Alexander II
1214–1249
William's
son, Alexander (born in 1198) was known as ‘the Peaceful’ a nickname
he did not entirely deserve. He chopped the hands and feet off rebels or had
them torn apart by horses. The heads of his enemies were delivered to him at
court and he eliminated a rival claimant to the throne, an infant girl, by
having her brains dashed out against the market cross in Forfar.
He was a competent ruler nonetheless, who codified the country’s laws and enforced them in all corners of the realm. His first wife was the daughter of England’s King John, but this did not prevent Alexander from siding with the English barons against the king. He believed in the rule of law and was present at the signing of Manga Carta in 1215. The borders he agreed with England are still in force today.
Alexander III
1249–1286
Alexander
was only eight when he succeeded his father. Two years later he married Henry
III’s daughter, doing homage to the English king for his English lands,
but not his Scottish ones. Even aged ten, he knew better than to give anything
away to the English if he could avoid it. In 1262, Alexander launched a bid to
recover the Western Isles from the king of Norway. He succeeded after a bitter
struggle, and alter married his daughter to the king’s son.
Alexander’s wife and other children were all dead by 1284, so he remarried
the following year in order to produce a male heir. On a stormy evening in
March 1286, he left Edinburgh Castle to spend the night with his new bride in
Dunfermline, across the Forth, but his horse slipped and fell in the darkness.
Alexander’s body was not discovered until the next day.
Margaret
1286–1290
Alexander's
widow thought she was pregnant but produced no heir. His only surviving
descendant therefore was his granddaughter Margaret, born in 1283 to
Alexander’s daughter and the new King of Norway. But Margaret, Maid of
Norway, was a child of three and had never set foot in Scotland. A group of six
Guardians took control of the country until she was old enough to rule. The
Guardians appealed to Edward I of England to help keep the peace. The
issue was still unresolved when Margaret set sail from Norway in September
1290. Unfortunately, she died en route without ever reaching Scotland and the
house of Dunkeld died with her.
Margaret’s death produced a political crisis in Scotland, with no less than 13 descendants of former monarchs laying claim to the throne. In this situation Edward I of England, proclaiming suzerainty over Scotland, intervened on behalf of John de Baliol, a grandson of David I. Certain sections of the Scottish nobility formally recognised the English king’s overlordship in Scotland. In November 1292, after leading an army into his vassal realm, Edward I proclaimed John de Baliol king of Scotland.
The War for Independence
John
1292-1296
But there was a heavy price to pay. In return for England’s peacekeeping role in the interregnum, John was forced to accept Edward I as his overlord, something previous Scottish kings had always refused to do. Many Scottish nobles and the overwhelming majority of the Scottish people bitterly resented English interference in their national affairs. Acceding to popular demand for termination of English control, John Baliol in 1295 formed an alliance with France, which was then at war with England, and summoned his people to revolt. The first phase of the Scottish war of independence ended victoriously for Edward, who crushed Baliol’s army at Dunbar in April 1296 and decreed the annexation of Scotland to England. Baliol was deposed, publicly stripped of his crown, sceptre, sword and ring, and his kingdom was placed under military occupation. He was held prisoner until 1299 then exiled to his French estates, dying blind and forgotten in 1313.
William Wallace
1296–1306 (interregnum)
After
John Balliol’s forcible removal, Scotland was without a monarch for ten
years. Edward I rampaged almost at will, earning the epithet ‘Hammer of
the Scots’. It seemed only a matter of time before he reduced Scotland to
the status of an English province, as he had already done with Wales. But he
reckoned without the fierce nationalism of the Scots. A champion arose in Sir
William Wallace, who trounced the English at Stirling Bridge in September 1297 with an army
of soldiers recruited from all sections of the nation, Wallace destroyed an
English army and, acting as the agent of John de Baliol, reinstated Scottish
rule. He flayed the skin of an English tax collector and wore it as a belt. In
reply, Edward raised another army and led it himself, defeating the Scots at
Falkirk in July 1298. After this setback Wallace waged incessant guerrilla
warfare against the English. He was outlawed by Edward in 1304, following
another large-scale English invasion. The year after, Wallace was betrayed to
the English, convicted of
treason, and hanged and disembowelled in London, his body quartered and
displayed in four different towns — an episode that served only to unite
the Scots in their loathing of the English.
- Photos of many of the places mentioned in the text can be found in the Photo-tour.