having arranged his plans, proclaimed war against Alexander, and assembled a large army at Newcastle. Some troops sent by John de Couci to the assistance of his brother-in-law were intercepted, and the English king had prevailed upon several Irish chiefs to effect a diversion in his favour by landing on the Scottish coast. The country prepared for a vigorous resistance, but actual hostilities were prevented by a peace concluded at Newcastle in the month of August, when Alexander agreed always to bear good faith and love towards his liege lord Henry of England, and never to make an alliance with the enemies of Henry or his heirs.

Alexander II., who died in 1249, in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, was a strenuous defender of the independence of the national church, without, however, doing much to aggrandize it. He founded eight monasteries for the Dominicans, or Black Friars, considering probably that the mendicant orders would be the cheapest ecclesiastics. His successor was Alexander III., who in 1251 was married at York to the Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry III. On this occasion Alexander did homage for his English possessions, but eluded Henry's claim to a similar act of submission for Scotland. The early years of this reign were little else than a series of struggles between adverse factions contending for the regency.

3. Alexander III. had not long taken the management of affairs into his own hands when Haco, king of Norway, invaded Scotland. He had undertaken this expedition to punish the Earl of Ross and other chieftains who had committed the most savage excesses in the Western Isles, which were under the dominion of Norway. After compelling the inhabitants of the Orkneys and of the adjacent mainland to supply his fleet with provisions, and pay tri bute, Haco, dividing his fleet of 160 sail, sent one powerful squadron to ravage Cantire, and another to make a descent on the Isle of Bute, while he with the main body anchored in the Frith of Clyde. At first the Norwegians gained some trifling advantages, but the elements seemed to conspire against them, and many of their ships were wrecked in a tempest. Haco having collected his shattered vessels near the village of Largs, landed a strong

force, which the Scots attacked and defeated with great slaughter. He then retired to the Orkneys, where he died; and a peace was concluded after a protracted negotiation, by which the sovereignty of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man was ceded by Norway to Scotland.

In

In 1281, Eric, king of Norway, married Alexander's daughter, the Princess Margaret, who died in 1283, leaving only an infant daughter, "the Maiden of Norway," who in the following year, by the decease of all her grandfather's children, became the direct heir to the Scottish crown. 1286, Alexander was killed by the fall of his horse over a high cliff, now known as King's Wood End, between Kinghorn and Burntisland, in Fifeshire. A regency was immediately appointed; but plots were soon afterwards laid to set aside the infant Margaret, and place Robert de Bruce on the vacant throne. Bruce was the son of Isabella, one of the daughters of David, earl of Huntingdon, the brother of William the Lion. In 1286, it was agreed, at a meeting held in Turnberry Castle, Ayrshire, the seat of Bruce's son, Robert, earl of Carrick in his wife's right, to adhere to one another on all occasions, and to him who should gain the throne as rightful heir of the late monarch. Their intention appears to have been to obtain the crown for Bruce, and to secure this they were prepared to acknowledge Edward as lord paramount of Scotland.

In the year 1289, Eric communicated with the King of England on the affairs of his daughter, and at Edward's request the Scottish regency sent three of its members to attend a solemn deliberation to be held at Salisbury, where it was agreed that the infant princess should be brought to England, Edward engaging to send her into Scotland, whenever order was so established in that country that she might live there in security. He also had procured a dispensation from the pope for her marriage to her cousin, his eldest son; an alliance exceedingly gratifying to the Scottish Estates. But all these arrangements fell to the 1290. ground by the death of Margaret on her way to Britain.

A.D.

4. COMPETITORS FOR THE CROWN.-The news of the youthful queen's decease spread grief and consternation throughout Scotland. A remarkable fatality had pursued

