Chapter III: Narrative――Introduction of Feudalism

RESUMING the narrative, on the death of Edgar in 1107, his brother Alexander succeeded to the throne, while his younger brother, David, claimed the districts on the south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde. This arrangement had been suggested by Edgar before his death, but Alexander at first objected to it; after some time, however, he agreed that his brother should rule these southern districts under the title of Earl David. Shortly after his accession the King had to face a rising of the men of Moray, which he boldly met and suppressed.

In the first year of his reign, Alexander appointed Turgot to the See of St. Andrews: he was a monk of Durham, and had been confessor to Queen Margaret, the King’s mother. A serious difficulty arose, the Archbishop of York claimed a canonical right to perform the ceremony of consecration; but the Scotch clergy and the King maintained that he had no authority over St. Andrews. At last a compromise was effected, leaving the disputed point unsettled; and in 1109, Turgot was consecrated by the Archbishop of York. The new bishop did not find himself happy in the See of St. Andrews. Difficulties soon arose between him and the King; and at last the bishop threatened to go to Rome and settle all matters of dispute, but he died in 1115.¹

¹ Dr. Grub’s _Ecclesiastical History of Scotland_, Volume I.,
pages 206‒7.

The bishopric remained five years vacant, but in 1120 the King nominated Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, who was elected bishop by the Scotch clergy and the people. The point of consecration was revived, but this time the Archbishop of Canterbury claimed the right to perform the ceremony. There was for long a great rivalry between the Archbishops of York and Canterbury touching the limits of their respective canonical authority, and the point associated with the dignity of presidency. Eadmer himself thought that the rights of his mother church extended over all the British Islands. The King rejected this view, and declined to listen to it. The monk was as determined as the King, and at last he declared, “Not for all Scotland will I renounce being a monk of Canterbury.” He then handed back the ring to the King, laid the staff on the altar, and left St. Andrews and returned to his mother church. Shortly afterwards Eadmer showed much anxiety to return to the See of St. Andrews, and offered to yield to the King, but Alexander declined to receive him. About the end of the year 1123 Alexander appointed Robert, the prior of the monastery of Scone, to the See of St. Andrews, but the King died before he was consecrated. In 1128, the ceremony of consecration was performed by the Archbishop of York, and there was an express condition which reserved the rights of both Churches. A direct claim of feudal lordship over Scotland had not yet arisen, but it is obvious that if the dependence of the Scotch Church on the English Church could have been established, it would soon have affected the independence of the kingdom.¹

¹ _Chronicles_, pages 90, 91. Eadmer, though a strict monk,
was a scholar, and wrote a history of his own time in clear
Latin, and other works. He is supposed to have died at
Canterbury in 1124.

Alexander I. founded the monastery of Scone, and restored to the Church of St. Andrews the lands called the Boars Chase. He died in 1124, and was succeeded by his brother, David I., who, under the title of Earl, had been ruling the districts on the south of the Forth. The kingdom was again placed under one head, and the era of the introduction of Norman Feudalism then commenced.

A large part of Scotland as yet hung loosely on the central authority; the country beyond the Spey was nominally under the Scottish Crown, and Galloway was more like a tributary province than an incorporated part of the kingdom. David I. had perhaps come into contact with some of the associates of the Conqueror. In his youth he frequented the Court of the Conqueror’s sons in England, and he appears to have associated much with the Norman nobles. These nobles were always on the outlook for more land and power, and doubtless with an eye to business some day, they had made themselves very agreeable companions for the young Scottish prince. The Norman nobles became his special favourites; and when only Earl, he seems to have surrounded himself with a company of them, and began to grant them lands by charter. He had resolved to introduce Feudalism and a Norman Aristocracy, so far as it was in his power. But there can be no doubt that David I. misapprehended the real nature and inevitable tendency of Feudalism; as his chief object must have been to strengthen the Crown, which shows clearly that he had misunderstood it. Possibly David I. may have imagined that he was imitating the Conqueror on a small scale, but then he had not the practical knowledge and the experience of the system which the great Norman possessed. The Conqueror executed his work in such a way that Norman Feudalism was never permitted to run its natural course in England. So the great achievement of transplanting Norman Feudalism into Scotland fell to the inexperienced genius of David I., and two or three of his successors on the throne, where alone it developed and exhibited itself in all its features and perfections for a period of upwards of three centuries.

The local chiefs were naturally and rightly averse to the planting of Norman nobles among them; although these adventurers and fortune-hunters were favourites at the court of David I. It seems that some of these Norman nobles brought their families and their own retainers with them, and thus, with the support of the king, they dispossessed the real owners and the occupiers of the land of Scotland. In 1130 the people of Moray, under their local chiefs, Angus and Malcolm, rose against the king. They advanced to Stracathro, in Forfarshire, where the king’s forces met them, and a severe engagement ensued. Angus was slain and his followers were overthrown; but his brother Malcolm retreated and prolonged the contest for four years. David I. became greatly alarmed, and called upon the Norman nobles of Yorkshire and Northumberland to rally round his standard, and having thus mustered an army, in 1134 the king marched with his force to the disaffected North, and succeeded in overawing the local chiefs. The king then proclaimed the province of Moray forfeited to the Crown. He next parcelled out large portions of the best land of Moray among the Normans and adventurers who had followed his banner.¹

¹ _Saxon Chronicle_, Volume II., page 227; Robertson’s
_Scotland under her Early Kings_, Volume I., pages 189‒191.

