Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Comyn, John (d.1313?)
COMYN, JOHN, third Earl of Buchan of his family, and constable of Scotland (d. 1313?), was the son of Alexander Comyn, earl of Buchan [q. v.], and his wife, Elizabeth de Quincy. He succeeded to the title and estates at his father's death in 1289, being then over thirty years of age (Cal. Doc. Scot. vol. ii. No. 369). In 1290 he was at the parliament of Brigham among the magnates confirming the treaty of Salisbury. Next year he was one of those who authenticated the petitions of the competitors to the Scottish throne, and swore fealty to Edward. In 1292 his fidelity was rewarded by license to dig for lead in the Calf of Man, for his castle of Crigeltone in Galloway, and in 1293 he received from Edward the grant of a yearly fair and weekly market for his manor of Whitwick in Leicestershire. In that year he attended at the English court. In 1294 he was summoned to perform military services in Gascony both for his English and Scottish estates (Parl. Writs, i. 547), and in the same year his heavy relief of 120, which he had several times been allowed to postpone, was still not paid, and he was permitted to settle it by moieties. But in 1296 he adhered to King John's resistance to Edward, and led an expedition to the north of England, which besieged but failed to capture Carlisle (Wyntoun, bk. viii. line 2000 sq.; Fordun, i. 328; Rishanger, p. 156; Chron. Lanercost, 161, 162, Bannatyne Club). In July the collapse of the Scottish opposition led to his submission to Edward at Montrose, with Balliol and the other chief nobles of Scotland. He was now compelled to take up his residence in England, south of the Trent. In June 1297 he swore to serve King Edward against France. In July, however, he was allowed to return to Scotland, where he employed his great influence against the formidable rising of Wallace. He personally assisted in putting down the insurrection in Moray. His hostility to Wallace was embittered by the latter having compelled the chapter of St. Andrews to quash the election of his brother, William Comyn, in favour of William Lamberton, who succeeded in permanently securing the bishopric (Palgrave, p. 338). But after Falkirk Buchan again became hostile to England. In 1299 he was present at the great meeting of insurgent magnates at Peebles. In alliance with his cousin, the Red Comyn of Badenoch [q. v.], he almost came to blows with Robert Bruce and his old foe Bishop Lamberton. But in the end it was agreed that Comyn of Badenoch, Bruce, and the bishop should be guardians of Scotland. The union of the Bruces and the Comyns was a strong one. In 1300 Buchan acted with his namesake as envoy to Edward, and was defeated by that monarch in battle (An. Ed. I in Rishanger, pp. 440-1). In 1303 he was sent by the guardians on a mission to France, and strongly exhorted the government to resist England if it refused to join the French truce. Such disobedience to Edward resulted in his English lands being forfeited, and granted to Henry de Percy, in March 1304. But in May his lands were again restored to him (Palgrave, p. 288), he was made a member of the council of the new English governor, John of Brittany (ib. p. 293), and in September 1305 he was one of the Scottish commissioners who appeared at the union parliament at Westminster to accept Edward's great ordinance for the government of Scotland. Next year came the decisive breach between Bruce and the house of Comyn. The tragedy of Dumfries made Bruce king over Scotland, but Buchan took arms to avenge his cousin's murder and champion the cause of Edward. His wife, however, strongly adhered to the patriotic side. This lady was Isabella, daughter of Duncan, earl of Fife. The house of Macduff had long claimed the right of crowning the Scottish kings as an hereditary privilege; but her brother, the then Earl of Fife, was absent in England. Her husband was Bruce's bitter enemy; but she stole away from him secretly and hurried with the best horses in his stables to Scone, where she arrived just in time to place the crown on King Robert's head, as the nearest available representative of her house. Within a year she was captured by the English, and was kept closely confined in a latticed cage within a turret of Berwick Castle (Fœdera, i. 995, gives little countenance to the sensational details in Rishanger, p. 229). Her husband was as signally unlucky in his diametrically opposite policy. Beaten in 1307 at Slaines, he suffered a crushing defeat at Inverury on the Don in the succeeding year. Bruce, who had risen from a sick bed to fight the battle, was restored to health through excitement and pleasure. The heirship or harrying of Buchan, the earl's own patrimony, followed his discomfiture (Fordun, i. 343; {sc|Barbour}}, Bruce, bk. ix. lines 294-300). Comyn fled to England and lost his Scottish estates. He died about 1313, leaving no issue.
His wife, who was released from her cage in 1310 for a milder custody in a religious house in Berwick, was soon after his death set free altogether (Rotuli Scotiæ, i. 85 b; Fœdera, ii. 209). The Scottish estates of the house were seized by King Robert. In the days of Robert II they were granted along wi th Badenoch to the new line of earls of Buchan of the house of Stewart. Even in England Buchan's estates were taken possession of by Edward II, as his heiresses, daughters of his brother, Alexander Comyn, who had died before him, were under age. But Alice the elder's husband, Henry de Beaumont, received a grant of Whitwick in 1327. Down to his death Beaumont styled himself earl of Buchan (Cal. Inq. post Mortem, ii. 93), but he never won back any of the Scottish estates that had once belonged to the fallen house of Comyn.
[The Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, vol. ii. gives an abstract of the chief documentary authorities. Many of the more important papers are printed in extenso in Kymer's Fcedera, Eecord edition, vols. i. and ii.; Stevenson's Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland, 1286-1306, and Palgrave's Documents and Records relating to Scotland; Fordun's Scotichronicon, ed. Skene; Wyntoun's Chronykil, ed. Laing; Barbour's Bruce; Rishanger, Rolls Series; Rotuli Scotiae, vol. i.; Acts of Parl. of Scotland, vol. i.; Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, i. 263-4; the earlier edition of Douglas is very confused.]