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Alexander . In 1224 Gillescop, a dispossessed chief in the west, and in 1228 another chief of the same common Celtic name in Moray, rose, but the former without difficulty, and the latter in a second campaign, were overcome and put to death. The next events of Alexander's reign brought him into contact with an external enemy, the Norse king Haco, whose possession of the Orkneys and the Sudreys or Hebrides and connection with the kings of the Isle of Man menaced the Scottish coasts. In 1230 Haco associated himself with Olaf of Man and Ospacr, a chief of mixed Celtic and Norse blood, but Ospacr was killed in an attack on Bute and his Norse allies driven back from Cantyre by the inhabitants without the personal intervention of the Scottish king, who kept the Christmas of that year at York with his brother-in-law Henry of England. Next year he spent Christmas in Elgin, and after visiting Montrose came to St. Andrews, where he created Walter, the son of Alan, then steward of Scotland, justiciar. In 1235 Alan, lord of Galloway and constable of Scotland, died, leaving no legitimate son and three daughters, Helen, wife of Roger de Quincey earl of Winchester, Devorguill, wife of John de Baliol of Barnard Castle, and Christian, wife of William des Forts, a son of the Earl of Albemarle; and his death gave rise to one of those cases of doubtful succession which at this time so often led to war. The Galwegians first asked Alexander himself to take possession of the district, or to support the claim of Thomas, a natural son of Alan, and, on his refusal to comply with either request, rose in arms, but with the aid of Ferquhard Mac-in-Sagart, now Earl of Ross, Alexander defeated them. Thomas was forced to fly to Ireland, and Galloway was divided between the three coheiresses.

The fall of Hubert de Burgh and the succession of Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, to the chief place in the councils of the English king, changed the attitude of the two courts. Renewed claims of homage for Scotland on the part of Henry, backed by the pope, Gregory IX, were met by counter claims on the part of Alexander to the northern counties of England, but a peaceable solution was effected by Otho, the legate, at York, in 1237. Alexander, in lieu of all claims, received lands of the yearly value of 200l., for which he did homage, and the demand of homage for the kingdom was not pressed. His wife accompanied her brother, Henry III of England, on his return home, and died without issue near London in 1238. In little more than a year, 15 May 1239, Alexander married a second wife, Mary, daughter of Ingelram de Couci, in Picardy, one of the feudal families which vied and allied themselves with kings. Of this marriage was born on 4 Sept. 1241 Alexander III, who was betrothed to Margaret, daughter of Henry III, in the following year. In 1244 a serious rupture broke out between Alexander and Henry, no longer united by marriage, which was prompted by Walter Bisset, an exile from Scotland, in consequence of a blood-feud caused by his slaughter of Patrick of Galloway, earl of Athole. The causes of the quarrel were the alleged intention of Alexander to ally himself with the French king, the erection of castles by Walter Comyn and others which threatened the English border, and the reception of English exiles. The armies of the two kingdoms in great force confronted each other at Newcastle, but the efforts of Richard, earl of Cornwall, and the Archbishop of York averted a contest, and a treaty was made at Newcastle on 14 August by which Alexander bound himself to enter into no alliance with the enemies of England nor to invade it unless unjustly dealt with. There is reason to believe that the engagement was mutual, but the Scottish counterpart of the treaty was amongst the documents seized by Edward I, and only the English has been preserved.

Relieved from anxiety on the side of England, Alexander now undertook the more congenial task of strengthening his own kingdom. In 1247 he put down a rising in Galloway and restored the authority of Roger de Quincey, and in 1248 he determined on attempting a cherished project to wrest the Hebrides from Norway, which he had unsuccessfully attempted to do by negotiation and purchase. Ewen, the son of Duncan, lord of Argyle, having refused to acknowledge Alexander as sovereign of the islands for which he had done homage to Haco, Alexander gathered a fleet to compel him, but as he passed Kerrera, the island in the bay of Oban, he was seized with fever and died there on 8 July, in the 51st year of his age and 35th of his reign. He was buried at his own request at Melrose, a church he had befriended, having founded, along with his mother Ermengarde, an abbey for its monks at Balmerino in Fife. Fordun quotes a poem in his memory, in which he is described as
 * Ecclesiæ clipeus, pax plebis, dux miserorum,

a panegyric Fordun himself confirms. An English contemporary chronicler, Matthew Paris, is not less emphatic, calling him ‘a good, upright, pious, and liberal-minded man, ustlyjustly [sic] beloved by all the English as well