In 1135 Henry I. of England died, the last of the Conqueror’s sons, and having left no male issue, he bequeathed his dominions to his daughter; but Stephen, a nephew of the late king, contested her right to the throne, and he proved successful. David I. naturally supported the claim of his niece, the queen, and led an army across the Border. Many of the northern castles of England opened their gates to him. When he had advanced nearly to Durham, Stephen approached with a large army to bar his progress. David then retired to Newcastle, and Stephen followed him. The two armies confronted each other for fourteen days, and finally a peace was concluded.¹

¹ _Saxon Chronicle_, Volume II., page 230.

But David I., besides his obligation to support the queen’s claim, had a strong desire to annex the northern counties of England, and some hope of succeeding to the throne of England himself. So early in 1138 he again led an army across the Tweed, and spent some time in attacking castles, and in ravishing the northern counties; but the approach of Stephen’s army caused David to concentrate his scattered forces and prepare for battle or retreat. After some fruitless movements and delay, David with his army advanced towards Durham; while the defenders of England, concentrated at Northallerton, planted their standard and prepared for battle. Before the battle began a most significant event occurred. Robert de Bruce and Bernard de Baliol appeared before David I., as emissaries from the English army; they had come to persuade David to retire at once with his army, and not offer battle to the Norman nobles, who were his greatest benefactors. Robert de Bruce held wide territories in Yorkshire, and David himself had granted to him the extensive and fine district of Annandale. De Bruce’s position was thus a deplorable one; he saw that he could not ride upon two horses at once when they were running in different directions, and accordingly he renounced his allegiance to David I. and returned to the English camp. This was the identical position of most of the great Norman nobles in Scotland from this date till the battle of Bannockburn. The strange thing is that David himself or his successors never seem to have realised its great political significance, and its consequent evil effect upon Scotland. Another dispute arose before the battle. David wanted his own small body of Normans and men-at-arms to lead the attack, but the Galloway men claimed the honour and the right to lead the van. A long wrangle ensued on the point, and Malise, the Scotch Earl of Strathern, said to the King: “Why trust you to these Normans? unprotected as I am, none shall be more forward in the fight.” David was forced to yield. The Galloway men advanced to the charge, and ♦rushed with such force on the enemy that the front ranks reeled and were driven back in confusion. But the English, supported by their bowmen, reformed, and the battle raged with great fury. Rank after rank of the Scots fell under the storm of arrows from the English bowmen, and at last the Scots were completely defeated. The battle was fought on the 22nd of August, 1138, and is known as the Battle of the Standard. The following year peace was concluded, on the conditions that King David’s son, Prince Henry, should receive the Earldom of Northumberland and his other fiefs in England, that the laws and local customs should remain intact, and the rights of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Durham.¹

♦ “rnshed” replaced with “rushed”

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 2‒6;
_Saxon Chronicle_, Volume II., pages 232, 233; _Chronicles
and Annals of the Priory of Hexham_, Volume I., pages 90‒93.

The remaining years of David’s reign were mainly devoted to the changes and the reforms which he introduced in connection with the land, the church, and the burghal communities, but these will be treated in another chapter.

David’s only son, Prince Henry, died on the 12th of June, 1152. By his wife, Ada Warenne, he left three sons and three daughters; two of his sons lived to ascend the throne of Scotland, and his third son, David, became Earl of Huntingdon.¹ The death of his only son cast a gloom over the hopes of David I. and the closing months of his reign; but to smooth the way for the succession of his grandson, Malcolm, a boy of eleven years of age, David placed him under the charge of Duncan Earl of Fife, who then proceeded with the young prince throughout the kingdom to obtain his recognition among the people as the heir to the throne. Thus having, as far as the circumstances admitted, secured the succession, David I. died on the 24th of May, 1153, after a reign of twenty-nine years.

¹ For future reference it may be noticed that this Earl David
married a sister of Randolph, Earl of Chester, and by her
he had three sons and four daughters. His eldest daughter,
Margaret, married Alan of Galloway, and it was through her
issue that John Baliol claimed the crown of Scotland. His
second daughter, Isabella, married Robert de Bruce; Ada, his
youngest daughter, married Henry de Hastings: we will find
the representatives of the issue of these daughters of Earl
David claiming the crown.

On the death of his grandfather the young prince was crowned at Scone, under the title of Malcolm IV. But before the end of the year his supporters had to meet a rising of the Celtic people led by the sons of Malcolm Mac Heth, and Somerled, the local ruler of Argyle. They attacked the kingdom at various points, and the war continued three years. In 1156 Donald, the eldest son of Malcolm Mac Heth, was captured at Whithern, in Galloway, by the King’s adherents, and was imprisoned in Roxburgh Castle along with his father, but Somerled continued the war; and from motives of policy the King came to terms with Malcolm Mac Heth, and liberated him from prison. In 1159 a peace was concluded between Somerled and Malcolm IV.,¹ but other dangers surrounded the King.

