Death of Alexander III of Scotland

Death of Alexander III of Scotland

Alexander III, was born at Roxburgh on the 4th September 1241.
He was the only son of Alexander II by his second wife Marie de Coucy.

Alexander’s father died on 6th July 1249, making 8 year old Alexander King of Scotland.

On 26th December 1251, 10 year old Alexander married 11 year old Princess Margaret of England.
Princess Margaret was the daughter of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence.

Margaret died in 1275, after they had had three children together.
Alexander did not spend his decade as a widower, alone.

When the fancy seized him, he would visit nuns or matrons, virgins or widows, sometimes in disguise.

On attaining his majority at the age of 21 in 1262, Alexander laid a formal claim before the Norwegian king Haakon, for The Western Isles.

Haakon rejected the claim, and in the following year responded with a formidable invasion.

The battle of Largs in October 1263 proved indecisive, but even so, Haakon’s position was hopeless.
He turned homewards, but died in the Orkneys on 15th December 1263.

In 1266 Haakon’s successor concluded the Treaty of Perth, by which he ceded the Isle of Man and the Western Isles to Scotland, in return for a monetary payment.
Norway retained only Orkney and Shetland in the area.

The Isles now lay at Alexander’s feet.

Towards the end of Alexander’s reign, the death of all three of his children made the question of the succession one of pressing importance.

The need for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage to Yolande de Dreux on 1st November 1285.

Alexander’s sudden death dashed all such hopes.

On a stormy evening of 19th March 1285, Alexander was riding to visit his queen to celebrate her birthday the following day, at Kinghorn in Fife.

Alexander ignored the repeated warnings about travelling in a storm, and set off with his retinue and two local guides.
He then became separated from his guides, and it is assumed that in the dark, his horse lost its footing.

The 44 year old king was found dead with a broken neck, on the shore the following morning.

While some texts say that he fell off a cliff, there is none at the site where his body was found.
There was however, a very steep rocky embankment, which would have been fatal in the dark.

Alexander was buried in Dunfermline Abbey.

As Alexander left no surviving children, the heir to the throne was his unborn child by Queen Yolande.

When Yolande’s pregnancy ended in a still-birth in November of 1286, Alexander’s granddaughter Margaret became the heir.

Unfortunately Margaret died, still uncrowned, on her way to Scotland in 1290.

With Alexander’s death, and no successor, his realm was plunged into a period of darkness that would eventually lead to war with England.

??????? Alexander III, King of Scotland c.1684-86
By Jacob Jacobsz De Wet II.

Great Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse