Alexander III (4 September 1241 – 19 March 1286) was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.
Alexander III (4 September 1241 – 19 March 1286) was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.
Life
Alexander was born at
RoxburghRoxburgh , also known as Rosbroch, is a village, civil parish and now-destroyed royal burgh. It was an important trading burgh in High Medieval to early modern Scotland...
, the only son of
Alexander IIAlexander II was King of Scots from1214 to his death.-Early life:...
by his second wife
Marie de CoucyMarie de Coucy was the daughter of Enguerrand III, Lord of Coucy and his third wife Marie de Montmirel . She was Queen consort of the Kingdom of Scotland.- Biography :...
. Alexander's father died on 8th of July 1249 and he became king at the age of seven, inaugurated at Scone on 13 July 1249.
The years of his minority featured an embittered struggle for the control of affairs between two rival parties, the one led by Walter Comyn,
Earl of MenteithThe Mormaer or Earl of Menteith was originally the ruler of the province of Menteith in the Middle Ages. The first mormaer is usually regarded as Gille Críst, simply because he is the earliest on record. The title was held in a continuous line from Gille Crist until Muireadhach IV , although the...
, the other by
Alan DurwardAlan Hostarius was the son of Thomas de Lundin, a grandson of Gille Críst, Mormaer of Mar. His mother's name is unknown, but she was almost certainly a daughter of Máel Coluim, Mormaer of Atholl, meaning that Alan was the product of two Gaelic comital families.Alan was one of the most important...
,
Justiciar of ScotiaThe Justiciar of Scotia was the most senior legal office in the High Medieval Kingdom of Scotland. Scotia in this context refers to Scotland to the north of the River Forth and River Clyde....
. The former dominated the early years of Alexander's reign. At the marriage of Alexander to
Margaret of EnglandMargaret of England was a medieval English princess who became Queen of Scots. A daughter of the Plantagenet king Henry III of England and his queen, Eleanor of Provence, she was Queen consort to Alexander III "the Glorious", King of the Scots.- Family :She was the second child of Henry III of...
in 1251,
Henry III of EnglandHenry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
seized the opportunity to demand from his son-in-law homage for the Scottish kingdom, but Alexander did not comply. In 1255 an interview between the English and Scottish kings at Kelso led to Menteith and his party losing to Durward's party. But though disgraced, they still retained great influence, and two years later, seizing the person of the king, they compelled their rivals to consent to the erection of a regency representative of both parties.
On attaining his majority at the age of 21 in 1262, Alexander declared his intention of resuming the projects on the Western Isles which the death of his father thirteen years before had cut short. He laid a formal claim before the
NorwegianNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
king
HaakonHaakon Haakonarson , also called Haakon the Old, was king of Norway from 1217 to 1263. Under his rule, medieval Norway reached its peak....
. Haakon rejected the claim, and in the following year responded with a formidable invasion. Sailing around the west coast of Scotland he halted off the
Isle of ArranArran or the Isle of Arran is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, and with an area of is the seventh largest Scottish island. It is in the unitary council area of North Ayrshire and the 2001 census had a resident population of 5,058...
, and negotiations commenced. Alexander artfully prolonged the talks until the autumn storms should begin. At length Haakon, weary of delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific
stormExtreme weather includes weather phenomena that are at the extremes of the historical distribution, especially severe or unseasonal weather. The most commonly used definition of extreme weather is based on an event's climatological distribution. Extreme weather occurs only 5% or less of the time...
which greatly damaged his ships. The
Battle of LargsThe Battle of Largs was an engagement fought between the armies of Norway and Scotland near the present-day town of Largs in North Ayrshire on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland on 2 October 1263. It was the most important military engagement of the Scottish-Norwegian War. The Norwegian forces were...
(October 1263) proved indecisive, but even so, Haakon's position was hopeless. Baffled, he turned homewards, but died in Orkney on 15 December 1263. The Isles now lay at Alexander's feet, and in 1266 Haakon's successor concluded the
Treaty of PerthThe Treaty of Perth, 1266, ended military conflict between Norway, under King Magnus VI of Norway, and Scotland, under King Alexander III, over the sovereignty of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man....
by which he ceded the
Isle of ManThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
and the Western Isles to Scotland in return for a monetary payment. Norway retained only Orkney and Shetland in the area. In 1284, Alexander invested the title of
Lord of the IslesThe designation Lord of the Isles is today a title of Scottish nobility with historical roots that go back beyond the Kingdom of Scotland. It emerged from a series of hybrid Viking/Gaelic rulers of the west coast and islands of Scotland in the Middle Ages, who wielded sea-power with fleets of...
in the head of the Macdonald family, Angus Macdonald, and over the next two centuries the Macdonald lords operated as if they were kings in their own right, frequently opposing the
ScottishThe Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
monarchA monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
.
Succession
Alexander had married Princess
Margaret of EnglandMargaret of England was a medieval English princess who became Queen of Scots. A daughter of the Plantagenet king Henry III of England and his queen, Eleanor of Provence, she was Queen consort to Alexander III "the Glorious", King of the Scots.- Family :She was the second child of Henry III of...
, a daughter of King
Henry III of EnglandHenry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
and
Eleanor of ProvenceEleanor of Provence was Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Henry III of England from 1236 until his death in 1272....
, on 26 December 1251. She died in 1274, after they had three children.
-
- Margaret
Margaret of Scotland was Queen consort of Norway and wife of King Eric II of Norway....
