Chapter 11
In This Chapter
● Dealing with difficult neighbours in England and the Western Isles
● Enjoying a heyday under Alexander III
● Diminishing Scottish power
In the 13th and 14th centuries, Scottish monarchs had to grapple with a host of problems - disloyal nobles, clashes with England and Norway, and money troubles, to name just three. Scotland’s rulers varied in their ability to keep all the balls in the air, but the period produced two kings who have gone down in history as Scottish heroes: Alexander III, who presided over a period of prosperity, and Robert I, who was one of Scotland’s most famous war leaders.
Attaching the Neighbours
For much of the 13th century, Scotland was ruled by two kings, Alexander II and Alexander III, who were preoccupied with relations with their neighbours - both the English and the people of the Western Isles who were still under the overall authority of the king of Norway. After many diplomatic wrangles and a fair bit of fighting, Scotland enjoyed a boom period under Alexander III. Its king gained power over the Hebrides, making the country bigger than it had ever been, and trade increased, bringing wealth at least to the upper classes. But all of these changes took time.
Qualified success - Alexander II
Alexander II (1214-49) was the son of the previous king, William, and was 16 years old when he came to the throne. Because his father had been ill the last couple of years of his reign, the young prince had been well schooled in kingly work - no doubt helped by his mother, Queen Ermengarde, who had helped her husband rule in his declining years and remained a major influence when her son came to the throne.
Scotland Versus England
But it was events in England that were to have the most pressing effect on Alexander’s first few years as king. Down in the south, the English king, John, was facing demands from his barons to limit royal power and impose basic rights to justice. These demands were formalised in 1215 as the famous document known as Magna Carta (the Great Charter), which John signed in 1215.
Magna Carta, an agreement between King John and his nobles, was mainly concerned with the English king’s relations with his barons. Some of the barons were related to Alexander, and the charter also contained important material concerning Scotland - it promised that several issues to do with Alexander’s rights would be resolved, including the return of some Scottish hostages held by John and the settlement of various disputes between the two royal houses.
The concessions in Magna Carta helped Alexander - but he was helped even more by John’s weakness as a king. While John was busy in disputes with his barons, Alexander took the chance to march south and move into Northumberland. He received the homage of the barons there and took Carlisle, making the town’s castle into his headquarters in northern England. It was a triumph, and when John died in late 1216, Alexander’s position seemed even stronger (for more about King John and Magna Carta, see Chapter 7).
But the new English king, Henry III, didn’t like the way Alexander had flexed his muscles. In a series of political moves, Henry clawed back his power in the north of England. The final straw came when the Pope took Henry’s side and sent a papal representative from Rome to excommunicate Alexander, cutting him off from the church. The Scotsman knew it was time to concede and do homage to Henry for his lands south of the border.
In fact, though, the trouble between Scotland and England rumbled on through Alexander’s reign. Things still weren’t resolved when Alexander agreed in 1217 to give up his large claims to northern England in return for a smaller parcel of land in Cumberland and Northumberland. The tensions between England and Scotland would simmer away for centuries.
Coronation blues
While trying to sort out relations with England, Alexander was also trying to improve his standing at home. Like many Scottish kings, he was resentful that, while English kings got crowned and anointed by a priest, Scottish kings were merely inaugurated in a nonreligious ceremony. This difference was important because the process of anointing put the powerful church on your side and even, it was argued, gave the king a sacred status, as if approved by God himself.
Alexander wanted this kind of coronation and anointing ritual to take place in Scotland. He asked the Pope in 1221 and again in 1233, but the Pope was having none of it. The privilege of anointing was not something the church was going to hand out on a plate.
The king at home
Alexander had several women in his life, and they had varying influences on his kingship and behaviour. Historians don’t know that much about the king’s personal life, but several influential women stand out:
● Ermengarde: Alexander’s mother seems to have been a huge influence, giving the king the benefit of her years of experience beside his father, William I.
● Joanna: Alexander’s first queen was the sister of Henry III of England, and their marriage in 1221 promoted better relations between their two countries. Little is known about Joanna’s character, and her power seems to have been slight compared with that of the dowager queen Ermengarde. Joanna died in 1238, leaving the king without a male heir.
