. So are
> you. So is everyone."
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> The secretary of the Scottish Genealogy Society, Ken Nisbet, combed
> through archive records of known descendants of Robert I for the
> Guardian, and concluded: "I wouldn't say it's a strong claim at all.
> This is speculation and it doesn't prove anything."
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> Some of the claims made in the family memoir about McCain's Scottish
> roots, he added, read like "some historical novel". "It's a load of
> baloney - it's a bit like the mixing of history and it's not accurate.
> A lot of Scots of Irish descent tend to say 'we're related to so and
> so' - people say Robert the Bruce quite often. William Wallace is
> another one, as you can imagine."
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> Durie added that despite his romantic reputation, Robert the Bruce was
> "an absolute scoundrel".
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> "The first thing he did after taking power was destroy Stirling castle
> and he was a self-serving, vainglorious op****tunist who was determined
> to be king at any cost," he said.
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> A spokesman for McCain said last night: "The ancestry claim is based
> upon a genealogical study the McCain family had in their possession,
> which traced the McCain family roots back to Robert the Bruce."
>=20
=09Didn't Robert the Bruce capitalize on William Wallace's actions=20
and then leave him to the lack of mercy of the corrupt English king=20
Edward "Longshanks"? Hmmm... maybe not the kind of claim someone would=20
want to make.
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