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV., pages 249, 250; _Chronicles of
Melrose_.

It appears that the King was unpopular, and a number of the nobles seem to have conspired to dethrone him, or to secure his person and then make their own terms. They surrounded the King in Perth in 1160, but their attempt failed; and Malcolm at once proceeded to act with vigour; he mustered an army, and the same year he thrice invaded Galloway to bring the inhabitants under subjection. He subdued the local chief, Fergus, who then retired into the monastery of Holyrood, where he died the following year. Thus Galloway was placed in feudal subjection to the crown; but the inhabitants for long after this stoutly maintained their own local customs and laws. About the year 1161 Malcolm invaded Moray, drove out a number of the inhabitants, and attempted to supplant them by the Norman nobles and their followers.¹

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV., pages 251, 252, 257.

In 1164 Somerled attempted to invade the heart of the kingdom. He mustered an army, and a fleet of one hundred and sixty vessels, and when landing his army on the coast of Renfrew he was attacked by the people of the district, completely defeated, and Somerled himself and his son were slain.¹

¹ _Ibid_; _Chronicles of Melrose_.

Malcolm IV. died on the 9th of December, 1165, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, and was succeeded by his brother, William the Lion. The Scotch kings still desired to annex the northern counties of England, and William was waiting for a favourable opportunity to make an attempt, and the difficulties of Henry II. seemed to afford what was wanted. In 1173 William led an army across the Border and wasted the north of England, without any result except a temporary truce. The following year the Scots again invaded England, and William the Lion while amusing himself, was taken a prisoner by a party of English cavalry. The capture of the King entailed a serious disaster upon Scotland. Henry II. at once demanded that William the Lion should acknowledge the King of England as the feudal Lord Superior over the kingdom of Scotland, and that he should render due homage to his lord like other vassals. All the Scotch nobles, the clergy, and all other vassals, were to be under allegiance to the English king, and acknowledge that they held ♦their lands from him, and many other feudal promises and oaths to the same effect. The binding articles to secure the observance of the treaty were that the castles of Berwick, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling, should be placed in the hands of Henry II. After the castles were delivered over to King Henry’s officers, William the Lion was liberated. This treaty continued in force for fifteen years, so far as it could be enforced. Henry II., to the day of his death, evinced the utmost determination to cling to its fulfilment. King William was continually summoned to attend as a vassal at the court of his English lord, and the Scotch nobles also were summoned to attend the court of their Lord Superior. Licence was granted by Henry II. to William for his expeditions into Galloway, and in every possible form it was attempted to be shown that the king and the kingdom were under the English crown.¹ In 1189 Richard I. ascended the throne of England, and one of his first acts was to annul all the concessions extorted by Henry II. from the captive William. The Scots paid ten thousand marks of silver to ♠Richard I., all the castles were given up to them, and the kingdom restored to its former independence.²

♦ “thir” replaced with “their”

¹ _Fœdera_, Record Ed., Volume I., pages 30, 31; Robertson’s
_Scotland Under Her Early Kings_, Volume I., pages 375, 376.

♠ “Rirchard” replaced with “Richard”

² _Fœdera_, Volume I., page 50.

While the King was in captivity the people of Galloway had risen against the new Norman settlers, and the king’s officers, and they were all driven out or slain. When William returned in 1175 he entered Galloway with an army and the local chief, Gilbert, submitted. This district was soon in revolt again, and outbursts of rebellion recurred in it at short intervals for several generations. There is no doubt that the real causes of the rebellions in this district was the intrusion of the Norman nobles and their followers.

In 1179 William invaded the remote district of Ross at the head of his Earls and Norman nobles, subdued some portions of it, and erected two castles to support his authority; but he was not permitted to retain possession even of his castles without a contest. From 1181 to 1188 the districts of Moray, Caithness, and other parts of the north were in revolt. This rising was led by Mac William, who claimed to be a lineal descendant of Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm Canmore, and he aspired to the throne of Scotland. It appears that there were a number of people in the centre of the kingdom hostile to the king; and this explains why Mac William was permitted to hold the districts beyond the Spey for six years, and to ravage parts of the kingdom which were under the king. The whole circumstances and position of the kingdom looked as if the play of Macbeth was to be reacted. King William and his adherents were greatly alarmed. In 1187 the king mustered all the feudal force of the kingdom which he could induce to rally round his banner, and marched to Inverness, with the intention of pursuing his enemy into the remote parts of the Highlands. Some of the king’s nobles had grave doubts about the fidelity of the royal army, and they advised William to remain at Inverness, and to entrust the immediate conduct of the war to those leaders on whom he could depend: but then some of the chief nobles positively refused to march against Mac William without the king; and matters looked dark and dismal. The king at Inverness was in the heart of a hostile country, with his own army in a state of insubordination; but one ray of hope remained, the king’s friends fixed their eyes on Roland of Galloway, when all other means of saving themselves from destruction had vanished. Roland then placed himself at the head of three thousand of his own followers, and proceeded in search of Mac William. After advancing for some time, Roland descried a body of the enemy encamped on the moor of Mamgarvie in the upper valley of Strathspey. The opposing armies were nearly equal in numbers on each side, and a severe engagement ensued. But Mac William was completely defeated, and slain on the moor. For a time peace was restored in the north, and King William’s crown preserved.¹

¹ _Chronicles of Melrose_; Robertson’s _Scotland_, Volume I.,
pages 385, 391‒393.

