Scottish King: John Bolliol

JOHN BOLLIOL
John Balliol (c.?1249 – 25 November 1314) was King of Scots from 1292 to 1296.

John Balliol and his wife Isabella de Warenne

 Little is known of his early life. After the death of Margaret, Maid of Norway, Balliol was chosen as the new King of Scotland by a group of auditors. Edward I of England constantly tried to undermine his reign and demanded that Balliol treat Scotland as a vassal state.

As a result, the Scots grew tired of him and appointed a council of twelve to rule instead. This council signed a treaty with France known as the Auld Alliance.

In retaliation, Edward invaded Scotland, starting the Wars of Scottish Independence. After a Scottish defeat in 1296, Balliol abdicated and was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Eventually, Balliol was sent to France, and made no effort to help the Scots. Scotland was then left without a monarch until Robert the Bruce ascended in 1306.

In Norman French his name was Johan de Bailliol, in Middle Scots it was Jhon Ballioun, and in Scottish Gaelic, Iain Bailiol.

In Scots he was known by the nickname Toom Tabard, usually understood to mean "empty coat", with the word coat referring to coat of arms.[disputed – discuss] Little of Balliol's early life is known. He was born between 1248 and 1250 at an unknown location; possibilities include Galloway, Picardy and Barnard Castle, County Durham.

He was the son of John, 5th Baron Balliol, Lord of Barnard Castle, and his wife Dervorguilla of Galloway, daughter of Alan, Lord of Galloway and granddaughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon. From his mother he inherited significant lands in Galloway and claim to Lordship over the Gallovidians, as well as various English and Scottish estates of the Huntingdon inheritance; from his father he inherited large estates in England and France, such as Hitchin, in Hertfordshire.

Seal of John Balliol, c. 1249 – 1314

In 1284 Balliol had attended a parliament at Scone, which had recognised Margaret, Maid of Norway, as heir presumptive to her grandfather, King Alexander III. Following the deaths of Alexander III in 1286 and Margaret in 1290, John Balliol was a competitor for the Scottish crown in the Great Cause, as he was a great-great-great-grandson of David I through his mother (and therefore one generation further than his main rival Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale, grandfather of Robert the Bruce, who later became king), being senior in genealogical primogeniture but not in proximity of blood.

Dervorguilla of Galloway

He submitted his claim to the Scottish auditors with King Edward I of England as the arbitrator, at Berwick-upon-Tweed on 6 June 1291.

The Scottish auditors' decision in favour of Balliol was pronounced in the Great Hall of Berwick Castle on 17 November 1292, and he was inaugurated accordingly King of Scotland at Scone, 30 November 1292, St. Andrew's Day.

Edward I, who had coerced recognition as Lord Paramount of Scotland, the feudal superior of the realm, steadily undermined John's authority.

He demanded homage to be paid towards himself, legal authority over the Scottish King in any disputes brought against him by his own subjects, contribution towards the costs for the defence of England, and military support was expected in his war against France. He treated Scotland as a feudal vassal state and repeatedly humiliated the new king. The Scots soon tired of their deeply compromised king; the direction of affairs was allegedly taken out of his hands by the leading men of the kingdom, who appointed a council of twelve—in practice, a new panel of Guardians—at Stirling in July 1295.

They went on to conclude a treaty of mutual assistance with France – known in later years as the Auld Alliance. In retaliation, Edward I invaded, commencing the Wars of Scottish Independence.

King Edward I

The Scots were defeated at Dunbar and the English took Dunbar Castle on 27 April 1296. John abdicated at Stracathro near Montrose on 10 July 1296. Here the arms of Scotland were formally torn from John's surcoat, giving him the abiding name of "Toom Tabard" (empty coat).

John was imprisoned in the Tower of London until allowed to go to France in July 1299. When his baggage was examined at Dover, the Royal Golden Crown and Seal of the Kingdom of Scotland, with many vessels of gold and silver, and a considerable sum of money, were found in his chests.

Edward I ordered that the Crown be offered to St. Thomas the Martyr and that the money be returned to John for the expenses of his journey. But he kept the Seal himself.

John was released into the custody of Pope Boniface VIII on condition that he remain at a papal residence. He was released around the summer of 1301 and lived the rest of his life on his family's ancestral estates at Hélicourt, Picardy.

