Queen of Scotland from 1286 to 1290, the last of the line of Scottish
rulers descended from King Malcolm III Canmore.
Margaret's father was Eric II, king of Norway; her mother, Margaret, a
daughter of King Alexander III of Scotland (ruled 1249-86), died in 1283.
Because none of Alexander III's other children were alive at the time of
his death (March 1286), the Scottish lords proclaimed the infant Margaret
as their queen. In 1290 her great-uncle, King Edward I of England,
arranged a marriage between Margaret and his son Edward, later King Edward
II of England. On the voyage from Norway to England, however, Margaret
fell ill and died. Although the marriage treaty had specified that
Scotland was to maintain its independence of England, Edward now
proclaimed himself overlord of Scotland; the Scots resisted, and for more
than 20 years Scotland suffered foreign domination and civil war.
King of Scotland from 1292 to 1296, the youngest son of John de Balliol and his wife Dervorguilla, daughter and heiress of the lord of Galloway.
His brothers dying childless, he inherited the Balliol lands in England and France in 1278 and succeeded to Galloway in 1290. In that year, when the heiress to the kingdom of Scotland, Margaret, the Maid of Norway died, Balliol became one of 13 competitors for the crown. He at once designated himself "heir of the kingdom of Scotland," clearly anticipating the vindication of his claim, which was derived from his mother, daughter of Margaret, eldest daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon, brother to kings Malcolm IV and William I the Lion. His chief rival was Robert de Bruce.
The English king Edward I met the Scottish baronage at Norham in Northumberland and insisted that as adjudicator between the claimants he should be recognized as overlord of Scotland. His court of 104 persons discussed the rival titles for more than a year, but Balliol's simple claim by primogeniture ultimately prevailed. Edward I confirmed the decision on Nov. 17, 1292, and Balliol was enthroned at Scone on November 30, doing homage to Edward at Newcastle on December 26. John, however, soon proved rebellious, and when in June 1294 Edward demanded military aid from Scotland for his projected war in Gascony, the Scottish reaction was to conclude a treaty of mutual aid with the French. When Edward I sent an army to Gascony in January 1296, the Scots raided northern England. Edward reacted quickly; he took Berwick on March 30. Castle after castle fell to the English king, and at Montrose, John resigned his kingdom to Edward. He was stripped of his arms and knightly dignity in a ceremony which later earned him the nickname "Toom (empty) Tabard." John was a prisoner in the Tower of London until July 1299, when papal intervention secured his release. Thereafter, he lived in Normandy.
(b. July 11, 1274--d. June 7, 1329, Cardross, Dunbartonshire, Scot.)
King of Scotland (1306-29), who freed Scotland from English rule, winning the decisive Battle of Bannockburn (1314) and ultimately confirming Scottish independence in the Treaty of Northampton (1328). Among the legends that later became attached to his name was the story that, when outlawed and hard pressed by the English, with his fortunes at low ebb, he derived hope and patience from watching a spider perseveringly weave its web.
Background and early life.
The Anglo-Norman family of Bruce, which had come to Scotland in the early 12th century, was related by marriage to the Scottish royal family, and hence the sixth Robert de Bruce (died 1295), grandfather of the future king, claimed the throne when it was left vacant in 1290. The English king Edward I claimed feudal superiority over the Scots and awarded the crown to John de Balliol instead.
The eighth Robert de Bruce was born in 1274. His father, the seventh Robert de Bruce (died 1304), resigned the title of earl of Carrick in his favour in 1292, but little else is known of his career until 1306. In the confused period of rebellions against English rule from 1295 to 1304 he appears at one time among the supporters of William Wallace, but he later apparently regained Edward I's confidence. There is nothing at this period to suggest that he was later to be the Scottish leader in a war of independence against Edward's attempt to govern Scotland directly.
The decisive event was the murder of John ("the Red") Comyn in the Franciscan church at Dumfries on Feb. 10, 1306, either by Bruce or his followers. Comyn, a nephew of John de Balliol, was a possible rival for the crown, and Bruce's actions suggest that he had already decided to seize the throne. He hastened to Scone and was crowned on March 25.
King of Scots
The new king's position was very difficult. Edward I, whose garrisons held many of the important castles in Scotland, regarded him as a traitor and made every effort to crush a movement that he treated as a rebellion. King Robert was twice defeated in 1306, at Methven, near Perth, on June 19, and at Dalry, near Tyndrum, Perthshire, on August 11. His wife and many of his supporters were captured, and three of his brothers executed. The King himself became a fugitive, hiding on the remote island of Rathlin off the north Irish coast.
In February 1307 he returned to Ayrshire. His main supporter at first was his only surviving brother, Edward, but in the next few years he attracted a number of others. The King himself defeated John Comyn, earl of Buchan (a cousin of the slain John "the Red"), and in 1313 captured Perth, which had been in the hands of an English garrison; but much of the fighting was done by his supporters, who progressively conquered Galloway, Douglasdale, the forest of Selkirk and most of the eastern borders, and finally, in 1314, Edinburgh. During these years the King was helped by the support of some of the leading Scottish churchmen and also by the death of Edward I in 1307 and the ineptness of his successor, Edward II. The test came in 1314 when a large English army attempted to relieve the garrison of Stirling. Its defeat at Bannockburn on June 24 marked the triumph of Robert I.
Consolidation of power
Almost the whole of the rest of his reign had passed before he forced the English government to recognize his position. Berwick was captured in 1318, and there were repeated raids into the north of England, which inflicted great damage. Eventually, after the deposition of Edward II (1327), Edward III's regency government decided to make peace by the Treaty of Northampton (1328) on terms that included the recognition of Robert I's title as king of Scots and the abandonment of all English claims to overlordship.
The King's main energies in the years after 1314, however, were devoted to settling the affairs of his kingdom. Until the birth of the future king David II in 1324 he had no male heir, and two statutes, in 1315 and 1318, were concerned with the succession. In addition, a parliament in 1314 decreed that all who remained in the allegiance of the English should forfeit their lands; this decree provided the means to reward supporters, and there are many charters regranting the lands so forfeited. Sometimes these grants proved dangerous, for the King's chief supporters became enormously powerful. James Douglas, knighted at Bannockburn, acquired important lands in the counties of Selkirk and Roxburgh that became the nucleus of the later power of the Douglas family on the borders. Robert I also had to restart the processes of royal government, for administration had been more or less in abeyance since 1296. By the end of the reign the system of exchequer audits was again functioning, and to this period belongs the earliest surviving roll of the register of the great seal.
In the last years of his life, Robert I suffered from ill health and spent most of this time at Cardross, Dumbartonshire, where he died. His body was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, but the heart was removed on his instructions and taken by Sir James Douglas on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Douglas was killed on the way (1330), but, according to one tradition of uncertain value, the heart was recovered and brought back to Melrose Abbey. In later times Robert I came to be revered as one of the heroes of Scottish national sentiment and legend.