But again in 1196 the king was in the north suppressing a rebellion. The Earl of Caithness had married a daughter of Malcolm MacHeth; and although William the Lion had been making desperate efforts to subdue the northern regions, Earl Harold held the Earldom of Orkney under the King of Norway, and he possessed the Earldom of Caithness at the same time. Earl Harold invaded and seized the province of Moray, and it was against him that King William then waged war. The Earl was in the end defeated, and the royal power somewhat strengthened, but the region was not subdued. ♦In 1202, Harold, the Earl of Orkney, attacked the king’s adherents and drove them out of Caithness. William again sent an army to Caithness, which was unable to penetrate into the country; but Harold himself under a safe conduct met the King at Perth. Terms of peace were agreed to, by which the Earldom of Caithness was restored to Harold.¹ In 1211 a son of Mac William appeared in Ross and recommenced the tactics which his father had followed. The king sent an army to operate against him, and afterwards William himself marched towards the north. The Earls of Athole, Buchan, and Mar, at the head of four thousand men proceeded into the remote quarters of the Highlands in search of Mac William. The rebel’s fastness was upon an island, where his supplies and treasure were stored, and in it the royal army attacked him; but he made a desperate resistance, and the engagement was long and fiercely contested; and at last he retired and escaped to the mountains with a number of his followers. The main body of the royal army returned to the south, and the Earl of Fife was left in charge of Moray. Mac William soon reappeared, attacked one of the royal castles and burnt it to the ground. Shortly after he fell into the hands of Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and he was executed at the king’s manor in Kincardine.²

♦ “It” replaced with “In”

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV., pages 270, 271; _Chronicles of
Melrose_; _Orkneyinga Saga_.

² _Historians_, Volume IV.; _Chronicles of Melrose_.

During the latter years of the reign of King William, there was much disaffection among the people in the southern quarter of the kingdom as well as in the north. William’s transactions and arrangements with King John of England were detested by many of his own subjects; as all the advantages of the English fiefs (if they were such) belonged exclusively to the royal family. It was of no importance to the Scots that the brother of their King should possess the Earldom of Huntingdon, or that their King should be received with a show of ceremonies at the English court whenever he thought fit to absent himself from his own kingdom. The people looked with well-founded suspicion at the concessions which William had made to King John, in order to avoid the forfeiture of his English fiefs and privileges.¹

¹ _Fœdera_, Volume I., pages 103, 120; _Chronicle of Melrose_;
_Historians_ Volume IV.

Feudalism made considerable progress during William’s reign, and the difficulties of his position greatly increased toward the end of his sway. He died at Stirling on the 4th of December 1214, having reached the seventy-third year of his age, and reigned nearly fifty years. He was succeeded by his son, Alexander II., a youth of seventeen years, who was crowned at Scone on the day after his father’s death. It is recorded that the Bishop of St. Andrews and the Earls of Scotland, viz., Fife, Strathern, Athole, Angus, Monteith, Buchan, and Lothian took Alexander to Scone, and there raised him to the throne in honour and peace, with the approval of God and man, and with more grandeur and glory than anyone till then, while all wished him joy, and none gainsaid him. So King Alexander held his feast at Scone on that day and the two following days.¹

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV. This is the first detailed notice
of a coronation which occurs in our records.

About a year after Alexander II. ascended the throne, a son of the MacWilliam who had been slain in 1187, and Kenneth MacHeth, a grandson of Malcolm MacHeth, along with a son of one of the Irish local kings, invaded the province of Moray at the head of a large body of followers. But Ferquhard, Earl of Ross, mustered his adherents, attacked the insurgents, and soon completely defeated them, and captured and executed their leaders. He was knighted by the King as a reward for his prompt and effective action.¹

¹ _Chronicles of Melrose._

On the hope of regaining the northern counties of England, Alexander II. in 1215 joined the disaffected English barons, who were then struggling against King John. In October the King with an army crossed the border and invested the castle of Norham, but failed to take it. King John was extremely wroth, and marched toward the north at the head of a rather mingled host of mercenaries. Alexander retired in the direction of Edinburgh, and John vowed, “by God’s teeth that he would smoke him out of his covert.” In his march he burned Roxburgh, Dunbar, and Haddington. Alexander posted his army on the river Esk, and awaited the attack of the enemy; but John was unable to advance farther than Haddington, as his troops were perishing for want of food. They plundered the Abbey of Coldingham, then retreated by Berwick; and King John gave the signal for burning that town by firing with his own hands the house in which he had slept the preceding night.¹

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV., page 299; _Chronicle of Lanercost_,
pages 17, 18; Notes, page 373.

In the winter of 1216 the Scots again crossed the Tweed and took possession of Carlisle, and the castle after a long siege surrendered to them. King John died on the 19th of October 1216, and the following year peace was concluded. The line of the marches between England and Scotland had then become pretty well marked. In 1237 a more definite arrangement was come to, and from that date the efforts to extend the Scotch frontier southward ceased.

