Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/353

 died on 13 May 1390, in his seventy-fifth year, at Dundonald in Ayrshire, and was buried at Scone in a tomb he had prepared.

It is not quite easy to understand the panegyric which almost all Scottish historians, except John Major [q. v.], have pronounced on Robert II. It seems to have been due in part to his early successes, in part to amiable personal qualities, but chiefly perhaps to the fact that at the close of his reign, as Wyntoun—or rather his substitute, for he did not write this part of the ‘Chronicle’—puts it: Of Scotland wes na fute of land Oute of Scottis mennys hand, Outane Berwyck, Roxburgh, and Jedwurth. Yet the credit was not due to him, but to the able generals who fought for him. Even the successes of his younger days were generally shared by others, like his earlier regencies. Major's sound judgment seems to suit the facts better than the traditionary verdict: ‘Now, whatever our writers may contend, I cannot hold the aged king to have been a skilful warrior or wise in counsel.’ He especially condemns the making of the Earl of Fife regent, which was ‘nought else than to run the risk of setting up two rival kings.’ But it appears probable that the preference given to the brother over the son of Robert II was due not to the king's own act, but to the powerlessness both of Robert and the Earl of Carrick to prevent it. There is a portrait of Robert II in John Johnston's ‘Icones of the Scottish Kings,’ Amsterdam, 1602, and in Pinkerton's ‘Iconographia Scotica.’ Pinkerton doubts its authenticity, and there is a suspicious resemblance, almost amounting to identity of feature, between this portrait and that of Robert III in the same work. Although neither portrait is proved authentic, the costume is that worn at this period, and the features have some resemblance to the faces on the coins of these reigns.

Robert II married in the end of 1347, or soon after, Elizabeth More or Mure, daughter of Sir Robert Mure of Rowallan. A dispensation for the marriage, dated in December 1347 by Clement VI, was discovered by Andrew Stuart in 1789. Robert had lived with Elizabeth Mure before marriage, for the dispensation sets forth that they had ‘a multitude’ of children of both sexes. Those known were John, lord of Kyle, created earl of Carrick, who succeeded his father as Robert III [q. v.]; Walter, earl of Fife; Robert, earl of Menteith and, after his brother Walter's death, of Fife, and duke of Albany, the regent [see, first ]; and Alexander, earl of Buchan, the Wolf of Badenoch [see , d. 1405].

Robert II also had six daughters: Marjory, wife of John Dunbar, son of the Earl of March, himself created Earl of Murray; Jean, wife of Sir John Lyon, lord Glamis; Elizabeth, wife of Sir Thomas Hay of Errol; Margaret, wife of Macdonald of Isla; Catherine or Jean, wife of David Lindsay, first earl of Crawford [q. v.]; and Giles, wife of William Douglas, lord of Nithsdale, who was deemed the most beautiful Scotswoman of her time. After Elizabeth Mure's death, and before 1356, Robert married as second wife Euphemia, daughter of Hugh, earl of Ross, and widow of John Randolph, third earl of Moray [q. v.], by whom he had David, earl of Strathearn; Walter, earl of Atholl [see ]; and Isobel, wife of James, earl of Douglas. Besides these he had at least six natural children, among whom were Sir John Stewart of Rowallan, called The Black; and Sir John Stewart of Dundonald, called The Red Stewart. The numerous alliances of Robert II's children with the chief noble families, as in the case of Robert the Bruce himself, probably strengthened his claim to the throne, but after his accession led to discord which he was unable to control.

[Acts of Parliament (Scotland), vol. i.; Exchequer Rolls, vols. i. ii.; and specially Burnett's Prefaces, Wyntoun's Chronicle; Bower's addition to Fordun's Scotichronicon; John Major's Greater Britain (Scottish History Society, Edinburgh); Extracta e variis Chronicis Scocie; Liber Pluscardensis. Pinkerton and Tytler are the best modern historians of this period. Andrew Stewart's History of the Stewarts discusses, in a supplement, the question of the marriage of Elizabeth Mure, and prints the dispensation.] 

ROBERT III (1340?–1406), king of Scotland, originally known as, and eldest son of Robert II [q. v.], succeeded to the throne on his father's death, and was crowned at Scone, under the name of Robert III, on 13 Aug. 1390. The change of christian name was made to avoid that of Baliol, and to continue that of Robert the Bruce, his maternal grandfather, and of Robert II, his father. He was born probably about 1340, prior to the marriage of Robert II with his first wife, Elizabeth More or Mure, and was legitimated by their subsequent marriage, for which a dispensation was procured from the pope in 1347. His original title was Lord of Kyle, the district of Ayrshire where a portion of the estates of the Bruces lay. He was created