● Marie de Courcy: After Joanna’s death, Alexander swiftly married Marie, daughter of a French nobleman. She gave him a son, Alexander, that he so desperately wanted.
As well as his two wives, Alexander probably had a number of mistresses. In particular, he seems not to have cared much for Joanna. The queen died on a pilgrimage trip to England, and Alexander didn’t even bother to have her remains brought back to Scotland for burial.
Mixed-up monarch?
It’s tough to know what to make of Alexander. He played for high stakes against England but had to be content in the end with fairly meagre gains. He was unsuccessful in his attempts to increase the status of the Scottish monarchy by getting himself anointed. But he did have some good points:
He was a generous patron of the church, founding several monasteries.
He was the first to invite the friars, members of a new dynamic monastic movement, to Scotland.
He controlled his noblemen carefully, rewarding good service.
Alexander also seemed on the verge of another triumph when he died. In 1249, he led his fleet to the Hebrides and seemed likely to impose his rule there. But he died suddenly before making the decisive move. People said that the Celtic saint, Columba, had protected the islands from his aggression. More importantly, he left behind an 8-year-old heir and all the uncertainty that came when a child had to take over the throne.
Golden age - Alexander III
Coming to the throne as a boy, the new king, Alexander III (1249-86), enjoyed a long reign. In his 37 years on the Scottish throne, he achieved a lot and presided over something of a boom time for Scotland. But his rule began with uncertainty because of a dispute between his barons and officials about who should control the kingdom during his minority (see the next section).
Once he began to rule in his own right, though, things got better for Scotland, with increased prosperity for the country and more power for the monarch. Alexander also gained a reputation as a bon viveur. He was said to have made illicit night-time visits to nunneries for very unholy liaisons with some of the nuns. And when he died, he left a big unpaid bill for claret. He seems to have worked hard and played hard.
Power politicians
Two factions tried to get control over young Alexander when he became king. One was led by Alan Durward, who had already become very powerful as Scotland’s Justiciar under Alexander II. He was also married to the king’s illegitimate sister, Margaret. The other contender for power was powerful baron Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith. The years 1249 to 1260 saw a ding-dong battle between the two:
Durward began in power, appointing key officers of state and winning a dispute over what form the king’s inauguration should take.
In 1251, Alexander, probably acting under the thumb of English king Henry III, sacked all his officials, and Monteith stepped into Durward’s shoes.
Durward staged a coup in 1255, grabbing control of the king and government again.
In 1257, Monteith led a counter-coup, kidnapping the king.
None of this turmoil did any good for Scotland’s stability or government, and in 1260, the king, now age 19, took over power himself.
Norse force - trouble in the Isles
Once he was securely in command, Alexander turned his attention to an area - the Hebrides - where he thought he could increase his power and secure the borders of his kingdom. Although the Hebrides was still officially under the rule of Norway, Scotland had more and more influence there.
Alexander began by sending ambassadors to Norway to bargain with the Norwegian king, Hakon IV. But Hakon was having none of Alexander’s overtures and responded by sending a fleet to attack Scotland. So in 1263, Alexander found his western coasts under threat from a Norse army. It was as if the old Viking aggressors of the ninth century had returned.
Alexander was lucky, though. Storms wrecked a large part of the Norwegian fleet, and when the two sides clashed at the Battle of Largs, the result was inconclusive. The Norwegians withdrew to Orkney for the winter, where Hakon died. Norway’s new king, Magnus, had his work cut out establishing his power at home and had little stomach for a fight, so Alexander was off the hook.
In 1264 and 1265, the Scottish king moved through the western isles and the Isle of Man imposing his power and receiving the submission of the local lords. And in 1266, Alexander’s rule of the area was made official - the Treaty of Perth signed lordship of the isles over to Alexander. Scotland was now bigger and more powerful than ever.
Boom time - success in Scotland
Scotland was prosperous during Alexander’s reign, and this prosperity benefited the country in a number of ways:
● Ports such as Berwick developed, enabling produce from Scotland to be sold on the European mainland.
● Cash flowed into the country as a result of sales of goods, such as wool and hides.
● Many monasteries and cathedrals were rebuilt or extended.
