Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/507

Rh CANMORE TO ALEXANDER III.] SCOTLAND 485 promised to render to Alexander what was his right with reference to the marriage of his sisters and his kingdom, unless the charters of his father William authorized other- wise, and this was to be decided by the judgment of his peers in the curia regis. The position of the Scottish king as one of the English barons in whose favour Magna Charta was granted is pregnant evidence of the fact that he was not, like John, Henry III., and Edward L, a monarch with imperial tendencies, the adversary of the rights of the barons and the people. The Scottish kings in this century and Bruce in the next were popular sovereigns, and their memory supported the crown when it was worn by less worthy successors. Next year John broke the charter, reduced by the aid of mercenaries the northern counties of England, and, advancing into Scot- land, stormed Berwick and burnt Roxburgh, Haddington, and Dunbar. On his return he pillaged Coldingham and set fire to Berwick. Alexander retaliated by wasting England as far as Carlisle, which town, but not the castle, he took in the autumn ; then, marching to Dover, he did homage to Louis, the son of Philip Augustus, whom the English barons had chosen as king. Next year (1217) he again invaded England, but made peace with Henry III., which was confirmed three years later at York. Alexander agreed to restore Carlisle, do homage for his English fiefs, and obtain release from the excommunication which the pope had declared against the barons and their allies. Henry promised to give Alexander one of his sisters in marriage and to procure suitable husbands for the Scottish princesses. Accordingly, Alexander married Joan, the elder daughter of John, while Margaret, his sister, be- came the wife of Hubert de Burgh, earl of Kent, and Isabella of Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk, both nobles who took a prominent part in the Barons War. These alliances rendered the peace with England more secure, and allowed Alexander to devote himself to the reduction of the periodical insurrections of the Celtic and Norse chiefs on his northern and western borders. He reduced Argyll (1222), which he created a sheriff dom, and forced John, earl of Caithness, to surrender part of his lands and pay compensation for his share in the burning of Adam, its bishop. The wisdom of his settlement of Argyll was proved by the inhabitants repelling an attack by Haco, the Norse king. He was equally successful in quelling the risings of two chiefs of the same name, Gillescop, one in the west, the other in Moray. Five years later (1230) a disputed succession in Galloway gave him the opportunity of chas- tising that turbulent province and dividing it among three co-heiresses. The fall of Hubert de Burgh and the suc- cession of Peter des Roches to the chief place in the council of Henry III. changed the attitude of that king towards Scotland, but Otho, the papal legate, preserved peace by a compromise of the rival claims. A little more than a year after the death of his wife Joan without issue, Alexander married Mary de Couci, daughter of a French noble house, which counted itself the equal of kings, and Alexander III., the child of the marriage, was betrothed when an infant of a year old to Margaret, daughter of Henry III. Two years later (1244) a serious rupture, fomented by Walter Bisset, a Scottish exile, and caused by a projected alliance of Alexander with France and the erection of castles on the border, was averted by the treaty of Newcastle, by which the kings of England and Scotland bound themselves not to make alliances with the enemies of each other. The last year of his life was occupied in putting down a second rising in Galloway, and in preparing for an expedition against Haco, with the view of annexing the Hebrides ; but he died of fever at Kerrera, in the Bay of Oban, while mustering his fleet. These expeditions, all successful, are proof of the active character of the king, who must have been called "Peace- 1215-1266. ful " because he preserved peace with England, for he was in fact a warlike monarch, enforcing the feudal levy, which, according to Matthew Paris, amounted in his time to 10,000 horse and 100,000 foot, and extending the feudal civil government. Like his predecessors, he was a benefactor of the church, especially of the new mendicant orders, whose monasteries were founded in all the principal towns. The most important of his statutes were the substitution of trial by jury for the ordeals of fire and water, and the regulation of trial by battle, with provision for the case of women and the clergy. He was deemed, like David, a protector of the poor. Alexander III. (1249-85) was only eight years old when Alexan- his father died. A succession of contests for the regency der m - between a party of nobles who favoured English influence and a national party was the consequence. The former tried to delay the coronation on the pretence that the young prince was not a knight ; but Comyn, earl of Menteith, baffled them by the proposal that the bishop of St Andrews should perform both ceremonies. The rehearsal of his descent from the Celtic line of kings was made, according to a custom becoming old-fashioned, for the last time by a Highland sennachy, to please the Gaelic subjects, while the translation of the corpse of St Margaret into a precious shrine at Dunfermline was cal- culated to have a similar effect in the Lowlands. Henry III. had asked the pope to declare the coronation illegal without his consent, but the pope refused. Foiled in this, Henry celebrated at York the nuptials of his daughter and the young king, whom he asked to render homage for his kingdom. The reply that he had not come to answer such a question and must advise with his counsellors implied that he had counsellors little likely to grant it. About this time Durward the justiciar and Robert the chan- cellor were dismissed, and the earl of Menteith held the chief power for five years. A secret mission of Simon de Montfort led to the earl of March, Durward, and other nobles seizing the young king and queen, and at a meeting with Henry at Kelso the Comyns and their supporters were removed from office (1255) and other regents appointed. Two years later the bishop of St Andrews got the pope to excommunicate Durward and the English regents. Next year a compromise was effected and a joint regency appointed, consisting of the queen dowager and her husband, the earl of Menteith and Durward, and the supporters of both parties. When Alexander was nearly of age the earl of Menteith died, whereupon the king took the government into his own hands (1261). Henry, engaged in the dispute with his barons, could not interfere. Alexander at once resumed his father's project for the Reduction reduction of the Hebrides ; but Haco, the Norwegian king, of * ie forestalled him by invading Scotland, when a storm, which dispersed his fleet, and the loss of the battle of Largs (1263) forced him to retire to the Orkneys, where he died. Magnus Olafson, king of Man, the chief Norse feudatory, a descendant of Godred the Black, submitted to Alexander, and although some of the islands held out they were reduced by the earls of Buchan and Mar and Alan Durward. At last Magnus, the son of Haco, concluded a treaty at Perth (1266), by which he surrendered Man and the Sudreyar for a payment of 4000 marks and an annual rent of 100 ; the rights of the bishop of Drontheim were reserved. From this time the western isles were subject to Scotland. At the parliament of 1284, which settled the crown on the Maid of Norway, their great nobles, descendants of Somerled, attended as vassals, and the subsequent revolts (of which there were many) were instigated by the English king, who found useful allies in the chiefs of the Isles. In the Barons War Alexander aided his father-in-law, on