Alexander III of Scotland

“ Mr. Hume Brown has pointed out that immediately on the fall of Hubert de Burgh, a dispute arose between Henry and Alexander. The English king desired Alexander to acknowledge the Treaty of Falaise, and this Alexander refused to do. The agreement, which averted an appeal to the sword, was, on the whole, favourable to Scotland. Nothing was said about homage for this kingdom. David of Huntingdon had died in 1119, and Alexander gave up the southern earldom, but received a fief in the northern counties, always coveted of the kings of Scotland. ”

“ Alexander resting with his ancestors, David the youngest of Malcolm's sons, whom the king had made a knight and honoured with the marriage of a woman of quality, ascended the throne of Scotland. A youth more courtly than the rest, and who, polished, from a boy, by intercourse and familiarity with us, had rubbed off all the rust of Scottish barbarism. ”

“ His father must have followed him thither later, for both were in council at Westminster, with other "loyal Scots," on June 16th. Thus Barbour's statement that Alexander submitted, while his son John took shipping and fled to England, may be reconciled with the apparently contradictory one by Fordun, that Alexander refused homage and fled to England. Neither of these chiefs ever returned to Scotland. Alexander died in Ireland in 1309, but John continued in the service of England till his death in 1317. [21]
King Edward's diplomacy had now won over the Pope to his interest. ”

“ About that time he seems to have retired to his Scottish barony, and in 1244 concurred in sending the king of Scotland's treaty of peace with Henry III to Innocent IV for confirmation. In 1252, on the marriage of Henry III's daughter Margaret to Alexander III of Scotland, the king of England appointed Robert, who seems at the time to have held the office of marshal of his household, one of the guardians of the young queen (Matt. Paris, Hist. Maj. v. 272) . ”

“ An attempt made by the French to make good their footing in the colony was frustrated (1627) by Captain Kertch, and Alexander's son and namesake made two expeditions to Nova Scotia. But Alexander found the colony a constant drain on his resources, and was unable to obtain from the treasury, in spite of royal support, £6000 which he demanded as compensation for his losses. He received, however, a grant of 1000 acres in Armagh. He was the king's secretary for Scotland from 1626 till his death, and in 1630 was created Viscount Stirling and Lord Alexander of Tullibody. ”

“ Alexander the Second, the successor of William, followed out the same policy, but during his reign, notwithstanding the increase in the number of the earldoms, and the feudalisation of some of the older ones, we find the seven earls of Scotland frequently making their appearance, apparently as a constitutional body whose privileges were recognised. They 72first appear as taking an important part in the coronation of Alexander as king of Scotland, and then consisted of the earls of Fife, Stratherne, Atholl, Angus, Menteath, Buchan, and Lothian. ”

“ The state of Scotland had, ever since the death of the good King Alexander, been such that even honest men could scarcely retain their integrity, nor see with whom to hold. The realm had been seized by a foreign power, with a perplexing show of justice, the rightful King had been first set up and then put down by external force, and the only authority predominant in the land was unacknowledged by the heart of any, though terror had obtained submission from the lips. ”

“ It was during this period of upwards of a century and a half that the different provinces of Scotland were welded into one feudal monarchy, and the various races which inhabited them, and upon the allegiance of each of whom the kings of this race had hereditary claims, were fused into one mixed population combining the peculiar qualities of each.
The reign of Alexander the Third, the last king of this old Celtic dynasty of Scottish kings, saw the concentration of the various provinces of Scotland into one compact kingdom finally completed by the cession of the Isles in the year 1266. ”

“ He had already secured to the foot of his throne the free people of Wales: and when the death of Alexander was made known, he perceived that the time was come when he might strike powerful blow at the independence of Scotland. His first measures for this purpose seem to have been in themselves just and equitable, and to have been willingly accepted by the northern barons. He entered into a treaty with the chief nobles of the regency, and proposed an alliance between his son, the Prince of Wales, and the Maiden of Norway. ”