● Many nobles built large castles, partly for protection, partly to show off their great wealth.
Historians disagree about how much of this prosperity was due to Alexander himself. Those who are pro-Alexander point to the fact that much of his reign was peaceful and stable. Once he began to rule in his own right, the king was able to get the barons working well for him. And his military success in the isles, together with diplomatic success in England, made Scotland stronger. But the other view is that much of Alexander’s success came about through good luck - even his triumph over Norway in the Hebrides was mainly due to the weather. So the best answer to the question is that Alexander helped the situation, but that he was also lucky.
Alexander probably didn’t feel very lucky, though. His reign was clouded by a number of personal misfortunes that must have left him sad and frustrated. The first tragedy came in 1275, when his queen, Margaret, died. She was only 34 years old, and the king was said to have been close to her. Sadder still, all the children of the marriage died young - their daughter Margaret aged 20 in 1281, their son David aged 8 the same year, and their son Alexander, aged 20, in 1284.
This family history was not only sorry, but it left the king without a close descendant to whom to pass the throne. Shortly before his death in 1286, he remarried. But this second marriage, to the French noblewoman Yolande of Dreux, did not produce any children.
Alexander himself died in tragic circumstances. In March 1286, after a long meeting with his nobles in Edinburgh, the king decided to ride home to Yolande, who was at Kinghorn in Fife. A storm blew up, and Alexander got separated from his companions and rode on alone. The next day, he was found dead on the shore about a mile from the manor where Yolande was waiting for him. People originally thought he had ridden over a cliff in the darkness, but it seems his horse probably threw him, and he broke his neck when he landed. Either way, it was a tragic end.
All at Sea - Queen Margaret and John I
In the aftermath of Alexander III’s successful reign came a disastrous period for Scotland under the rule of Margaret (1286-90) and John Balliol (1292-96). Margaret’s reign was problematic because she was an infant who never even saw Scotland. John Balliol was a weak king who succumbed to a powerful English opponent.
The lady of Scotland
Because all of Alexander III’s children predeceased him, he named as his heir his granddaughter Margaret. In naming her as the next queen, he referred to Margaret as the ‘illustrious girl’, but, illustrious or not, she was only 3-years-old when Alexander died. So two earls, two barons, and two bishops were chosen to form a council of Guardians to look after Scotland on her behalf.
Much rivalry developed between the Scots nobles - and the English king Edward I - to try to get control over Margaret and, through her, dominate Scotland. In 1290, an agreement was reached that she would eventually marry Edward I’s son (later to become King Edward II), uniting the two kingdoms. The little princess had spent her life in her father’s home, Norway, so Edward I sent a fleet of ships to bring her to England. But the Norwegians had other ideas and sent her instead to Orkney (still Norwegian soil at this period). Here, she died of an illness aged only seven. Never crowned queen, poor Margaret was generally known simply as ‘the lady of Scotland’.
John Balliol
With Margaret dead, a dispute raged in Scotland about who was the rightful ruler. John Balliol, an Anglo-Scottish lord related to William I of Scotland, had a strong claim. So did Robert Bruce of Annandale, who also traced his lineage back to William. A long legal enquiry in 1291-2 eventually came down on the side of John, who ruled from 1292 to 1296.
John was not bad at domestic government. He could appoint sheriffs, dispense justice, and hold parliaments quite effectively. And he made a promising start in foreign policy, by making an alliance with France. But he could not stand up to the repeated poundings being given to Scotland by the English king Edward I. When Edward attacked Berwick in 1296, John didn’t even show up to lead his army. Instead, he became the victim of a series of humiliations:
● He fled to the northeast.
● He then gave himself up to Edward.
● The Englishman had him stripped of his royal robes and made him renounce the alliance he’d made with the French.
● He was forced to give up the title of king and ended up in prison in London.
Kicked off the throne, John Balliol was eventually released from prison and sent into exile in northern France. The Scottish throne was left to the English, and later to John’s rival, Robert I.
