XI.—ALEXANDERS OF SCOTLAND.
ALEXANDER I., king of Scotland, was the fifth son of Malcolm Canmore, by his queen Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling. The date of his birth is unknown, but he was in the prime of life when he succeeded his brother Edgar, January 8, 1106-7. Soon after his accession he married Sybilla, one of the numerous illegitimate daughters of Henry I. of England, the husband of Alexander's sister Matilda or Maud. The principal event of Alexander's reign was his contest with the archbishops of Canterbury and York in behalf of the independence of the Scottish church. When Turgot, a monk of Durham, and the author of the "Life of Queen Margaret," was appointed to the bishopric of St. Andrews in 1109, the right to consecrate the new bishop was claimed by both of the prelates referred to, while Alexander and the Scottish clergy denied that it belonged to either. The dispute was compromised on this occasion, but it was renewed on the death of Turgot in 1115. After the lapse of five years, Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, was nominated to the vacant see, and, in conjunction with the English prelates, used every effort to obtain the recognition of their assumed authority over the Scottish clergy, but without effect. Alexander refused to listen to their pretensions, and in the end succeeded in completely vindicating the ecclesiastical independence of his kingdom. Alexander appears to have been a monarch of good abilities, and great courage and firmness of character, though of a somewhat imperious and passionate disposition. In the chronicles and traditions of Scotland, he is distinguished by the epithet of "The Fierce," "because," says David Chalmers, "he was ane gritt punisher of malefactours and evil-doars. He dantonit Murray and Ross that had rebellit, and caused hang the Lord of Mernis' brother and sone, because they took away the guids of ane puir wyff." Alexander was a liberal benefactor to the church. Besides large grants to the church of St. Andrews, the monastery of Dunfermline, founded by his parents, and other ecclesiastical establishments, he erected the monastery of St. Colm on the island of Inchcolm in the frith of Forth, in gratitude for his preservation on that island from a tempest in which he had nearly perished. Alexander died on the 27th of April, 1124, after a reign of seventeen years and three months, and, leaving no issue, was succeeded by his brother David.—(Eadmer's Historia Novorum; Ailred's Descriptio Belli Standardi, and Genealog. Reg. Anglor.; Wyntown's Cronykil of Scotland; Hailes' Annals of Scotland, vol. i.. Pictorial Hist. of Scotland, vol. i.)—J. T.
ALEXANDER II., the son of William the Lion, and his wife Ermingarde, was born in 1198. He succeeded his father December 4, 1214, and was crowned at Scone on the 10th. One of the first acts of his reign was to enter into an alliance with the English barons who had taken up arms against the infamous King John, in the expectation of regaining the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland. John was so incensed that he marched to the north at the head of a savage host of mercenaries, the outcasts of Europe, and laid waste the country from the Tyne to the Forth, vowing, as Matthew Paris informs us, that he would "smoke the little red fox out of his covert;" "because," the historian adds, "Alexander was of a red or ruddy, complexion." Alexander having raised a powerful force to repel this invasion, John was forced to retreat to the south, as he was disinclined to risk a battle, and unable to remain any longer in a district which his merciless barbarity had reduced to a desert. In retaliation for these outrages, Alexander marched into England, and laid waste the western border counties. He then proceeded to the south to join Prince Louis of France, whom the insurgent barons had invited over to their assistance. On his way he made himself master of the town of Carlisle, and at Dover he is said to have done homage to Louis for the estates which he held from the king of England. The French prince and the English barons on their part expressly recognized the right of the Scottish king to the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland. After the death of John (1216), Alexander was excommunicated by the papal legate for his adherence to the cause of the insurgents, but the sentence seems to have been very little regarded either by the clergy or the people of Scotland. Next year, however, Louis was ignominiously defeated at Lincoln, and made peace with Henry III., the young king of England, without consulting his Scottish ally. Alexander on this effected his reconciliation, both with Henry and the papal see. The bonds of amity between the two sovereigns were