It has always been presumed that the duel was fought under the walls of Antwerp; but the combatants disembarked at Bergen-op-Zoom, and fought near that town, and not Antwerp. The circumstances are still well remembered at Bergen, while at Antwerp there is not a trace of them. A small piece of land, a mile and a half from the Antwerp gate of Bergen, goes by the name of Bruce-land; it is recorded as the spot where Bruce fell; and, according to tradition, was purchased by the parties to fight upon. The spot is unclaimed at the present day, and marked by a little earthen boundary, which separates it from the surrounding corn-fields. It was considered, until the French revolution, as free ground, where any person might take refuge without being liable to arrest. Lord Bruce was buried at Bergen, and a monument is stated to have been erected to his memory within the great Protestant church, which was nearly destroyed in the siege of 1747.
Appearance of the Heart of Lord Edward Bruce.
In consequence of a tradition, that the heart of lord Edward Bruce had been sent from Holland, and interred in the vault or burying-ground adjoining the old abbey church of Culross, in Perthshire, sir Robert Preston directed a search in that place in 1808, with the following result.—Two flat stones, without inscription, about four feet in length and two in breadth, were discovered about two feet below the level of the pavement, and partly under an old projection in the wall of the old building. These stones were strongly clasped together with iron; and when separated, a silver case, or box, of foreign workmanship, shaped like a heart, was found in a hollow or excavated place between them. Its lid was engraved with the arms and name “Lord Edward Bruse;” it had hinges and clasps; and when opened, was found to contain a heart, carefully embalmed, in a brownish coloured liquid. After drawings were taken of it, as represented in the [present] [engravings], it was carefully replaced in its former situation. There was a small leaden box between the stones in another excavation; the contents of which, whatever they were originally, appeared reduced to dust.
Some time after this discovery, sir Robert Preston caused a delineation of the silver case, according to the exact dimensions, with an inscription recording its exhumation and re-deposit, to be engraved on a brass plate, and placed upon the projection of the wall where the heart was found.[320]
It is a remarkable fact, that the cause of the quarrel between lord Bruce and sir Edward Sackvile has remained wholly undetected, notwithstanding successive investigations at different periods. The last was conducted by the late lord Leicester, and several gentlemen, whose habits and love of investigation are equally well known, but they were unable to discover the slightest clue to the object of their anxious and diligent inquiry. Lord Clarendon, in his “History of the Rebellion,” records the combat as an occurrence of magnitude, from its sanguinary character and the eminence of the parties engaged in it. He does not say any thing respecting the occasion of the feud, although lord Bruce’s challenge seems to intimate that it was matter of public notoriety.
[319] Collins’s Peerage.
[320] Archæologia, xx. 515.