Robert I
Robert I (1306-29), sometimes known by his family name as Robert I Bruce or Robert Bruce, was a very different character from his predecessor, John I. He was resourceful, determined, and a good image-builder. He had to fight a diehard struggle against the English to recover Scotland’s independence, sometimes using tactics that were new or at least unusual in medieval warfare. Against the odds, he succeeded and established a new dynasty on the Scottish throne.
Know your enemy. It could have been the motto of Robert Bruce. As a young man, he lived in England and, on and off, served the aggressive English king Edward I in his attempts to conquer Scotland. But his heart was not with the English cause, and after a few years, he was quietly canvassing support for a revival of the independent Scottish monarchy.
By 1306, when Robert was 31, his plans were coming to fruition. But they went badly wrong when Robert met up with prominent Scottish noble John Comyn, probably to discuss his bid for the throne. At some point, perhaps because Robert thought Comyn had told the English about his ambitions, the two men came to blows. Robert struck Comyn with his sword and - after further fighting between Comyn’s and Bruce’s men - Comyn lay dead. Robert now knew he had to go all out for the kingship; Edward would be down on him like a ton of bricks for the murder of Comyn, whether or not he went for the throne.
Fighting for the throne
Robert was so anxious to stay on the Scottish throne that he had two inauguration ceremonies - the second perhaps gave him extra legitimacy because one of the key participants, the representative of the Earl of Fife, hadn’t turned up for the first one. But just as important as the ceremonies was the fighting Robert had to do to hang on to the kingship. Robert’s struggle involved:
● An English fight-back in which many of Robert’s followers were captured and killed, and Edward locked up Robert’s sister and the Countess of Buchan in iron cages.
● The execution of his brothers Thomas and Alexander by the English.
● A guerrilla war campaign against the English.
● A scorched-earth campaign in which Robert demolished enemy castles.
● The capture of a string of Scottish castles.
By 1314, Robert had a large body of support in Scotland, which he nurtured with generous gifts of land. But the English still had huge forces and sent an army of some 16,000 to retake the vast fortress of Stirling Castle. Robert met this force at Bannockburn and, by cutting off part of the English host, was able to take on his enemy and send them running away or drowning in the mud that stretched from the castle to the nearby Forth estuary. Robert’s occupation of the Scottish throne was confirmed.
The decisive victory at Bannockburn enabled Robert to rescue his womenfolk from their iron cages and to boot out his Scottish opponents from their lands. He also carried on fighting the English - probably partly for revenge, partly to stop any thoughts they may have had of returning to attack Scotland. Robert made a series of ruthless raids in northern England and went all-out for an invasion of Ireland, which the English were then ruling from Dublin. The Irish campaign was a mistake. It gained Robert nothing because although he scored some victories, he didn’t oust the English. And, worse still for the Bruce family, Robert’s brother, Edward, was killed in the fighting.
The continued scraps between Scots and English after Bannockburn frustrated Robert and his allies. A victory on that scale ought to have been decisive. In 1320, many nobles and bishops from Scotland came together at a big meeting in Arbroath to discuss how to secure Scotland’s future. They decided to write to the Pope, John XXII, demanding that he acknowledge the independence of their country. The document they sent, now called the Declaration of Arbroath, became a key statement of the Scots’ view of their independence.
The Declaration said that as long as a hundred of the signatories were alive, they would not consent to rule from England, ‘for it is not for glory we fight . . . but for freedom alone’.
Murmurs against the king
So was Robert safe on the throne? Not entirely, because some people in Scotland still supported other candidates. Robert was well aware of this support, and a law passed in the Scottish parliament that banned murmuring against the king seemed designed to help him nip such opponents in the bud. One plot, the Soule conspiracy, came to light in 1320. A group of Balliol supporters were discovered planning to remove Robert and were promptly punished. A number were executed.
Opposition from England was another danger. After an uneasy truce between the two countries, Robert agreed a treaty in 1328. The English agreed to recognise Robert as king, and plans were put in place for his young son David to marry Joan, the sister of the English king Edward III.
Robert achieved a great deal in his struggle to strengthen Scotland against its enemies both north and south of the border with England. But was he the great hero that many Scottish writers later claimed? He was certainly a formidable fighter, and this quality was what the later medieval Scottish writers so admired. But his lavish grants of land to supporters left the monarchy poorer than it had been for a long time. The Scottish superhero wasn’t perfect.
