Richard Oram - Kings & Queens of Scotland

THE EDITOR & CONTRIBUTORS

RO Dr Richard Oram, University of Stirling

MP Dr Michael Penman, University of Stirling

CM Dr Christine McGladdery, University of St Andrews

MM Dr Maureen Meikle, University of Sunderland

THE EDITOR

R ICHARD O RAM is Lecturer in Medieval Scottish History and

Environmental History at the University of Stirling, editor of History Scotland the popular Scottish history magazine, and editor of Tempuss Scottish Monarchs royal biography series. His other books include Lordship of Galloway, Scottish Prehistory and David I: The King Who Made Scotland, also published by Tempus.

THE CONTRIBUTORS

C HRISTINE M C G LADDERY is Honorary Lecturer at the University of St Andrews, her other books include James II.

M AUREEN M. M EIKLE is Senior Lecturer in History in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Sunderland. She was co-editor, with Elizabeth Ewan, of Women in Scotland c.1100-c. 1750. She is currently writing Anna, Queen of Scots, for Tempus.

M ICHAEL P ENMAN is Lecturer in History at the University of Stirling.

His books include David II and The Scottish Civil War:

The Bruces & the Balliols & the War for Control of Scotland (Tempus). He is currently researching a new history of the battle of Bannockburn for Tempus.

First published in 2001

This edition first published 2004

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

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This ebook edition first published in 2011

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Richard Oram, 2001, 2004, 2011

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Original typesetting by The History Press

T he kingship of the Scots, as a component of the modern British crown, is one of the oldest monarchies in the world. Its origins can be traced with a fair degree of confidence to the early sixth century AD and the kingship of the migrant Scots of Dl Riata in Ulster, who established a kingdom, also named Dl Riata, in the peninsulas and islands of the southwestern Highlands of the country we know as Scotland. While the main purpose of this book is to trace the lives of the men and women, descendants of these first colonist kings, who occupied the throne of Scotland from the mid-eleventh to early eighteenth centuries, it will also explore the processes that brought mastery of the Scottish mainland to these heirs of piratical Irish warlords. In addition, however, it will also chart the histories of the other kingdoms and peoples with whom the Scots shared the north of Britain Britons and Picts who made their own unique contribution to the character and culture of the later kingdom. The first part of the book focuses on the usually violent processes by which the early rulers of the Scots gradually extended their mastery over the northern British mainland. It is a bloody and in places bewildering catalogue of heroes and villains, who almost literally carved their path to the throne and strove to extend their power over the land. From the violence and mayhem of these formative years, however, emerged a powerful monarchy that succeeded in projecting its authority over what we would now recognise as Scotland.

By the thirteenth century, the kings of Scots had emerged as one of the two most powerful rulers in the British Isles, controlling a kingdom that dominated the north of these islands. Having eliminated the last domestic challenges to their position, the later Canmore kings turned their energies towards welding what was still a disunited kingdom into a unified realm. It is testimony to their achievement that when their dynasty died out, the kingdom did not die with them but hung on to its new-found unity and growing sense of national identity in the face of seemingly insuperable threats to its independent status. Scotlands kings provided the nation with a focus that ensured its survival in the face of the ambitions of Englands powerful Plantagenet rulers.

The traumas of the Wars of Independence and the civil wars between the supporters of Balliol and Bruce served to underpin the nations identity in the fourteenth century. The legacy of these events was a fierce chauvinism that took as its focus the Stewart kings. The drive and ambition of that remarkable family saw Scotland emerge as a powerful player on the European stage, re-establishing contacts that led to a cultural cross-fertilisation from which grew the distinctive Scottish cultural identity of the later Middle Ages and Renaissance. The strident nationalism of the fifteenth century, however, gave way to a hard-headed realism in the sixteenth century as Scotland again moved closer politically to its neighbour and Auld inimie, England. It was perhaps the supreme irony of British history that, after centuries of struggle by kings of England to impose their mastery over the northern kingdom, it was a Scottish king who came south to rule as the first monarch of a united realm. It was not, however, a marriage made in heaven and there were several occasions when it seemed that the union would end in acrimonious divorce. In the end, however, it was the very threat of separation that forced both Scotland and England to reconsider their mutual interests, the result being the 1707 Act of Union. Of course, 1707 is not the end of the tale, which is still growing and evolving, but it marked a significant new departure in the history of Scotlands rulers as they moved towards a British and Imperial future. Thus, with the death of Anne, the last of the direct Stewart line to rule in these islands, we come to the end of a story that spans over one thousand years. The words of the earl of Seafield when Scotlands old parliament voted itself out of existence in 1707 are equally appropriate here. Theres ane end of ane auld sang.

In the first chapter, many of the names of the kings and great lords will be unfamiliar to most readers. The forms of the names used are, as close as possible, the Gaelic or Brittonic (the language of the Britons and Picts, akin to modern Welsh) versions by which these individuals would have been known. From the emergence of the Picto-Scottish kingdom of Alba, the names of the rulers are given in Gaelic with the modern anglicised form in brackets afterwards. From the mid-eleventh century onwards, the names are given in their most common modern forms. Place-names are generally given in their modern form, but occasionally older forms are used.