Elizabeth Mure & Robert (II) Stewart

Rowallan Castle stands upon the banks of Carmel Water, about three miles north of Kilmarnock and was the ancestral home of the  Mure family. The oldest part of the building is a vaulted lower apartment, which probably dates from the thirteenth century, and is said to have been the birthplace of Elizabeth Mure, the first wife of Robert II of Scotland, and mother to the Duke of Albany, and the Earls of Carrick, Fife and Buchan. From  'The History of the House of Rowallan', by Sir William Mure (1547-1616), it appears that in the time of Alexander III (ascended 1245), the barony belonged to Sir Walter Cumin (Comyn or Cuming), whose only daughter and heiress, Isobel was bestowed by the king upon Sir Gilchrist Mure as a reward for his valour at the battle of Largs in 1263. ):  "Gilcreist Moore, for the reward of his puisiant service to King Alexander att the battell of the Larges against the Danes 1263, who was descended of the house of Omore in Ireland, obtained for the reward of his service theire, the daughter of Sir Walter Cumeine (Comyn), the late laird of Rowallane. He woure in his armes a bloody heid. He builded the Old Tower, and putt his armes thereon, which are yet extant."

Nowadays the Coat of Arms carried by this family is a horizontal blue stripe (or bar), bearing three white, gold or silver stars, going across the middle of a white or silver shield (field). 

Originally though they carried Arms showing a Moors Head, this is probably where the Muir family got their name. Their name seems originally to have been Omore. It is thought that the Muirs carried this device as a reminder of some act during an early crusade to the holy land. The arms of the Comyn family (three sheafs of wheat) are also carved into the castle stonework. 

Robert II (1371-1390) was a grandson of  Robert the Bruce, being the son of Bruce's eldest daughter Marjorie and her husband Walter Stewart. He had been the main power in Scotland as a young man while King David II, was being held as a prisoner in England. He became King of Scotland at the age of 55 after David II died childless (1371) and became the first of the  Stewart Monarchs. He lived with his wife Elizabeth Mure, for the most part, at his favourite home of Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire where he died age 74. Robert and Elizabeth's line would eventually gain the crown of England.