William Wallace
William Wallace was a key leader in the Scottish struggle against English rule. Although of Welsh ancestry, this Scotsman had a reputation as one of the greatest Scottish patriots, and he certainly risked his life for his country. He led an uprising in 1297, when he defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. But his triumph was short-lived, and the English defeated him at Falkirk the following year.
After this disappointment, Wallace first fled to France to get more support for Scottish independence and then led a guerrilla campaign against the English. He carried on the struggle until 1305, when supporters of the English finally caught up with him, carted him off to London, and finished him off by hanging, drawing, and quartering him. The four quarters of his body were sent to four different towns - Berwick, Newcastle, Stirling, and Perth - as gruesome reminders of what happens to those who rebelled against the English.
Dark and Drublie Days
After the triumphant reign of Robert I, the Scottish monarchy suffered a period of difficulty and decline under Robert’s son, David II. David came to the throne as an infant, and the nobles who ruled on his behalf had to deal with a challenge to the throne from the rival Balliol family, who had been kicked out of Scotland at the end of the 13th century. The resulting period of power struggles and uncertainty was called by one contemporary Scotland’s dark and drublie days.
David comes and goes
David II became king on the death of his father, Robert Bruce. The reference books will tell you that David ruled from 1329 to 1371, but in fact, this reign was interrupted by a long period of exile in France and a still longer spell as an English prisoner in the Tower of London. David had some strong personal qualities as a king - authority and political astuteness, for example - but tough circumstances often prevented him from exercising them.
As a child, David was brought up in the households of some of the loyal nobles of his father, Robert I. It was common in medieval royal households for children to be brought up away from the family home, and some even had noble foster parents, as David may have done. Certainly, when David’s mother died in 1327, he spent time with a number of Scottish noble families. But he’s also likely to have been brought to court for special occasions and ceremonies, to begin the process of preparing him for the time when he would rule in his own right.
In 1328, the year before his father died and he became king, David was married. The prince was only 4 years old at the time and his bride, Joan, sister of Edward III of England, was just 3 years older than him. This event was a dynastic marriage, to cement a peace agreement between the old rivals and neighbours, England and Scotland.
On and off the throne
David was just 5 years old when, in 1329, he became king. The occasion was a triumph because his father persuaded the Pope to allow his heir to be crowned and anointed. So, for the first time, a Scottish king was crowned in a religious ceremony. David was made king with the backing of the church, an important boost for the young monarch.
David had a powerful Guardian in Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, but even he could not prevent the opposition to the young king that gathered around the enemies of the Bruce family. Most important of these enemies was Edward Balliol, son of King John I, who had reigned before Robert I.
Edward Balliol
Edward Balliol was in exile on his family estate in Picardy when David II was crowned. But with an infant on the Scottish throne, he saw the chance to invade, believing that enough nobles in Scotland would support a mature man. And so it proved.
Balliol arrived with an army in 1332, defeated the forces that formed on behalf of David, and was crowned. The English king Edward III supported Edward Balliol's claim on the Scottish throne, in spite of the fact that David was married to Edward's sister, and Balliol soon found that he needed English support to keep him there. The English ruler capitalised on this need, forcing Balliol to hand over the southern bits of Scotland in return for backing.
In the beginning, Balliol was successful, winning lands and noble supporters in Scotland and forcing young King David into exile in Normandy in 1334. But English backing was a two-edged sword. After 1337, the English were more and more occupied with wars in France, and supporting Balliol became a low priority. With the English gone, the supporters of David attacked Balliol and forced him southwards until his power base disappeared. By 1341, the time was ripe for David to return to Scotland.
After about seven years in exile while the usurper Edward Balliol rampaged across Scotland and then withdrew, David returned in 1341 as a 17 year old ready to grab the reins of power. To begin with, things went well, as by stages the young king built up his authority:
● David went on a journey around his kingdom, encouraging nobles to support him - and finding out which families had the power to oppose him.
● Over several years, he gathered support, especially among knights and officials.
● As he had no son as yet, he put forward his nephew John as heir to the throne.
● In 1346, he launched an ambitious invasion of England.