“ On returning from abroad, the tutor was introduced by the Earl of Argyle to court, and he was appointed tutor to young Prince Henry, son of James VI, at Holyrood. ‘The most learned fool in Europe’ had shrewd if narrow insight into character and capacity and scholarship. He must have been specially pleased by Alexander, who to the latest had no common influence with him.
When James VI of Scotland, in 1603, succeeded Elizabeth, Alexander, though he did not accompany him at the outset, formed one of the invading host of Scots. ”

“ The Scottish kings of the thirteenth century, unlike the English, were not enemies but friends of their barons and people, and under Alexander and his son Scotland enjoyed a measure of individual and national freedom and prosperity such as it had never known before, and did not again know until after the union. ”

“ In 1261, Alexander III, having come of age, took up his father's policy of annexing the Norse dominions adjoining Scotland, and sent a fresh embassy to Norway. Failing to make terms, he began next year the invasion of the islands. He reoccupied Bute and Cantire, and sent a marauding expedition under the Earl of Ross into the island of Skye. King Jon of the Hebrides wrote informing Hakon of what was going on, and from the sequel we may judge that he held out no hope of being able to resist Alexander. ”

“ In 1251 Henry III requested from Innocent IV a declaration that the Scottish king was, as his vassal, not entitled to be anointed or crowned without his consent, and the inclusion of Scotland in the grant made to him of a tenth of the ecclesiastical revenues for a crusade, but the pope declined both requests. Baffled in this, he reverted to the marriage of Alexander, already betrothed to his daughter Margaret, and it was celebrated at York on 26 Dec, when Henry knighted Alexander and demanded homage for his kingdom. ”

“ See below, VI. xv. 459, ‘clerkly skill.’
line 325. Alexander III (1240-1286) came to the throne at the age of nine, and proved himself a vigorous and large-hearted king. He was killed by a fall from his horse, near Kinghorn, Fife, where there is a suitable monument to his memory. The contemporary lament for his death bewails him as one that ‘Scotland led in love and lee.’ Sir Walter Scott (Introductory Remarks to ‘Border Minstrelsy’) calls him ‘the last Scottish king of the pure Celtic race.’
line 333. ”

“ Since Richard I had restored his independence to William the Lion, in 1189, the question of the overlordship had lain almost entirely dormant. On John's succession, William had done homage "saving his own right", but whether the homage was for Scotland or solely for his English fiefs was not clear. His successor, Alexander II, aided Louis of France against the infant Henry III, and, after the battle of Lincoln, came to an agreement with the regent, by which he did homage to Henry III, but only for the earldom of Huntingdon and his other possessions in Henry's kingdom. ”

“ The dismemberment of his kingdom by the separation of Scottish Cumbria must have materially diminished his power; and had not Alexander died without an heir, the impolitic bequest of Edgar might have been fraught with most disastrous consequences to Scotland. The principality of David must inevitably, in course of time, have become dependant upon one of the greater kingdoms by which it was surrounded; it could only have existed by skilfully promoting disunion between its more powerful neighbours ”

“ He who has lived well, cannot die ill."
No greater calamity could have befallen the young kingdom of Scotland than the unforeseen end of this beneficent ruler. Henceforward the resources of the country were to be sapped by perpetual warfare, civil and foreign; the wealth accumulated under the prosperous reigns of Alexander and his predecessors was to be dissipated, and all productive industry brought to a standstill, until the very name of Scot should become a synonym for pauper in the languages of Europe. ”

“ It is a matter of notoriety, that about this time, Edward and his nobles were not on the best of terms. Having now, as he thought, in addition to Wales, insured the subjection and obedience of Scotland, and remembering the facility with which, by the aid of 30,000 Scots lent him by Alexander III., he overawed and suppressed the Earl of Gloucester and those who took part with him; he began to assume towards the English nobility an imperious and haughty demeanour, which both alarmed their fears and excited their jealousy. ”