Alexander II. had now time to direct his attention to the internal state of the kingdom. It appears that he assembled an army at Inverness against Donald MacNeil in ♦1220. He mustered an army in May 1222, and advanced into Argyle with the intention of subduing and subjecting it to the authority of the Crown. There was no rising at the time in the district, and no resistance was offered to the progress of the royal army. The people were overawed; all those who were implicated in past rebellions fled for their lives, and their lands were given to the King’s own followers; some gave hostages for their future behaviour, and others gave sums of money to purchase the king’s peace. The expedition lasted from May to Christmas, and its result was that the south division of Argyle was placed more directly under the Crown and formed into a sheriffdom; but the lordship of Lorne remained in the possession of the Celtic chief, while a large part of North Argyle had been, a few years before, placed under the new Earl of Ross, who defeated and executed the MacWilliams and MacHeths. About twenty years before, the extensive districts lying to the west of the Drumalban mountains, which belonged to the bishopric of Dunkeld, were separated from it, and formed into a new bishopric called at first Argyle and afterwards Lismore.¹ The chief object of the erection of this diocese was to attach the inhabitants within its limits more firmly to the Crown. The province of a bishopric, with its extensive possessions in land held under feudal tenure, afforded a great support to the royal authority: insomuch that it appears improbable that feudalism could have been introduced into the kingdom without the assistance of the Church, which in the thirteenth century had obtained possession of about one-third of the whole land of the kingdom.

♦ “1820” replaced with “1220”

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV., pages 283, 284; _Acts of the
Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I.; _Statutes of Alexander
II._; Dr. Grub’s _Ecclesiastical History of Scotland_,
Volume I., page 301.

There were still occasional risings in the North and in Galloway. About 1229 there was an insurrection in Moray, which was suppressed by Comyn, the Earl of Buchan; and immediately after the Comyns were in possession of the district of Badenoch. The lands of those who manifested any disaffection were usually forfeited to the Crown, and then the kings granted such lands to their own favourites, or to some bishopric, monastery, or church.¹ As a matter of fact, much of the land which the Crown gave to the Church in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was obtained by the Crown itself in the way indicated.

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV., page 288; Robertson’s _Scotland_,
Volume II., pages 19‒21.

In 1235 Alan, the son of Roland, Lord of Galloway, died, leaving one illegitimate son, who had married the daughter of the King of Man, and three daughters, who were married to Norman nobles. These nobles then divided Galloway betwixt themselves. But the men of Galloway preferred one lord rather than three; they had acquired some experience of the rule of these Norman nobles, therefore they rightly concluded that the government of one noble would be more bearable than the government or tyranny of three. Accordingly they requested the King to proclaim the fief lapsed to the Crown; but he declined to listen to their reasonable request. Then they invited Thomas, the natural son of their late lord, to at once assert his claim to the Lordship of Galloway. To prepare the way for their new lord, they immediately commenced to wage war on the neighbouring districts of Scotland, and in a short time Thomas appeared in Galloway. In July 1235, Alexander II. mustered his army and proceeded towards Galloway, and advanced into it; the insurgents kept upon the heights and watched the movements of the royal army. When the king’s forces had become entangled in marshy ground, the Galloway men attacked them, and would have destroyed the royal army, if it had not been for the Earl of Ross, with his body of Ross-shire men on foot, who by a rapid movement, turned the insurgents’ flank, and forced them to retreat. The following day, the king granted a free pardon to all the insurgents, who appeared before him with ropes round their necks. Alexander then retired with his army from Galloway.¹

¹ _Chronicles of Melrose_; _Historians_, Volume IV.

But Thomas and other leaders of the revolt fled to Ireland, and prepared for a renewal of the struggle. Thomas and his associates equipped a fleet, and along with a body of Irishmen, he landed in Galloway and recommenced the war. But the Earl of Dunbar and his followers, accompanied by the Bishop of Galloway and the Abbot of Melrose, faced the insurgents, and their leaders seeing themselves outnumbered, surrendered. Thomas was imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh.¹ Thus the disaffection in Galloway was stifled for a time. But in 1247, the oppressive tyranny of the Norman noble, Roger de Quinci, exasperated the people to such a degree, that they rose and besieged him in one of his own castles. He defended himself with great determination, until his provisions began to fail; as he had no reason to expect any mercy from the besiegers, he at last resolved to make a desperate effort to escape. So the gates of the castle were flung open and the noble and his men rushed through the ranks of their assailants, and rode for their lives to the court of Alexander II. As a matter of course, the King reinstated the Norman noble in his lordship.²

¹ _Chronicles of Melrose_; _Historians_, Volume IV. According
to one account, Thomas was liberated from imprisonment in a
short time, but the _Lanercost Chronicle_ states that he was
delivered into the hands of John Baliol as a hostage, and
confined in the dungeons of Barnard Castle for fifty years.

² Robertson’s _Scotland_, Volume II., page 28.

