Alexander III became King of Scotland at the tender age of 7 following the death of his father, Alexander II, on 8 July 1249.
The king showed himself to be strong willed even as a child, when power in the realm was being fought for by two rival guardians, Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, and Alan Durward, Justiciar of Scotia. When the little boy was wed to Margaret of England on Christmas Day of 1251, his new father-in-law, Henry III of England, tried to get the small monarch to swear fealty to him, but the young king wouldn’t be bullied into it.
When he came to his majority in 1262, Alexander proved himself to be a strong leader and stalwart ruler of Scotland. He banded the fractious Scottish clans together (as much as possible, that is) and expanded Scots territory. In Norway agreed to the Treaty of Perth, in which the Vikings were strong-armed into selling the Isle of Man and the Western Isles to Scotland lest they have to fight another Battle of Largs against the indomitable Scots.
Although not particularly in love with one another, Alexander and his Anglo-Norman wife produced three seemingly hale children; Margaret (28 February 1261), Alexander, Prince of Scotland (21 January 1264), and David, (20 March 1272). By the time Margaret passed away in 1275, the Scottish succession seemed secure, and the king saw now need to remarry.
Alas, cruel fate would dictate that the king would outlive all three of his children. His youngest son died in the summer of 1281, then his daughter, who had married King Eric II of Norway, died after giving birth to the king’s only grandchild, Margaret, Maid of Norway, on 9 April 1283. Less than a year later, Prince Alexander died childless on 17 January 1284. Scotland was without heir.
With no other options, King Alexander called together the Estates to recognize his granddaughter Margaret of Norway as his new heir presumptive. He also began searching for a suitable bride, hoping to have more sons that would preclude leaving his kingdom to a small Norse girl who had never been to Scotland.
On 15 October 1285 the 44 year old king wed the 22 year old Yolande de Dreux at at Jedburgh Abbey. She was a daughter of the cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty and had both a large dowry and a powerful family. The king appears to have been enamored of his bride, who was soon pregnant with the hoped-for male heir.
Disaster struck just a few months later. The king was determined to spend his newly pregnant and newly-wed wife’s birthday, 19 March, with her. Although the weather was inclement (it was March in Scotland, what else would it be?) left Edinburgh Castle on 18 March 18 1286 with his retinue to go to the queen at Kinghorn in Fife.
This is where the plot thickens.
Somehow, the king became separated from his group and was found the next morning, dead on a beach at the foot of a steeply inclined hill. His neck was broken, and his kingdom was left in limbo waiting to see if Queen Yolande would bear a posthumous son for the king.
His death is peculiar enough that I cannot help but wonder if the king was ‘helped’ to his demise. Why would the king, who should have been the star around whom the courtiers orbited, have gotten lost? How would he have not known he was close to steep terrain? Considering how many people could benefit from his death (such as King Edward I or any powerful Scots family – like Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale — who hoped to marry a son or grandson to the Maid of Norway), there was certainly a possible motivation for a double agent to have done dirty deeds in the dark.
Soon after King Alexander III’s death, the Scots parliament elected the Guardians of Scotland, who were to govern the kingdom until Queen Yolande gave birth, determining if the heir was to be her son or if the crown went to Margaret of Norway.
The queen was sadly bereft of her late husband’s child, either miscarrying or giving birth to a stillborn baby that autumn. Some reports claimed that the Guardians witnessed the queen giving birth to a stillborn infant (gender unknown) on 25 November 1286, but that isn’t verified by historians. Whatever the reason for the death of Yolande’s baby, the Maid of Norway was now the queen-to-be-crowned of Scotland.
When tiny Queen Margaret died on route to Scotland, the kingdom was thrown into chaos. The loss of the heir led the Guardians of Scotland to ask King Edward I of England to mediate the dispute between the two claimants — John Balliol, Lord of Galloway and Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale — giving Edward to a chance to try to make Scotland into his vassal state. King Edward’s attempts to annex Scotland led to the bloody and decades long Wars of Scottish Independence.
All because King Alexander III died mysteriously on a cold March night.
It is funny how history during those days looked a lot like an adventurous tale such as the 3 Musketeers. It somehow seems to made up of stories rather than history.