“ After the assassination of Angus by an Irish harper about 1485, the headship of the clan devolved on Alexander, nephew of John and son of his illegitimate brother Celestine. In 1491 he led an expedition into the north of Scotland, captured the castle of Inverness, and advanced into Ross, but was defeated by the Mackenzies, and either wounded or taken prisoner. In consequence of the proceedings of Alexander, the parliament in May 1493 declared the title and possessions of the Lord of the Isles to be forfeited to the crown. ”

“ The effect of these alliances and the prudent character of Alexander was to preserve peace between England and Scotland. This settlement left him free to enlarge and strengthen his own kingdom by reducing the lawless outlying districts, of which the population was still mainly Celtic, and whose chiefs were only nominally subject to the Scottish crown. ”

“ An army so numerous as that we have mentioned, no subsequent monarch of that kingdom ever had it in his power to bring into the field. On the death of Alexander III. the prosperity of Scotland became eclipsed—anarchy overspread the land—the machiavelism of her arch-enemy prevailed—her ancient glory was trampled in the dust—and commerce deserted a country overrun with the horrors of war. ”

“ During the reigns of Duncan and of Donald, Scotland must, if anything, have retrograded rather than advanced, [252] remaining stationary apparently whilst Edgar was king—to judge from the little that is known of that period—the disorganized condition of the see of St. Andrews, which was vacant during the whole of these three reigns, typifying probably the general state of the kingdom at large. Sufficient occupation was afforded Alexander by his contest with the church, which was scarcely brought to a close with his life, and by his northern wars ”

“ Seven earls first appear in reign of Alexander the First. On the death of Eadgar, the successor of Malcolm III., his brother Alexander the First ruled as king over Scotland proper, while Lothian and Cumbria or Strathclyde fell to his brother David. From the time when the Celtic king Malcolm had married the Saxon princess Margaret there had been an increasing Saxon influence in the government of the Celtic provinces ”

“ He left as his heiress Margaret, the Maid of Norway, daughter of Eric of Norway, and of Alexander's daughter, Margaret. Under him Scotland enjoyed greater prosperity than for generations afterwards.
Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, son of Paul I and Maria, daughter of Prince Eugene of Würtemberg, was born in 1777, and died in 1825. On the assassination of his father, in 1801, Alexander ascended the throne, and one of his first acts was to conclude peace with Britain, against which his predecessor had declared war. ”

“ The young king governed his people wisely and well, and, undisturbed by enemies from without, he was able to repress the quarrels of those rival factions of the nobility which for many years had maintained towards each other a position of active or passive hostility. But heavy clouds were gathering round the future of this prosperous king, and at the moment of its greatest glory the royal house of Scotland was doomed to perish from the land. Margaret of England, the queen of Alexander, had died in 1275. ”

“ The trial of skill was converted into a deadly battle, in which the count seriously attempted the king's life; and out of which, the English only came victorious after a sanguinary conflict. Edward succeeded to the throne in November 1272; but did not arrive in England, until August 1274, when his first object was to receive, with his consort, Eleanor of Castile, the regal unction. He was crowned with this affectionate [95] companion of his crusade, at Westminster, on the 19th; Alexander, king of Scotland, being present, and doing homage as a vassal of the English crown. ”

“ He begged Mason to aid him in procuring a grant of this territory from the Council for New England, it being within their limits. Mason referred him to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of the Council and their Treasurer. The king readily recommended Alexander to Gorges, and Gorges heartily approved the plan. In September, 1621, Alexander obtained a Royal Patent for a tract of land which he called New Scotland, a name attractive to his countrymen. ”

“ About which time, a post came to advertise the earl, of the king his sudden death. 'Then,' said Thomas, 'this is the tempest I foretold; and so it shall prove to Scotland.' Whence, or how, he had this knowledge, can hardly be affirmed; but sure it is, that he did divine and answer truly of many things to come."—Spottiswoode, p. 47. Besides that notable voucher, master Hector Boece, the good archbishop might, had he been so minded, have referred to Fordun for the prophecy of King Alexander's death. That historian calls our bard "ruralis ille vates."—Fordun, lib. x. cap. 40. ”