The policy of Alexander II. was to extend the authority of the Crown to the utmost limits of the Highlands and the Isles. He attempted to obtain the Western Isles by treaty with Haco, the King of Norway, but this failed; and he then proposed to purchase the Isles, which offer also was declined. Alexander, however, had resolved to have the Isles; and he equipped a fleet, mustered a force, and proceeded to subdue the Western Isles. When engaged in this undertaking, Alexander II. died in the Isle of Kerrera, off the coast of Lorne, on the 8th of July 1249, in the fifty-first year of his age, and the thirty-fifth year of his reign. His remains were interred in the church of Melrose. He was a man of great energy, an able ruler, remarkably humane, and his reign was marked by progressive efforts.

In the reign of Alexander II. the Scotch Church began to hold regular provincial councils; as the national clergy were empowered by a bull from the pope in 1225, to assemble such, and to enact and promulgate canons. The conservator of the council was elected by the bishops from their own number; and he held office simply from one council to another, with power to punish transgressors of the canons, and to enforce their observance by the censures of the Church. He summoned the council by a writ to each bishop, and when absent himself from the meeting, the senior bishop present assumed his functions and presided. The Scotch clergy adopted a definite code of rules for the assembling of annual provincial councils, and diocesan synods. Before the end of the thirteenth century, they had passed and adopted some sixty canons, which appear to have been sufficient for the government of the Church till the sixteenth century. From 1225 till 1478, the Scotch Church was ruled under the Pope by her own national synods, and temporary presidents; although the Crown often interfered, and the kings occasionally asserted their supremacy in ecclesiastical matters.¹

¹ _Statuta Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ_, Volume I., Preface pages
49‒51.

Alexander II. was succeeded by his son Alexander, a boy in his eighth year; and five days after the death of his father, the boy was crowned at Scone. Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, and all his clergy, accompanied by the Earls of Fife and Strathern, and many other nobles, led Alexander up to the cross which stood in the cemetery at the east end of the church. Here they placed him upon the famous Coronation Stone, which was covered with cloth of gold, and the Bishop of St. Andrews, assisted by the rest, consecrated him King. Then the King received the homage of the feudal nobles of the kingdom. A venerable Highland bard robed in scarlet then advanced, and kneeling before the Stone of Destiny, hailed the boy King in the Gaelic tongue, as “Ri Alban,” and repeated his long line of pedigree from king to king till he reached Iber Scot.¹

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV., pages 289, 290.

During the minority of Alexander III., the nobles fully entered on the policy of faction and ambition which figured so darkly in the subsequent history of the kingdom. The marriage of King Henry’s daughter with the boy Alexander III., gave the English king the opportunity of continually interfering in the internal government of Scotland. The nobles were divided into factions, each of which in some measure represented opposite interests, feelings, and tendencies. One party consisted of the nobles of the north and west, which, in a qualified sense, might be called the national party; the other party was mostly connected with the southern quarters of Scotland, and with England. The leader of the national party was Walter Comyn, Earl of Monteith, and his kin were numerous and powerful. Alexander Comyn was Earl of Buchan, and many other members of the group possessed wide territories in different quarters of the kingdom, including the district of Badenoch; and the Earl of Mar and the majority of the chief men northward of the Firths of Forth and Clyde followed the Comyns. This party, so far as appears, desired to uphold the liberty and independence of Scotland, and consequently they were apt to resent and to resist the continual attempts of the English king to encroach upon the rights and liberties of Scotland. The ablest man among the other party was Alan Durward, who held the office of Justiciary of Scotland in the reign of Alexander II. He assumed the title of Earl of Athole from 1233 to 1235, and he married a natural daughter of Alexander II., by whom he had several daughters; and it was alleged in 1252 that he was endeavouring to obtain from the Pope the legitimation of his wife, so that in the case of the death of the boy Alexander III., Alan Durward’s daughters would be the heiresses of the crown of Scotland. Thus Alan was a great and aspiring personage; while most of his supporters were men of position, including the names of the Earls of Dunbar and Strathern, Robert de Bruce, fourth Lord of Annandale, the Steward, and other nobles chiefly connected with the south of Scotland, and with England.¹ This party at every turn showed a desire to forward the interest of the kings of England, to sacrifice the liberty and independence of Scotland, in the hope of thereby retaining their feudal fiefs in England, and at the same time securing their hold upon the land of Scotland. In short, they were always trying to ride upon two horses at once, running in opposite directions.

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV., pages 292, 293, _et seq._;
_Chronicles of Melrose_; _Fœdera_, Volume I., pages 272,
275, 278, 327, 329, 347, 352, 357, 358, 362.

The two parties of the nobles struggled against each other to obtain the chief positions in the government of the kingdom, and to seize and retain possession of the boy King and his wife, for Alexander III. was married before he had reached eleven years of age. The struggle was continued during the period of the King’s minority; sometimes one of the parties and sometimes the other obtained the position of rulers of the kingdom, while both parties tried to secure their hold by every means in their power. Henry III. rarely failed to render the state of affairs worse rather than better. Comyn, the Earl of Monteith died in November 1258, and Henry III. then advanced obnoxious proposals, which however failed in their aim, as the Scots rejected them.

