Teba, the heart of Braveheart
In real life, the story told in the film "Braveheart" has a surprising ending in Teba (Málaga). You perhaps did not you know that the heart of the Scottish king Robert I, Robert the Bruce, was in this town? When he died, he ordered that his heart should be buried in the Holy Land, but, during the journey, when his faithful warriors crossed the peninsula, they came face to face with a battle between Christians and Muslims, precisely in this beautiful part of the province of Málaga. During the ensuing battle, they almost lost the heart they were carrying. An exhibition in the Castle in the town tells the story of this journey.
Robert I Bruce, King of Scotland renowned for achieving independence from the English in the fourteenth century, was known as the famous "Braveheart" in real life. Although the in the film with Mel Gibson the name was given to another character, the soldier William Wallace.
On his deathbed, the king asked his most faithful followers to extract his heart from his chest and bury it in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem. The knight Sir James Douglas led the expedition and carried the embalmed heart of the monarch and in a silver casket hung around his neck.
In Spain, the armies of Castile had their sights set on the Moorish town of Theba, which was well protected by what is now the Castillo de la Estrella: "standing right on top of a high, steep hill, strongly fortified and overlooking a flat landscape and the river", in the words of a young Scottish squire. The then monarch, Alfonso XI, convinced the Scots that the Holy War was also being waged in Spain, so they had a moral obligation to join him and help conquer the town before continuing on their way to Jerusalem.
During the battle, Sir James Douglas watched as the enemy withdrew, so he decided to pursue them without realising that this was a Nasrid military strategy whose objective was to surround them in ambush. Douglas died on 25 August 1330, but according to the myth, before dying he exclaimed: "Go on, brave heart, wherever you go you must win, and Douglas will follow you or die".
This is how the king's heart touched the ground in the Holy War, although it was far from Jerusalem. After the defeat at Teba, the party returned with the chest to Scotland and the heart was buried in Melrose Abbey.
Sir James Douglas is one of the pillars of the history of Teba and Castillo de la Estrella, and this is how it is told in the Visitor Centre in the town. The towns of Teba and Melrose are currently twinned, since 1987 there has been a monolith in memory of Douglas in the town and every year, in August, they celebrate 'Douglas Days', magnificently in "Scottish style".
