Dumfries 1306
On 10 February 1306 Fleming was present when Robert Bruce (image left) met his rival John Comyn III of Badenoch before the high altar of the Greyfriars church in Dumfries. They were the two recognised contenders for the Scottish throne that had been vacant since King John Balliol had been forced to abdicate ten years earlier. Bruce and his supporters viewed Comyn as a weak leader who would submit Scotland to the authority of England's King Edward I.
Legend says that Bruce stabbed Comyn and fled the church in a panic exclaiming "I doubt that I have killed him"! His cousin Roger de Kirkpatrick then proclaimed "I mak sikker" (I'll make sure) before applying the coup de grace. Fleming then decapitated their victim and presented his head to Bruce with the words "Let the deed shaw". With his rival thus eliminated, Bruce was crowned as King Robert I of Scotland six weeks later.
Bruce's rewards
Soon afterwards King Robert rewarded Fleming's support by granting him the baronies of Cumbernauld and Lenzie that had hitherto been held by the Comyn family for 150 years. The barony’s estates thus became the primary seat of the Fleming clan over the next 450 years and “Let the deed shaw” became the clan’s motto.
The king also granted arms to Robert Fleming - gules, a chevron within a double tressure flory counter-flory argent. This means a silver chevron within a silver royal tressure on a red background (see image). Silver (argent) symbolises the chivalrous virtues of cleanliness, wisdom, innocence, sincerity, peace and joy while red (gules) represents eagerness to serve one's country. These arms symbolised Fleming's personal loyalty to the King as they are essentially the inverse of his arms as Earl of Carrick – argent, a chevron gules.
King Robert may have also had a hand in arranging Robert Fleming's marriage to Marjory of Biggar. Her father (or uncle), Hugh of Biggar, was Fleming's contemporary and also a Bruce supporter. When Hugh died childless, the Biggar estates were inherited by Marjory, Fleming's wife. This estate had originally been granted to Baldwin le Fleming of Biggar two centuries earlier. While Baldwin was an ancestor of subsequent Fleming clan chiefs and his erstwhile estate at Biggar was later inherited by them, he was not (despite the conclusions of some historians), an ancestor of Robert Fleming himself.
Origins
Robert Fleming's origins are obscure. He must have had an aristocratic background to have been so well-placed among Robert Bruce's supporters, so it seems unlikely that his father was landless. It is more plausible that Robert was a younger son in an aristocratic family.
He was probably in his thirties or forties in 1306, implying a birth around 1260-1270. Early historians assumed that he had descended from Baldwin of Biggar (based on the Fleming clan's ownership of the Biggar estate) but this has since been questioned.
More recently some historians have advanced an hypothesis that Robert descended from Robert, Lord of Wardhouse (Werdors) in Aberdeenshire. It is certainly possible that a younger son from that family was retained as a knight by the Bruce family in support of their cause during the First War of Scottish Independence.
Family life
Robert made good use of his close connection with the king to not only secure a good marriage for himself but also for his children. His eldest son and heir Malcolm married Marjory, the king's nurse, while his second son Patrick married Joan Fraser (heiress to Olivercastle in Peebleshire).
By the time Robert died before 1314 he had built very solid foundations that his son Malcolm then used to secure a powerful position in Scottish affairs for the Fleming clan.