The repeated attacks of the Norsemen, and their conquest of the Islands and part of the mainland in the north, have been noticed in the preceding pages. The islands of Orkney and Shetland were dependencies of Norway, ruled by local chiefs called jarls; the Western Isles were also claimed by her; and on the mainland, to the north-westward of the Moray Firth and Glenmore, there was a region forming a kind of debatable territory, which as we have seen, the kings of Scotland had long been attempting to subdue. When Alexander III. attained the age of twenty-one, he endeavoured to obtain the Western Islands by negotiation, and sent an embassy to the King of Norway which failed in its object. He then announced his intention to subject these Islands, and the war was commenced by the local chiefs of Ross. But Haco, the King of Norway, considered this attack on the Western Isles as an encroachment on his rights and prepared for war. He was a strong-willed man, well obeyed by his subjects, and he ordered a conscription over his dominions. Haco made great preparations for the expedition; a ship was specially built for himself, which mounted twenty-seven banks of oars, glittered with gilded dragons, and was manned by picked Norwegian seamen. Many of the ships were large and well equipped, and in all numbered upwards of one hundred and twenty vessels. On the 10th of July 1263, Haco with his fleet sailed for the Shetland Islands; whence he steered for the Orkneys, and anchored in Elwick harbour, opposite Kirkwall. Haco sailed from Orkney on the 10th of August and anchored in the Sound of Skye, where the King of Man and other Norwegian chiefs joined the expedition. He then sailed through the Sound of Mull to Cantyre, where the forces from the Isles were concentrated. He sent fifty ships under the command of the King of Man to plunder the coasts of Cantyre, and five ships to the island of Bute. The castles of Dunaverty in Cantyre, and Rothesay in Bute, having surrendered, Haco with the whole fleet rounded the Mull of Cantyre, sailed up the Firth of Clyde, and anchored off the island of Arran.¹

¹ _Expedition of Haco_, page 55, _et seq._

The Scots had made preparations for the defence of the mainland. The castles of Inverness, Ayr, Stirling, Wigtown, and others, were repaired and the garrisons strengthened; while the King had concentrated the main body of his army in Ayr, where the great attack was expected to be delivered. Negotiations were opened, and Haco claimed a right to the whole of the Western Isles. As the object of the Scots was to gain time, they proposed to retain the islands of Bute, Arran, and the two Cumbraes; thus they protracted the negotiations till towards the end of September. Then Haco discovered their intention, and proclaimed the truce at an end. He sent sixty vessels to devastate the coasts, and prepared to land with the main body of his force at Largs. But on the morning of the 1st of October a hurricane arose which lasted several days; many of Haco’s ships were wrecked, and his main fleet much disabled. The royal flagship dragged her anchors, while the greater part of the fleet was drifting in distress. Five vessels were driven ashore upon the coast of Ayrshire, near Largs. The Scots had assembled in groups along the beach, observing ship after ship drifting past; and they began to attack the shipwrecked crews, who sheltered themselves behind their vessels. A reinforcement from the fleet landed and drove off the Scots. On the morrow a body of the Scots were posted in the vicinity of the village of Largs, ready to renew the attack. An engagement ensued, and the Norwegians fought heroically though outnumbered, and, after a somewhat protracted contest, they gained their boats and sailed off. By this time Haco’s fleet was greatly diminished, and all hope of success had vanished; so he steered his course for the Orkney islands, which he reached in November. The strain of the expedition, and its utter failure, affected the spirit and frame of Haco, and he died on the 15th of December, 1263. His remains lay three months in the Church of Kirkwall, thence they were carried and interred in the tomb of his ancestors at Bergen.¹

¹ _Expedition of Haco_, pages 77, 85, 87, 107, _et seq._;
_Historians_, Volume IV., pages 296, 297.

When the tidings of Haco’s death reached Alexander III., he resolved to reduce the Western Isles to subjection. A force was mustered and placed under the command of the Earls of Mar and Buchan, and Alan ♦Durward, and the army proceeded to the isles. On its approach some of the chiefs fled, some of them were hanged for the support which they had given to Haco’s expedition, while others were expelled or fined. The Earls secured much booty, and then returned to the mainland. With the view of a final settlement, negotiations were opened with the new King of Norway, Magnus VI. In July 1265, a treaty was concluded with Norway, by which the Isle of Man, and all the islands off the coasts of Scotland were ceded to Alexander III., on the condition that the Crown of Scotland should pay four thousand marks, and an annual rent of one hundred marks to the Crown of Norway. But the islands of Orkney and Shetland were to remain attached to the Crown of Norway.¹ Henceforth Scotland was freed from the ravages of the Norsemen.

♦ “Duward” replaced with “Durward”

¹ _Historians_, Volume IV., page 296; _Chronicle of Man_,
page 52.

The remaining years of Alexander’s reign were peaceful and progressive in every direction. Alexander III. had a son and a daughter, and in 1281 the latter, Margaret, was married to Eric II., King of Norway; the same year the Prince of Scotland married Margaret of Flanders, a daughter of Count Guy de Dampierre. The prospects of the nation then looked exceedingly bright. But on the 9th of April, 1283, Alexander’s daughter Margaret, died, leaving an only child, called the Maid of Norway; and the Prince of Scotland died on the 28th of January, 1283‒4, without issue. The great difficulty was at once seen, and the king summoned a meeting of the Estates of Scotland, which assembled at Scone on the 5th of February, 1284. At this meeting there were present twelve Earls, namely, Mar, Strathern, Athole, Fife, Buchan, Angus, Monteith, Ross, Dunbar, Lennox, Sutherland, and Carrick; ten bishops; and twenty-five barons, all of whom bound themselves in the name of the nation to acknowledge the king’s grand-daughter, Margaret, the Maid of Norway, as the heir of the Crown of Scotland.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., page 82.