Over the next few years, there were several Scottish rebellions against Edward (for example, in 1297 under William Wallace and Andrew Moray). The rebels would use the name of "King John", on the grounds that his abdication had been under duress and therefore invalid.

John de Balliol

This claim came to look increasingly tenuous, as John's position under nominal house-arrest meant that he could not return to Scotland nor campaign for his release, despite the Scots' diplomatic attempts in Paris and Rome. After 1302, he made no further attempts to extend his personal support to the Scots. Effectively, Scotland was left without a monarch until the accession of Robert the Bruce in 1306.

John died around 25 November 1314 at his family's château at Hélicourt in France. On 4 January 1315, King Edward II of England, writing to King Louis X of France, said that he had heard of the death of 'Sir John de Balliol'[10] and requested the fealty and homage of Edward Balliol to be given by proxy. A John de Bailleul is interred in the church of St. Waast at Bailleul-sur-Eaune. This may or may not be the Scottish King. John was survived by his son Edward Balliol, who later revived his family's claim to the Scottish throne, received support from the English, and had some temporary successes.

Queen Margaret of Scotland

MARGARET OF SCOTLAND
Margaret, Maid of Norway (9 April 1283 – 26 September 1290) was a Norwegian princess who reigned as Queen of Scots from 1286 until her death.

Coronation of Margaret, Maid of Norway, as Queen regnant of the Scots.

Her death while travelling to Scotland sparked off the disputed succession which led to the Wars of Scottish Independence.

She was the daughter of King Eric II of Norway and Margaret, daughter of King Alexander III of Scotland. Margaret was born in Tønsberg.

Her mother died in childbirth. When the treaty arranging the marriage of Margaret and Eric was signed at Roxburgh on 25 July 1281, Alexander III's younger son David had already died, in June 1281, leaving the King of Scots with only one legitimate son, Alexander.

Consequently, the treaty included a provision for the children of Margaret and Eric to succeed to the kingdom of the Scots:

If it happens that the king of Scotland dies without a lawful son, and any of his sons does not leave lawful issue [not sons] and Margaret has children [not sons] by the king of Norway, she and her children shall succeed to the king of Scotland ... or she, even if she is without children, according to Scottish law and custom. Alexander III made similar provisions when arranging the marriage of his son Alexander to Margaret, daughter of Guy de Dampierre, Count of Flanders, probably also in 1281. The treaty arranging the marriage, signed in December 1281, included a lengthy and complex document setting out the customs and usages which determined the succession.

Alexander III coin

As well as general statement of principles, the annex includes specific examples of the rights of "A and M" and their children in particular cases. The document, while confusing in places, appears to favour primogeniture for male heirs, or their descendants, and proximity of blood for female heirs and their descendants. The younger Alexander died on 28 January 1284, leaving only the king's granddaughter Margaret living out of his descendants. Alexander III summoned all thirteen earls of Scotland and twenty-four barons. At Scone on 5 February 1284, the signatories agreed to recognise Margaret as "domina and right heir" if neither Alexander had left a posthumous child and the king had left no children at the time of his death.

Seal of Eric II in known use 1289–98, with obverse (left).

However, it is unlikely that this was intended to allow Margaret to rule alone as queen regnant, but rather jointly with her future spouse, whoever he might be.

While unexceptional in the circumstances, this would appear to show that Alexander III had decided on remarriage. He did remarry, to Yolande de Dreux, but died shortly afterwards as the result of an accident on 19 March 1286 without any children by her.

After King Alexander III was buried at Dunfermline Abbey on 29 March 1286, the magnates and clerics of the realm assembled at Scone in parliament to select the Guardians of Scotland who would keep the kingdom for the right heir. At this time it was thought that Queen Yolande was pregnant, so that Margaret was not yet the obvious successor. It is uncertain what happened to Yolande's child--most likely she had a miscarriage, although other accounts say that her child was still-born at Clackmannan on St. Catherine's Day (25 November 1286) with the Guardians in attendance to witness the event; just possibly she had a false pregnancy, and there was even one dubious English claim that she was faking pregnancy.

This, according to the oaths taken, made Margaret the heir at three years of age, but that same year Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale had rebelled with the aid of his son the Earl of Carrick. The Bruces captured strongholds in Galloway, and as well as bolstering their position in the south-west where their rivals the Balliols also had influence, may have been making a bid for the Crown.