But the invasion was a disaster. David was wounded in the head, and most of his key supporters were captured or killed. The king himself was taken prisoner and ended up in the Tower of London.
David in prison
With David out of the way, Edward Balliol reappeared, eager to take over the throne once again. But Balliol found that he still couldn’t rely on the allimportant support of the English. Although the English were the enemies of David, they were no friends of Balliol either. And an imprisoned Scottish king had enormous value to the English - so long as he was a king.
The next few years saw a series of attempts at reaching a deal between David and Edward of England to give Edward something valuable in return for David’s freedom. The talks and proposals dragged on for around ten years.
For much of this time, Scotland was under the leadership of Robert Stewart, known in this period as Robert the Steward, a west coast noble who had inherited his title of High Steward of Scotland. The post of High Steward was for the most part an honorary one, but Robert was an astute politician who knew how to wield power. Eventually, his family was to become one of the most important royal dynasties in Scottish - and indeed English - history.
But that was all in the future. (For the low-down on Robert and the other Stewarts, see Chapter 12.)
After the protracted negotiations for David’s release, during which the king was even allowed out of prison on parole on one occasion to try to persuade the Scots parliament to agree to a deal, the king was finally released in 1357. Scotland agreed to pay a huge ransom to the English, the two countries pledged not to fight, and Edward Balliol was paid a handsome pension and allowed to live quiety out of the way in Yorkshire.
David on the throne
At last David was safely on the throne. He quickly developed a style of rule that owed a lot to his time in England, where he had actually become quite friendly with the man who had kept him prisoner, Edward III. From Edward, he acquired a love of chivalry and jousting, together with an interest in the crusading ideal. He had also discovered that his power depended on his nobles, whom he came to respect, but also, as he grew older, to dominate, too.
But David did have problems with nobles, and the biggest trouble came in the shape of none other than Robert the Steward. Robert thought that David’s rule was unfair. The king grabbed taxes to pay the hefty ransom that Edward III had demanded. And, more important still, David, who was still without a son, was manoeuvring to make an English prince his heir, thus ruling the Stewart family out of contention.
So in the early 1360s, Robert the Steward and some of his Scottish noble allies, including the Earls of Douglas and March, launched a rebellion. David moved quickly, on both military and political levels. He gathered an army to crush the rebels and at the same time paid large sums to his allies to make sure that they stayed on his side.
What could have been a disaster for David was averted, and the king continued to rule, levying large taxes to increase royal revenue to its highest ever level, keeping his nobles firmly under his thumb, and attracting able civil servants and courtiers. By the end of his life, the Scottish monarchy was enjoying slightly more prestige than at the start of his reign. But Scotland was still full of rival factions, and the king had to watch his back continuously.
Wife trouble, heir trouble
On a personal level, though, David’s life was dogged by difficulties, because he lacked what every medieval king wanted most of all - a direct male heir. Poor David tried several partners in his attempts to have children:
● Joan, daughter of Edward II of England and sister of Edward III: David married her in 1328 and the queen died in 1362; the couple had no children.
● Katherine Mortimer: The daughter of a Scottish knight, she became Edward’s mistress in the 1350s, but was murdered in 1360 by a member of the Stewart family. The liaison produced no offspring.
● Margaret Logie: Margaret, a member of a Perthshire family, became David’s mistress after the death of Katherine; the couple married in 1363, but again there were no children, and David divorced her in 1370.
● Agnes Dunbar: Agnes was the sister of two of David’s key allies. The king was planning to marry her when he died in early 1371.
David seems not to have produced any offspring with any of his partners, one of whom, Margaret, had had a son by a previous husband. In spite of trying, it seems likely that David simply wasn’t able to have children.
Because he couldn’t produce a direct heir, David’s legacy was always in doubt, because rivals could always pop up and allege they had a better claim to the throne than anyone David chose to follow him. And as he passed his mid-40s, David was a sick man. His illness, probably caused by his old war wounds, finally took him in 1371, when he was still only 47. One man had spent much of his life in and around the Scottish royal court, influencing events and watching the political manoeuvres, and that man was ready to take control. He was none other than the High Steward, Robert Stewart (for more about him, see Chapter 12).