Alexander III. married a daughter of the Count de Dreux, on the 14th of October, 1285, and he still hoped to leave lineal heirs to the throne. But on the 15th of March, 1286, when he was riding in the night along the coast of Fife, near Kinghorn, he was thrown from his horse and killed. A sad and mournful end; the lamentation was universal, and all the people looked forward to the future with dismay. The last king of the Celtic race slept with his fathers, and the crown of a far-descended line fell to a weakly infant.

A meeting of the nobles and clergy was held at Scone on the 2nd of April, 1286, and six guardians were elected to govern the kingdom. For the districts on the north of the Forth the bishop of St. Andrews, and the Earls of Fife and Buchan, were appointed; and for the country on the south of the Forth, the Bishop of Glasgow, John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, and the Steward of Scotland. The elements of the approaching contest were already stirring, as several of the nobles aspired to the throne, which they considered vacant. Robert Bruce of Annandale, entered into a bond with a number of Scotch and English nobles with the aim of supporting his claim to the throne of Scotland. This document is dated the 20th September, 1286, and it contained the names of the Earl of Dunbar and his three sons, the Earl of Monteith and his two sons, and the Steward of Scotland; Angus, Lord of the Isles, and his two sons; the Earl of Ulster, and Lord Thomas de Clare, two English barons. Thus it appears that Bruce’s party was pretty strong. In this document Bruce and his supporters ignored the infant queen, the Maid of Norway, but they assumed that the throne would be occupied by some one of royal blood, who should obtain it according to the ancient and approved customs of the kingdom.¹

¹ _Historical Documents of Scotland_ from 1286 to 1306,
published by Royal Commission, Volume I., pages 22, 23;
Hailes’ _Annals_, Volume I., page 203.

It is uncertain whether Edward I. knew of this bond, but he had a project of his own. He had a son, and if his son could be married to the Maid of Norway, he imagined that all would go right. Edward I. therefore applied to the Pope for a dispensation to sanction the marriage; and a papal bull authorising the marriage of the two children was issued in November 1289, although they were within the prohibited degrees of relationship. A formal conference was held at Salisbury, at which various matters connected with the marriage were arranged, with the mutual concurrence of England, Norway, and Scotland. In March 1290, the Earls, barons, and clergy of Scotland, met the ambassadors of England at Brigham, and after deliberation the articles arranged at Salisbury, and other points, were confirmed and a treaty concluded, which sanctioned the marriage of the royal children. This treaty provided that the rights, the laws, and the liberties of Scotland should continue entire and untouched. No native was to be compelled to answer for any crime or cause at any court out of the kingdom; no parliament was to be held beyond the boundaries of Scotland to discuss Scotch affairs: in short, the complete independence of the nation was recognised and strictly guarded by this treaty.¹

¹ _Historical Documents of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 90, 91,
134, 35, 36, 111‒113, 105‒111, 129‒131; Hailes’ _Annals_,
Volume I., pages 208‒212.

It seems that Edward I. imagined that he had thus secured the kingdom. He at once appointed the Bishop of Durham Lieutenant of Scotland, in the name of Queen Margaret and the Prince of England, to act along with the guardians, the bishops, and the nobles of the realm. Waxing bolder, Edward demanded that all the royal castles in Scotland should be immediately surrendered to him; but for once he had miscalculated the force of his influence and dignity, as the Scots refused to deliver the castles of the kingdom into his hands.¹

¹ Hailes’ _Annals_, Volume I., pages 212, 213.

Edward I. quickly equipped a ship to transport the young queen from Norway. This ship was well stored with provisions and luxuries ――thirty-one hogsheads and one pipe of wine, and ten barrels of beer; a very large quantity of salted beef, hams, dried fish, stock fish, lampreys, sturgeon, and fifty pounds of whale, along with twenty-two gallons of mustard, salt, pepper, vinegar, and onions. A stock of dainties, specially prepared for the delicate, young Queen, consisted of five hundred walnuts, two loaves of sugar, grits, oatmeal, mace, figs, raisins, and thirty-eight pounds of gingerbread. The ship carried the English flag, and the crew numbered forty hands. She reached her destination all right; and in due time she sailed from Norway with the Queen on board. Edward I. sent his agents to Orkney to meet her, he also sent a number of precious jewels to Scotland to bedeck her; indeed, he put himself to great trouble to secure the consummation of this marriage. But the child died just before she reached the Orkney Islands, in the end of September, 1290.¹ Thus perished the hopes which Edward I. had associated with his marriage project. He subsequently adopted a different line of procedure, still with the same end in view――the complete subjection of Scotland. Before proceeding with the historic narrative it is requisite to review the state of society and the progress of the nation up to the date of the outbreak of the War of Independence.

¹ _Historical Documents of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 139,
140, 182, 183‒192, 178, 179, 149‒153.