Seal of John Balliol, c. 1249 – 1314 AD

However, Robert Bruce seems to have overestimated his chances of successfully pressing his claim, as further support does not appear to have been forthcoming.

And it is difficult to prove that even Bruce allies such as the Stewarts decided to back them, in spite of what some historians have inferred from the Turnberry Band of September 1286.

The rebellion thus quickly fizzled out, though no drastic action was taken against the Bruces after they had handed back the castles they had seized. In this way, the Guardians possibly hoped to maintain the peace in Scotland between the competing claims of Robert Bruce and John Balliol, without jeopardising their ultimate loyalty to the realm, and probably to Margaret as the more generally accepted heir.

Far from the Scots displaying any desire to bring Margaret to Scotland, it was Margaret's father Eric who raised the question again. Eric sent official ambassadors to Edward I of England, then in Gascony, in May 1289, with papers referring to Margaret as "queen".

Robert I the Bruce's coin

Negotiations from this time forward were between Edward, who returned to England later in the year, and Eric, and excluded the Scots until Edward met with Robert Bruce and some of the Guardians at Salisbury in October 1289.

The Scots were in a weak position since Eric could arrange his daughter's marriage to Edward I's son Edward or anyone else without reference to the Guardians.

Accordingly, the Guardians signed the Treaty of Salisbury, which agreed that Margaret would be sent to Scotland before 1 November 1290, and that any agreement on her future marriage would be deferred until she was in Scotland.

That marriage of Edward, Prince of Wales, was in King Edward's mind is clear from the fact that a papal dispensation was received from Pope Nicholas IV ten days after the treaty was signed. Thought to show bad faith on Edward's part, the Papal Bull did not contract a marriage, only permit one should the Scots later agree to it. Edward, like Eric, was now writing of Queen Margaret, anticipating her inauguration and the subsequent marriage to his son.

Alexander III 

Edward and the Guardians continued their negotiations, based on the collective assumption that Margaret would be queen and the young Edward king, but all these plans, including those of King Alexander, were brought to nothing as Margaret died of the effects of sea-sickness in the Orkney Islands on 26 September 1290 while sailing to Scotland.

Her remains were taken to Bergen and interred beside her mother in the wall on the north side of the choir in Christ Church, Bergen.

Her death left no obvious heir to the Scottish throne and the matter of succession was resolved in the Great Cause of 1291–2. Although derived from a text written more than a century later, it is thought by some historians that the earliest Scots verse written in Scotland dates from this time.

Scottish Negroid King: Alexander III

ALEXANDER III of SCOTLAND
Alexander was born at Roxburgh, the only son of Alexander II by his second wife Marie de Coucy. Alexander III was also the grandson of William the Lion. Alexander's father died on 8 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 Menteith, the other by Alan Durward, Justiciar of Scotia. The former dominated the early years of Alexander's reign.

Alexander III coin

At the marriage of Alexander to Margaret of England in 1251, Henry III of England 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.

Coronation of King Alexander on Moot Hill, Scone. He is being greeted by the ollamh rígh, the royal poet, who is addressing him with the proclamation "Benach De Re Albanne" (= Beannachd Dé Rígh Alban, "God Bless the King of Scotland"); the poet goes on to recite Alexander's genealogy. By Alexander's side is Maol Choluim II, Earl of Fife holding the sword.

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 Norwegian king Haakon iv. 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 Arran, and negotiations commenced. Alexander artfully prolonged the talks until the autumn storms should begin.

Alexander III coin

At length Haakon, weary of delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific storm which greatly damaged his ships. The Battle of Largs (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 Perth by which he ceded the Isle of Man and the Western Isles to Scotland in return for a monetary payment.

By Alexander's side is Maol Choluim II,
Earl of Fife holding the sword

 Norway retained only Orkney and Shetland in the area. Alexander had married Margaret, daughter of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, on 26 December 1251. She died in 1275, after they had three children.

Margaret (28 February 1261 – 9 April 1283), who married King Eric II of Norway. Alexander, Prince of Scotland (21 January 1264 Jedburgh – 28 January 1284 Lindores Abbey); buried in Dunfermline Abbey. David (20 March 1272 – June 1281 Stirling Castle); buried in Dunfermline Abbey
According to the Lanercost Chronicle, 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 Estates to recognise as his heir-presumptive his grand-daughter 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.

