Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/355

 disastrous both to himself and the peace of Scotland [see ]. Rothesay, who led a dissolute life, betrothed himself to a daughter of George, earl of March, but finally married Elizabeth Douglas, daughter of Archibald the Grim, third earl of Douglas [q. v.] March went over to the English side, indignant at his daughter's repudiation. At the end of 1400 the queen died. Her death was soon followed by those of Archibald the Grim and Trail, bishop of St. Andrews. Rothesay attempted to seize the castle of St. Andrews, vacant by the death of Bishop Trail. Albany procured an order to arrest his nephew Rothesay in Robert his father's name, and he was taken to Falkland, where he mysteriously died on 26 March 1402. Albany at once resumed the regency. The defeat of the Scots in their attempts to invade England added national disaster to the domestic tragedy which clouded the last years of King Robert. There were also troubles in the north. Robert, now old as well as infirm, or the nobles acting in his interest, sent James, his remaining son, by sea to France; but he was taken by an English armed merchant cruiser and lodged in the Tower [see JAMES I of Scotland]. On 4 April 1406, shortly after the receipt of the news of his son's capture, Robert III died at Rothesay, or, according to one account, at Dundonald, probably a confusion with his father's death there. He had told his wife, when she urged him to follow the example of his ancestors and the custom of the age by preparing a royal tomb for himself, that ‘he was a wretched man unworthy of a proud sepulchre,’ and ‘prayed her to bury him in a dunghill with the epitaph, “Here lies the worst king and the most miserable man in the whole kingdom.”’ This is his only recorded speech, and is not inconsistent with his character. His wish as to his burial was not obeyed, and he was interred before the high altar at Paisley, where a monument has recently been erected to his memory by Queen Victoria. His life after, and for some time before, he ascended the throne must have been a melancholy one. He had sufficient sense to feel his own impotence, to see his country more exposed than it was at his accession to English invasions, his only son a captive in England, and the succession to the crown almost in the grasp of his ambitious brother. History has pronounced the verdict perhaps too favourable, that he was a good man though not a good king. His private life appears to have been without reproach, and he is one of the few Scottish kings who kept their marriage vows. Besides Rothesay and James I, he had a third son, who died young, and three daughters. The eldest daughter, Margaret, married Archibald, fourth earl of Douglas, and Duke of Touraine [q. v.] The second daughter, Mary, the wife first of George Douglas, first earl of Angus; secondly, Sir James Kennedy of Dunure, by whom she had Gilbert, first lord Kennedy, the father of David, first earl of Cassilis, and Bishop James Kennedy [q. v.]; thirdly, Sir William Graham of Kincardine, an ancestor of the Duke of Montrose through their eldest son, Robert Graham; and, fourthly, Sir William Edmondstone of Duntreath; her second son by her third marriage was Patrick Graham [q. v.], bishop of St. Andrews. The third daughter, Elizabeth, married James Douglas, earl Dalkeith, grandfather of the first earl of Morton.

[The authorities for Robert II, and in addition Exchequer Rolls, vols. iii. and iv., Professor Skeat's Preface to the Kingis Quair (Scottish Text Society).]  ROBERT, (1054?–1134), eldest son of Duke William II (afterwards William I, king of England) and his wife, Matilda (d. 1083) [q. v.], was probably born in 1054, since his parents were married in 1053, and William of Malmesbury says he was ‘considered a youth of proved valour’ in 1066. His earliest instructors seem to have been two persons who appear as ‘Raturius consiliarius infantis’ and ‘Tetbold grammaticus;’ a little later, one Hilgerius is named as ‘magister pueri’ (, note to  v. 18). In 1067 Robert was left as co-regent of Normandy with his mother during William's absence in England. A charter dated 1063 states that his parents had ‘chosen him to govern the duchy after their death’ (, loc. cit.); the Norman barons twice swore fealty to him as William's destined successor, and this settlement was confirmed by the king of France as overlord. It is probable that Robert, as well as William, received the homage of Malcolm III of Scotland [q. v.] at Abernethy in 1072, which would imply that he was also recognised as heir to the English crown. He had been betrothed, in 1061, to Margaret, sister and heiress of Count Herbert II of Maine; after Herbert's death in 1064 he did homage for Maine to its titular overlord Geoffrey of Anjou, and received from him a grant of its investiture; this homage he repeated to Geoffrey's successor in 1074, but the intended marriage was frustrated by Margaret's death; and William, though he once at least allowed his son to be designated as ‘Robert, Count of Le Mans’