(28 February 1261 – 9 April 1283), who married King Eirik II of NorwayEirik Magnusson was the King of Norway from 1273/80 until 1299.-Background:He was the eldest surviving son of King Magnus the Lawmender of Norway, and his wife Ingeborg Eriksdatter, daughter of King Eric IV of Denmark. Eric descended from St...
- Alexander, Prince of Scotland (21 January 1264 Jedburgh
Jedburgh is a town and former royal burgh in the Scottish Borders and historically in Roxburghshire.-Location:Jedburgh lies on the Jed Water, a tributary of the River Teviot, it is only ten miles from the border with England and is dominated by the substantial ruins of Jedburgh Abbey...
– 28 January 1284 Lindores AbbeyLindores Abbey was a Tironensian abbey on the outskirts of Newburgh in Fife, Scotland. Now a much reduced and overgrown ruin, it lies on the southern banks of the River Tay, about north of the village of Lindores....
); buried in Dunfermline AbbeyDunfermline Abbey is as a Church of Scotland Parish Church located in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. In 2002 the congregation had 806 members. The minister is the Reverend Alastair Jessamine...
- David (20 March 1272 – June 1281 Stirling Castle
Stirling Castle, located in Stirling, is one of the largest and most important castles, both historically and architecturally, in Scotland. The castle sits atop Castle Hill, an intrusive crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill geological formation. It is surrounded on three sides by steep...
); buried in Dunfermline AbbeyDunfermline Abbey is as a Church of Scotland Parish Church located in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. In 2002 the congregation had 806 members. The minister is the Reverend Alastair Jessamine...
According to the
Lanercost ChronicleThe Lanercost Chronicle is a northern English and Scottish history covering the years 1201 to 1346. It covers the Wars of Scottish Independence, but it is also highly tangential and as such provides insights into English life in the thirteenth century as well as Scottish life...
, Alexander did not spend his decade as a widower alone: "
he used never to forbear on account of season nor storm, nor for perils of flood or rocky cliffs, but would visit none too creditably nuns or matrons, virgins or widows as the fancy seized him, sometimes in disguise."
Towards the end of Alexander's reign, the death of all three of his children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the
EstatesThe Parliament of Scotland, officially the Estates of Parliament, was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland. The unicameral parliament of Scotland is first found on record during the early 13th century, with the first meeting for which a primary source survives at...
to recognize as his heir-presumptive his granddaughter Margaret, the "Maid of Norway". The need for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage to Yolande de Dreux on 1 November 1285.
But the sudden death of the king dashed all such hopes. Alexander died in a fall from his horse in the dark while riding to visit the queen at
KinghornKinghorn is a town in Fife, Scotland. A seaside resort with two beaches, Kinghorn Beach and Pettycur Bay, plus a fishing port, it stands on the north shore of the Firth of Forth opposite Edinburgh...
in
FifeFife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
on 19 March 1286 because it was her birthday the next day. He had spent the evening at Edinburgh Castle celebrating his second marriage and overseeing a meeting with royal advisors. He was advised by them not to make the journey over to Fife because of weather conditions, but travelled anyway. Alexander became separated from his guides and it is assumed that in the dark his horse lost its footing. The 44-year old king was found dead on the shore the following morning with a broken neck. Some texts have said that he fell off a cliff. Although there is no cliff at the site where his body was found there is a very steep rocky embankment - which would have been fatal in the dark. After Alexander's death, his strong realm was plunged into a period of darkness that would eventually lead to war with England. Had Alexander, who was a strong monarch, lived, things might have worked out differently . He was buried in
Dunfermline AbbeyDunfermline Abbey is as a Church of Scotland Parish Church located in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. In 2002 the congregation had 806 members. The minister is the Reverend Alastair Jessamine...
.
As Alexander left no surviving children the heir to the throne was his unborn child by Queen Yolande. When Yolande's pregnancy ended, probabably with a miscarriage, Alexander's granddaughter Margaret became the heir. Margaret died, still uncrowned, on her way to Scotland in 1290. The inauguration of John Balliol as king on 30 November 1292 ended the six years of
interregnumAn interregnum is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order...
when the Guardians of Scotland governed the land.
Fictional portrayals
Alexander III has been depicted in historical novels. They include:
- The Thirsty Sword (1892) by Robert Leighton. The novel depicts the "Norse invasion of Scotland" (1262–1263, part of the Scottish–Norwegian War) and the Battle of Largs
The Battle of Largs was an engagement fought between the armies of Norway and Scotland near the present-day town of Largs in North Ayrshire on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland on 2 October 1263. It was the most important military engagement of the Scottish-Norwegian War. The Norwegian forces were...
. It includes depictions of Alexander III and his opponent Haakon IV of NorwayHaakon Haakonarson , also called Haakon the Old, was king of Norway from 1217 to 1263. Under his rule, medieval Norway reached its peak....
.
- Alexander the Glorious (1965) by Jane Oliver. The novel covers the entire reign of Alexander III (1249–1286), "almost entirely from Alexander's viewpoint".
- The Crown in Darkness (1988) by Paul C. Doherty. A crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
novel where Hugh Corbett investigates the "mysterious death" of Alexander III (1286). Alexander supposedly suffered a fatal fall from his horse. But there are suspicions of murder. The novel concludes that Alexander was indeed murdered "by a fanatical servant" of Edward I of EnglandEdward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
. The killer acting according to "Edward's secret desire to overwhelm and control Scotland". Doherty suggests that the personal relations of the two kings were strained by constant arguments, though this in not confirmed by historical sources.
Ancestry
Sources
.
- Scott, Robert McNair. Robert the Bruce: King of Scots, 1996