Divorced, Beheaded, Died: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks (12 page)

But as Elizabeth’s children grew up, in a less morally restrained age, and hit marital difficulties, the public image of the monarchy began to change. The divorces of three of her four children, and particularly the problems between her oldest son Charles and his first wife Diana, caused the role of the monarchy to be seriously questioned. The almost frenzied media interest in the royals’ private troubles threatened to destroy the institution of monarchy altogether. Elizabeth was accused of cold formality in her dealings with her family, particularly with regard to how she dealt with the tragic death of Diana in a car crash in 1997. But the Queen’s unswerving devotion to duty seems to have held off the most dangerous of the criticisms.

Some would rather Charles never became king, but a lifetime of public service and a late middle age with his second wife, the dignified Camilla, may restore his reputation. What does seem clear is that Charles’s eldest son Prince William has been brought up in the Windsor tradition of quiet, dedicated public service.

The Monarchs of Scotland

Scotland has a very complicated history of kingship. In the first century Ptolemy described eighteen tribes, each presumably with its own king. Eventually, they converged into the kingdom of Pictland. The Picts (derived from the Roman name for ‘painted people’) were Britons who spoke the Brythonic dialect of Celtic. There are suggestions that there were seven separate kings in Pictland. Irish Gaels settled in the west and formed the kingdom of Dal Riata (modern day Argyll, and Bute and Lochaber). North of Hadrian’s Wall emerged another kingdom, Alt Clut (later Strathclyde), which was made up mainly of native Britons who had been driven north by the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Scotland emerged when Pictland and Dal Riata came together in the ninth century. Strathclyde was joined to Scotland at around the end of the eleventh century.

A
B
RIEF
H
ISTORY OF
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HE
R
OYAL
H
OUSES OF
S
COTLAND

House of Alpin 843–1034

Founded by Kenneth I MacAlpin, the dynasty saw Scotland go from a collection of warring tribes to a unified kingdom; it ended with Malcolm II.

House of Dunkeld 1034–1286 (or 1290)

Childless, Malcolm II passed the crown to his grandson Duncan I, beginning the House of Dunkeld. Alexander III’s death ended it and sparked a succession crisis.

House of Fairhair 1286–90

Disputed because the young Queen Margaret died aged seven, while travelling to Scotland to be crowned.

First interregnum 1290–2

With no obvious ruler, the Guardians of Scotland asked Edward I of England to arbitrate. He agreed, but forced the Scots to swear allegiance to him.

House of Balliol 1292–6

Edward appointed John de Balliol to the throne in 1292, but Edward’s attitude to Scotland led John to ally with France.

Second interregnum 1296–1306

Edward invaded, igniting the Scots Wars of Independence. After Wallace’s execution, Robert the Bruce claimed power, becoming Robert I in 1306.

House of Bruce 1306–71

In 1307 Edward I died and was succeeded by his weaker son, Edward II. Defeat forced England to accept Scottish independence.

House of Stewart 1371–1567

Robert’s son David II succeeded him but died childless. David’s nephew Robert Stewart became Robert II, inaugurating Britain’s longest-serving royal house, which saw Scotland develop into a modern state.

House of Stuart 1567–1651

When Mary I acceded, she adopted the French form ‘Stuart’. From 1603, her son James was also King of England and Ireland (James VI and I). The governments remained separate, but the monarchy was now mainly London-based.

The Commonwealth of England 1652–60

After the English Civil War, Scotland was subsumed into the Commonwealth under Cromwell. The Scots had supported Parliament, but crowned Charles II in 1651, provoking Cromwell’s invasion.

House of Stuart restored 1660–1707

After the Restoration, the Kingdom of Scotland was reinstated but its Parliament dissolved. England and Scotland were united by the 1707 Act of Union under Queen Anne, the last monarch of Scotland and of England, and the first of Great Britain.

K
ENNETH
M
AC
A
LPIN (
C
INÁED MAC
A
ILPÍN)

Reigned 843–858/9

By tradition, it is claimed that Kenneth the Conqueror was the first heroic King of Scotland, though he was not called that in his lifetime. His origins are uncertain, but he is said to have become King of Galloway in 834, King of the Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riata in 841 and in 843 he became King of Pictland, thus forming the modern kingdom of Scotland. With claims to both the Pictish and Gaelic thrones, he could unite the two factions into the Kingdom of Alba. His rule of Pictland was contested, but seven years later he arranged a truce at Scone where, according to legend, he murdered his rival, Drest. Kenneth I also supposedly repelled a Viking invasion in 840. He was succeeded by his brother, Donald, and then his son, Constantine I, and his dynasty continued until 1034.

Some modern scholars are unwilling to support the claim that he was the first King of Scotland because there were other kings of Pictland after him and they feel that the two kingdoms of Pictland and Dal Riata gradually merged over the next few generations.

D
UNCAN
I
(
D
ONNCHAD MAC
C
RÍNÁIN)

Reigned 1034–1040

Duncan ‘the Gracious’ came to the throne through his maternal grandfather, Malcolm II. Malcolm had no sons, and seems to have slaughtered the other possible male claimants to the throne. This left the way open to the unopposed accession of his daughter’s son, Duncan. Duncan’s father was the lay abbot of Dunkeld, and so the new dynasty was called the House of Dunkeld. Duncan’s marriage to Suthen, a Northumbrian princess, led people to accuse him of favouring southern ways and his reign is mainly remembered for an infamous rivalry.

