administration resembling the county and parish councils in England, and placed the autonomous administration of the peasant communes under the supervision of landed proprietors appointed by the government. At the same time he sought to strengthen and centralize the imperial administration, and to bring it more under his personal control. In foreign affairs he was emphatically a man of peace, but not at all a partisan of the doctrine of peace at any price, and he followed the principle that the best means of averting war is to be well prepared for it. Though indignant at the conduct of Prince Bismarck towards Russia, he avoided an open rupture with Germany, and even revived for a time the Three Emperors’ Alliance. It was only in the last years of his reign, when M. Katkov had acquired a certain influence over him, that he adopted towards the cabinet of Berlin a more hostile attitude, and even then he confined himself to keeping a large quantity of troops near the German frontier, and establishing cordial relations with France. With regard to Bulgaria he exercised similar self-control. The efforts of Prince Alexander and afterwards of Stamboloff to destroy Russian influence in the principality excited his indignation, but he persistently vetoed all proposals to intervene by force of arms. In Central Asian affairs he followed the traditional policy of gradually extending Russian domination without provoking a conflict with Great Britain, and he never allowed the bellicose partisans of a forward policy to get out of hand. As a whole his reign cannot be regarded as one of the eventful periods of Russian history; but it must be admitted that under his hard unsympathetic rule the country made considerable progress. He died at Livadia on the 1st of November 1894, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Nicholas II. (D. M. W.)
ALEXANDER I. (c. 1078–1124), king of Scotland, was the fourth son of Malcolm Canmore by his wife (St) Margaret, grand-niece of Edward the Confessor. On the death of his brother Edgar in 1107 he succeeded to the Scottish crown; but, in accordance with Edgar’s instructions, he inherited only a part of its possessions. By a partition, the motive of which is not quite certain, the districts south of the Forth and Clyde were erected into an earldom for Alexander’s younger brother, David. Alexander, dissatisfied, sought to obtain the whole, but without success. A curious combination of the fierce warrior and the pious churchman, he manifested the one aspect of his character in his ruthless suppression of an insurrection in his northern dominion (thus gaining for himself the title of “the Fierce”), the other in his munificent foundation of bishoprics and abbeys. Among the latter were those of Scone and Inchcolm. His strong championship of the independence of the Scottish church involved him in struggles with both the English metropolitan sees. He died on the 27th of April 1124, and was succeeded by his brother, David I.
ALEXANDER II. (1198–1249), king of Scotland, son of William the Lion and Ermengarde of Beaumont, was born at Haddington in 1198, and succeeded to the kingdom on the death of his father in 1214. The year after his accession the clans MacWilliam and MacHeth, inveterate enemies of the Scottish crown, broke into revolt; but the insurrection was speedily quelled. In the same year Alexander joined the English barons in their struggle against John, and led an army into England in support of their cause; but on the conclusion of peace after John’s death between his youthful son Henry III. and the French prince Louis, the Scottish king was included in the pacification. The reconciliation thus effected was further strengthened by the marriage of Alexander to Henry’s sister Joanna in 1221. The next year was marked by the subjection of the hitherto semi-independent district of Argyll. A revolt in Galloway in 1235 was crushed without difficulty; nor did an invasion attempted soon afterwards by its exiled leaders meet with any better fortune. Soon afterwards a claim for homage from Henry of England drew forth from Alexander a counter-claim to the northern English counties. The dispute, however, was settled by a compromise in 1237. A threat of invasion by Henry in 1243 for a time interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries; but the prompt action of Alexander in anticipating his attack, and the disinclination of the English barons for war, compelled him to make peace next year at Newcastle. Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western Isles, which still owned a nominal dependence on Norway. Negotiations and purchase were successively tried but without success. Alexander next attempted to seduce Ewen, the son of Duncan, lord of Argyll, from his allegiance to the Norwegian king. Ewen refused his overtures, and Alexander sailed forth to compel him. But on the way he was seized with fever at Kerrera, and died there on the 8th of July 1249.
ALEXANDER III. (1241–1285), king of Scotland, son of Alexander II. by his second wife Mary de Coucy, was born in 1241. At the age of eight years the death of his father called him to the throne. The years of his minority were marked by an embittered struggle for the control of affairs between two rival parties, the one led by Walter Comyn, earl of Menteith, the other by Alan Durward, the justiciar. The former was in the ascendant during the early years of the reign. At the marriage of Alexander to Margaret of England in 1251, Henry III. seized the opportunity to demand from his son-in-law homage for the Scottish kingdom, but the claim was refused. In 1255 an interview between the English and Scottish kings at Kelso resulted in the deposition of Menteith and his party in favour of their opponents. But though disgraced, they still retained great influence; and two years later, seizing the person of the king, they compelled their rivals to consent to the erection of a regency representative of both parties. On attaining his majority in 1262, Alexander declared his intention of resuming the projects on the Western Isles which had been cut short by the death of his father thirteen years before. A formal claim was laid before the Norwegian king Haakon. Not only was this unsuccessful, but next year Haakon replied by a formidable invasion. Sailing round the west coast of Scotland he halted off Arran, where negotiations were opened. These were artfully prolonged by Alexander until the autumn storms should begin. At length Haakon, weary of delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific storm which greatly damaged his ships. The battle of Largs, fought next day, was indecisive. But even so Haakon’s position was hopeless. Baffled he turned homewards, but died on the way. The Isles now lay at Alexander’s feet, and in 1266 Haakon’s successor concluded a treaty by which the Isle of Man and the Western Isles were ceded to Scotland in return for a money payment, Orkney and Shetland alone being retained. Towards the end of Alexander’s reign, the death of all his three children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his grand-daughter Margaret, the “Maid of Norway”; and next year the desire for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage. But all such hopes were defeated by the sudden death of the king, who was killed by a fall from his horse in the dark while riding to visit the queen at Kinghorn on the 16th of March 1285.
ALEXANDER (Alexander Obrenovich) (1876–1903), king of Servia, was born on the 14th of August 1876. On the 6th of March 1889 his father, King Milan, abdicated and proclaimed him king of Servia under a regency until he should attain his majority at eighteen years of age. King Alexander, on the 13th of April 1893, being then in his seventeenth year, made his notable first coup d'état, proclaimed himself of full age, dismissed the regents and their government, and took the royal authority into his own hands. His action was popular, and was rendered still more so by his appointment of a radical ministry. In May 1894 King Alexander, by another coup d'état, abolished the liberal constitution of 1889 and restored the conservative one of 1869. His attitude during the Turco-Greek war of 1897 was one of strict neutrality. In 1898 he appointed his father commander-in-chief of the Servian army, and from that time, or rather from his return to Servia in 1894 until 1900, ex-king Milan was regarded as the de facto ruler of the country. But while, during the summer of 1900, Milan was away from Servia taking waters in Carlsbad, and making arrangements to secure the hand of a German princess for his son, and while the
