Already on his wife's death in 1292 he had resigned the earldom of Carrick to his son, the future king, who presented the deed of resignation to Baliol at Stirling in August 1293, and offered the homage which his father, like his grandfather, was unwilling to render.
Yet, when Edward was forced by home affairs to quit Scotland, Annandale and certain earldoms, including Carrick, were excepted from the districts he assigned to his followers, Bruce and other earls being treated as waverers whose allegiance might still be retained.
About 1299 a regency was appointed in Scotland in the name of Baliol, and a letter of Baliol mentions Robert Bruce, lord of Carrick, as regent, along with William of Lamberton, bishop of St Andrews, and John Comyn the younger, a strange combination - Lamberton the friend of Wallace, Comyn the enemy of Bruce, and Bruce a regent in name of Baliol.
At this assembly were Bruce, earl of Annandale; Robert de B rus, earl of Carrick (later king), his son; Comyn, earl of Buchan; John Baliol; and James the Steward of Scotland, of the house of FitzAlan.
He was driven to an isle off the Irish coast; he thence joined Douglas in Arran, and by a sudden camisade he butchered the English cantoned under his own castle of Turnberry in Carrick.