A certain Macbeth, Duncan’s cousin, was a powerful commander during the reign of Duncan. In 1039 Duncan led a disastrous attack on Durham and in 1040 his army marched into Macbeth’s territory in Moray, a region in the north-east, where he was killed by Macbeth, either in battle or murdered at Pitgaveny, near Elgin.

M
ACBETH (
M
AC
B
ETHAD MAC
F
INDLAÍCH)

Reigned 1040–1057

Macbeth was a Gaelic speaker, descended from the kings of Dal Riata. Macbeth’s father, Finlay MacRory, was the ruler of Moray until he was murdered by Gillacomgain, who took MacRory’s title. Gillacomgain was burnt to death with fifty of his followers, probably by Macbeth, who thus regained Moray. Macbeth married his dead rival’s widow, Gruoch, the granddaughter of Kenneth III. Macbeth was also possibly descended from the kings of Scotland, as it is said that his mother might have been the daughter of Malcolm II.

His claim to the throne of Scotland was therefore strong, and following the disasters of King Duncan’s reign, Macbeth seized the opportunity to kill the King and take the throne for himself. Contrary to his depiction in Shakespeare’s famous play, there is no evidence that Macbeth was particularly evil or weak. Indeed, he ruled well for nearly two decades, imposing a strong sense of law and order, encouraging Christianity and leading successful raids across the border into England. In 1050 he went on a pilgrimage to Rome. At this time, tension was building in England, and exiled Normans, supporters of Edward the Confessor, were settled in Scotland during Macbeth’s reign. Macbeth survived an Englsih invasion, but was killed in battle in 1057, by the future Malcolm III, son of Duncan I.

M
ALCOLM
III
(
M
ÁEL
C
OLUIM MAC
D
ONNCHADA)

Reigned 1058–1093

Malcolm ‘Canmore’ (meaning ‘great head or chief’) was born in 1031, the eldest son of Duncan I. After his father’s death at the hands of Macbeth in 1040, Malcolm was sent into exile, probably to England, as there is evidence of a strong Saxon influence in Malcolm’s court when he became king. The Saxon language replaced Gaelic as the court language and Malcolm gave some of his children Saxon names.

In 1054 Malcolm defeated Macbeth at Dunsinane, and then again at Lumphanan in 1057, where Macbeth was killed. Macbeth’s stepson, Lulach, briefly took the throne until Malcolm murdered him in 1058. He was the second Scottish king known to have been crowned at Scone.

Malcolm married Ingebjorg, the widow of Thorfinn, Earl of Caithness and the Orkneys, thus securing the north. After the Norman conquest of England, he accepted a lot of exiles, and he took one of them as a second wife – the deeply pious Margaret, granddaughter of Edmund II of England.

Now that he was married into the old Saxon monarchy, Malcolm helped the Saxon cause by attacking Northumbria in support of revolts against William the Conqueror. Eventually he was compelled to swear allegiance to William, but peace with Norman England was short-lived. He also fought against William II and in 1093 he successfully took Alnwick in Northumberland by siege. But while leaning forward to take the keys to the castle from the point of a lance, he was stabbed in the eye and died most painfully. His son Edward was also killed, provoking a conflict over the succession, until Malcolm’s brother, Donald III, usurped the throne. Margaret died soon after and was later canonized, becoming Scotland’s only royal saint.

R
OBERT THE
B
RUCE (
R
OBERT
I
)
(
R
OIBERT A
B
RIUIS)

Reigned 1306–1329

The royal House of Dunkeld came to an end in 1290, when the brief reign of Margaret (the Maid of Norway, granddaughter of Alexander III) ended with her death by drowning as she crossed to her kingdom. There were thirteen claimants to the throne, including the Bruce family, and Edward I of England was asked to choose between them. Edward chose John Balliol as King of Scotland (1292–1296), but he continued to interfere with Scottish affairs, to the detriment of Balliol’s reputation. A council of twelve was forced upon Balliol and they signed a peace treaty with the French, starting the ‘Auld Alliance’. Edward invaded, with the support of Robert the Bruce, and defeated the Scots at Dunbar in 1296. Balliol abdicated, and Scotland was left without a king and was ruled by Edward as part of England.

William Wallace led a revolt against the English, and Robert the Bruce switched sides and joined him. Wallace defeated the English at the famous Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, but was defeated at Falkirk a year later and Bruce and John Comyn, Balliol’s nephew, were appointed ‘Guardians of Scotland’. In 1306 Bruce stabbed and killed Comyn during an argument in a church in Dumfries. He was outlawed and excommunicated, but rather than flee, he asserted his right to the throne and was crowned.

But he was soon defeated by Edward I and Comyn’s family. Three of his brothers were executed and Bruce fled into exile for a while. In 1307 Edward died and Bruce returned to Scotland and began a highly effective campaign of guerrilla warfare. In 1314 his forces humiliated the English at the Battle of Bannockburn, mainly because of the awful leadership of Edward II. Scotland was declared independent in the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 and the English signed a peace treaty recognizing Scottish independence in 1328.

Robert the Bruce died a year later, in 1329. His son, David, became king but was overthrown by Edward Balliol, restored again, overthrown again, and finally restored. His grandson, Robert, then became the first Stewart king in 1371, the name coming from his father, Walter Stewart. The dynasty was later renamed Stuart.

J
AMES
IV