strengthened by the marriage of the king of Scots, 25th June, 1221, to the Princess Joan, Henry's eldest sister. A long period of uninterrupted peace followed this union, which enabled Alexander to turn his undivided attention to the regulation of the affairs of his own kingdom. About the year 1234, however, dissensions began to arise between Henry and Alexander, in consequence of the revival, on the part of the former, of the claim to the homage of the Scottish kings, and his support of the pretensions of the archbishop of York to the right of officiating at their coronation. Alexander, on the other hand, demanded the restitution of the three northern counties, which he claimed in right of inheritance, and complained that the English king had failed to perform the conditions of a treaty entered into by his father John, and for which he had received 15,000 marks. These claims were ultimately arranged in 1237, by the settlement on Alexander of certain lands in Northumberland and Cumberland, of the yearly value of two hundred pounds. In the following year, the queen of Scots, who had long suffered from a painful disease, died at Canterbury without issue. On the 15th of May, 1239, Alexander married at Roxburgh, Mary, daughter of Ingelram de Couci, surnamed "Le Grand," the head of a great family in Picardy. The good understanding between the two monarchs was so little affected at first by this marriage, that when Henry was about to set out in 1242 on his expedition to France, he confided to Alexander the care of the borders. In that year, however, an unfortunate event occurred, which led to the interruption of their alliance, and had nearly plunged the two countries into a war. Walter Bisset, a member of a powerful family in the north, was overthrown by the earl of Athol at a tournament held at Haddington. A day or two after, Athol was murdered. Popular suspicion ascribed the deed to the Bissets, and the Scottish nobility flew to arms, and demanded vengeance both on Walter Bisset and his uncle William, the chief of the family. Alexander and his queen did everything in their power to protect the accused from the fury of their enemies, but in vain. Bisset and his kinsmen were stripped of their estates, and compelled to swear that they would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and there, for the remainder of their lives, pray for the soul of the murdered earl. But instead of performing his vow, Bisset repaired to the English court, and sought to inflame Henry against the Scottish king, by artfully representing that the English monarch was lord superior of Scotland, and that Alexander, being his vassal, had no right to inflict such punishments on his nobles without the permission of his liege lord. Moved by these representations, and perhaps also by other motives, Henry, in 1244, determined on an immediate invasion of Scotland, and, assembling a large army, marched to Newcastle. Alexander, on the other hand, nothing daunted at these preparations, raised a force amounting, according to Matthew Paris, to about 100,000 men, and prepared to repel the unprovoked invasion. But the Scottish king, as Paris tells us, was "a devout, upright, and courteous person, justly beloved by all the English nation, no less than by his own subjects;" and by the mediation of the English nobles, a treaty was concluded without bloodshed, and on equitable terms.
Almost the only other events worthy of notice in the life of Alexander, are the insurrections that broke out from time to time among the Celtic portion of his subjects, who endeavoured to assert the ancient principle of succession. In 1215 a disturbance arose in the province of Moray, which was suppressed by the head of the clan Ross. Seven years later a similar insurrection broke out in Argyleshire, which was put down by Alexander in person. Again, in 1228 Gillespie Mac Scolane, who seems to have been the representative of the ancient royal line, took up arms in the north, near the town of Inverness, and baffled the king himself. But next year both the pretender and his two sons were put to death by the earl of Buchan, justiciary of the kingdom; and though no further attempt seems to have been made to dispute the succession to the throne, the Celtic population still clung to their ancient customs. In 1233 the people of Galloway, who were of the Celtic race, on the death without male heirs of their chief, Alan, high constable of Scotland, and the most powerful subject in the kingdom, resolutely opposed the partition of their country among his three daughters, and, headed by an illegitimate son of the late lord, and an Irish chief called Gilderoy, took up arms in vindication of their ancient rights, and were not put down without great difficulty. In 1249