Maol Choluim II & Alexander III

Alexander died in a fall from his horse while riding in the dark to visit the queen at Kinghorn in Fife on 18 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 to Fife because of weather conditions, but he 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. He was buried in Dunfermline Abbey.

Alexander III

As Alexander left no surviving children, the heir to the throne was his unborn child by Queen Yolande. When Yolande's pregnancy ended, probably with a miscarriage, Alexander's seven-year-old granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway, 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 the Guardians of Scotland governing the land. The death of Alexander and the subsequent period of instability in Scotland was lamented in an early Scots poem recorded by Andrew of Wyntoun in his Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland.

Quhen Alysandyr oure kyng was dede,
That Scotland led in luve and le,
Away was sons of ale and brede,
Of wyne and wax of gamyn and gle.

Oure gold was changed into lede,
Cryst, born into vyrgynyte,
Succoure Scotland and remede,
That stat is in perplexyte.

Scottish King: Alexander II

ALEXANDER II
Alexander II (Mediaeval Gaelic: Alaxandair mac Uilliam; Modern Gaelic: Alasdair mac Uilleim; 24 August 1198 – 6 July 1249) was King of Scots from 1214 until his death in 1249.

Alexander II (1214-1249), Short Cross and Stars coinage, Sterling.

He was born at Haddington, East Lothian, the only son of the Scottish king William the Lion and Ermengarde of Beaumont. He spent time in England (John of England knighted him at Clerkenwell Priory in 1213) before succeeding to the kingdom on the death of his father on 4 December 1214, being crowned at Scone on 6 December the same year.

Alexander II coin

In 1215, the year after his accession, the clans Meic Uilleim and MacHeths, inveterate enemies of the Scottish crown, broke into revolt; but loyalist forces speedily quelled the insurrection. In the same year Alexander joined the English barons in their struggle against John of England, and led an army into the Kingdom of England in support of their cause. This action led to the sacking of Berwick-upon-Tweed as John's forces ravaged the north.

The Scottish forces reached the south coast of England at the port of Dover where in September 1216, Alexander paid homage to the pretender Prince Louis of France for his lands in England, chosen by the barons to replace King John. But John having died, the Pope and the English aristocracy changed their allegiance to his nine-year-old son, Henry, forcing the French and the Scots armies to return home.

King John's coin

Peace between Henry III, Louis of France, and Alexander followed on 12 September 1217 with the treaty of Kingston. Diplomacy further strengthened the reconciliation by the marriage of Alexander to Henry's sister Joan of England on 18 June or 25 June 1221.

The next year marked the subjection of the hitherto semi-independent district of Argyll. Royal forces crushed a revolt in Galloway in 1235 without difficulty; nor did an invasion attempted soon afterwards by its exiled leaders meet with success. Soon afterwards a claim for homage from Henry of England drew forth from Alexander a counter-claim to the northern English counties.


The two kingdoms, however, settled this dispute by a compromise in 1237. This was the Treaty of York which defined the boundary between the two kingdoms as running between the Solway Firth (in the west) and the mouth of the River Tweed (in the east).

Joan died in March 1238 in Essex. Alexander married his second wife, Marie de Coucy, the following year on 15 May 1239. Together they had one son, the future Alexander III, born in 1241.

Henry III coin

A threat of invasion by Henry in 1243 for a time interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries; but the prompt action of Alexander in anticipating his attack, and the disinclination of the English barons for war, compelled him to make peace next year at Newcastle.

Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western Isles, which still owed a nominal allegiance to Norway. He repeatedly attempted negotiations and purchase, but without success.

The English chronicler Matthew Paris in his Chronica Majora described Alexander as red-haired:
"[King John] taunted King Alexander, and because he was red-headed, sent word to him,
saying, 'so shall we hunt the red fox-cub from his lairs." Alexander attempted to persuade Ewen, the son of Duncan, Lord of Argyll, to sever his allegiance to Haakon IV of Norway. When Ewen rejected these attempts, Alexander sailed forth to compel him, but on the way he suffered a fever at the Isle of Kerrera in the Inner Hebrides. He died there in 1249 and was buried at Melrose Abbey