the Scottish royal family for more than a century; and although William the Lion and his posterity had contracted no fewer than ten marriages, not one descendant of that king was now in existence. Numerous competitors, it was foreseen, would lay claim to the vacant throne; and to prevent a long and fierce controversy, the Estates of Scotland solicited the advice and mediation of Edward. A conference accordingly took place, on the 10th of May 1291, at Norham, on the southern side of the Tweed, in which the English king distinctly insisted on the recognition of his title as superior and lord paramount of Scotland, before any other business could be proceeded with. His demand not being conceded, the meeting was adjourned for a month, when the same parties again assembled on a green called Holywell Haugh, within the Scottish territory. Here ten competitors appeared, all of whom, except Baliol, Bruce, and Hastings, subsequently withdrew their pretensions. These founded their claims on their descent from the three daughters of David, earl of Huntingdon, younger brother of William the Lion. Margaret, the eldest, married Alan of Galloway, whose eldest daughter, Devorgoil, became the wife of John de Baliol of Bernard Castle, to whom she bore a son, John Baliol. The second daughter, Isabella, married Robert Bruce, by whom she had a son, Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick in right of his wife. Ada, the third daughter, was married to Henry Hastings, from which union proceeded John Hastings. According to the modern rules of succession, Baliol's claims were unquestionable; the descendants of the eldest daughter, however remote, being preferred to those of the younger, however near. Baliol was the grandson of David's eldest daughter; Bruce and Hastings were the sons of his younger daughters. But the modern rules of succession were then only in a state of formation, and it was not unnatural that a grandson, though by a younger daughter, should be considered nearer than a great-grandson by an elder. The proceedings at Holywell Haugh were opened by Bruce's acknowledgment of Edward as "Lord Paramount of Scotland," and all the other competitors followed his example. It was then agreed that a commission of 104 persons, named by Edward, Baliol, and Bruce, should be appointed to

examine into the case, and report to Edward; and the regents of Scotland soon afterwards surrendered the kingdom into Edward's hands, the governors of the castles doing the same with their respective trusts. Edward then made a progress into Scotland, visiting Edinburgh, St Andrews, Linlithgow, and Stirling, calling upon persons of every rank to sign the rolls of homage. The final decision of the cause did not take place till the 17th of November 1292, when the English sovereign, in the great hall of Berwick castle, decided "that John Baliol should have seisin of the kingdom of Scotland;" Edward, now as on previous occasions, protesting "that the judgment he had thus given should not impair his claim to the property of Scotland.' On the 19th, the regents and keepers of castles were ordered to surrender their trusts to the new king, and the great seal used by the regency was broken, and the fragments were deposited in the treasury of England, "in testimony to future ages of England's right of superiority over Scotland." Baliol, the next day, swore fealty to Edward at Norham, and on the 30th was solemnly crowned at Scone. Before the end of the year he passed into England and did homage for his kingdom at Newcastle.

5. Some explanations are necessary that it may be understood how readily not only the competitors for the crown, but many other nobles belonging to Scotland, were prepared to sell their country to England. The two nations had not been at that time, as they afterwards became, accustomed to look upon each other as natural enemies who had been at war for centuries. Under the Saxon system, there was sometimes more or less of the country of Scotland attached to the whole or a part of England, and the people north of the Tweed were no more strangers to their neighbours on the other side, than these were to the people south of the Humber. When the Normans came they were not liked either by the Saxons or the Scots, but this only united the original inhabitants of both countries the more closely together, in so far that, as we have seen before, the Scots readily joined the Saxons when they rose against the NorThe Normans, who were ambitious and aggrandizing, and who were likewise accomplished and courtly, became favourites of the Scottish kings, and obtained large

mans.

grants of land from them, so that they rose, just as in England, to be the great lords of the soil, while the original population were their humble retainers. If we look at old charter books of property immediately before the death of Alexander III., we find that Scotland was full of Norman names such as De Courceys, De Quinceys, De Viponts, &c. These names disappeared from Scotland after the war with England which will be presently described, and they were succeeded by such Scottish names as Scott, Graham, Douglas, and Bell.

It could not be expected that these Norman barons, many of whom had newly come from England and still preserved lands there, would have any patriotic feeling for Scotland, or would care whether it was ruled over by an Englishman or a Scotchman. The competitors for the crown were themselves Norman barons, and it was quite natural that they did not care for the independence of the country, but that each was prepared to do homage to Edward provided he was preferred to the others. On the other hand, the Celtic population on the west coast, the ancestors of the present highlanders, could have no anxiety to see an independent king on the throne of Scotland. Some of their own chiefs thought they had as good a right to be independent monarchs as the King of Scots had, and they wished to have a highland kingdom, independent of the lowland king, just as he might wish to be free of homage to the King of England. These highland chiefs were subsequently among Bruce's bitterest enemies. Thus it happened that the Norman aristocracy of Scotland, and the inhabitants of the highlands, had no interest in the country being separate and free, and so the only class whom we shall find for some time heroically fighting for their national existence was the lowland common people who followed Wallace.

6. Before Edward, after having been interrupted by the outbreak of the Welsh, could resume his preparations for the French war, he learned with surprise that the Scottish barons had prevailed on their monarch to assert his independence, that an alliance had been concluded between Baliol and Philip, and that Jane, eldest daughter of Charles of Valois, Philip's brother, was affianced to the youthful