Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/50

20 died about 1189-90. His elder brother Adelme, Lord of Skelton and owner of the lands in Yorkshire and elsewhere, became head of the English branch, which came to an end in the persons of four co-heiresses in 1271.

4. Robert de Brus, third Lord of Annandale, if indeed he survived his father le Meschin, married the Princess Isabel, daughter of William the Lion, and must have died about 1190, for his widow married Robert de Ros in 1191. He acquired with his wife the barony of Haltwhistle in Northumberland.

5. William de Brus, fourth Lord of Annandale, second son of le Meschin, died in 1215.

6. Robert de Brus, fifth Lord of Annandale, son of William, the fourth lord, married Isabel, second daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon, younger brother of William the Lion, whence arose the subsequent claim of his son to the Crown of Scotland. He died in 1245.

7. Robert de Brus, sixth Lord of Annandale, "the Competitor," son of the fifth lord and grandnephew of William the Lion, married Isabel de Clare, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester. In 1238, Alexander II. acknowledged this lord as his heir, an act ratified by the Great Council, and followed by the performance of fealty to de Brus by the barons present, but the birth of Alexander III. in 1241 extinguished his claim to the throne. He acquiesced in King Edward's award in the disputed succession in 1292, and, being stricken in years, resigned all his rights in favour of his son, the Earl of Carrick. He died in 1295.