THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND

IN THE

THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

CHAPTER I.

The Monarchs of Scotland in the Thirteenth

WHEN

Century.

HEN the thirteenth century dawned upon Scotland, William the Lion was upon the throne. He was the brother of Malcolm IV.-his predecessor-second son of the lamented Prince Henry, grandson of David I., and great-grandson of Malcolm III. (Canmore) and his Saxon queen, Margaret. William, who was born in 1143, ascended the throne on 9th December 1165, and was crowned at Scone on Christmas Eve of that year. Having in the early part of his reign imprudently quarrelled with Henry II. of England about the territory of Northumberland, and

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having still more imprudently risked his person in an encounter at Alnwick, he was captured by some Norman barons, and sent a prisoner to the castle of Falaise, in Normandy. This unfortunate result was most prejudicial to the interests of Scotland. For, in order to obtain his liberty, William, with the consent of his barons and clergy, entered into a treaty with Henry, by which he made dishonourable concessions to the English monarch, and bartered away the independence of his country. Not only so, but as a security for the fulfilment of the treaty obligations, hostages were demanded by Henry, and the fortresses of Edinburgh, Berwick, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, and Stirling were garrisoned by English troops. The terms of this treaty, however, although degrading to the country, did not in any way compromise the liberties and independence of the Church of Scotland. The clergy of that Church, at all times jealous of the claims put forth by the Metropolitan Sees of York and Canterbury, boldly asserted their independence in presence of a Papal Legate, in a conference at Northampton (1176-77); and this independence was confirmed by Pope Clement III. in a decree issued by him in the year 1188. When Henry II. died, and Richard Coeur de Lion was seated

on the English throne, the latter monarch, being in want of money for a crusade, William, by a payment of ten thousand merks, obtained back again the privileges and rights which had been surrendered by the Treaty of Falaise; and that document having been delivered up and cancelled, the independence of Scotland was once more secured. The Scottish monarch seems to have profited by this unfortunate occurrence. For ever afterwards he showed the most sterling qualities, and stood manfully up for the independence of his kingdom and the Church. He had frequently to put down insurrections in Galloway, Ross, and Caithness, caused chiefly by jealousies between his Celtic and Anglo-Norman barons; and after a reign of nearly half a century -the longest, indeed, of any Scottish monarchWilliam died at Stirling on the 4th December 1214, in the seventy-second year of his age. His remains were interred in the magnificent Benedictine Monastery of Aberbrothoc (Arbroath), which in 1173 he had founded and endowed, and dedicated to St Mary and the pious memory of Thomas à-Becket.

William was succeeded on the throne by his son Alexander II., a youth then only in the seventeenth year of his age; but whose early

promise after-years fully justified, for he became one of the ablest, wisest, and most active of Scottish kings. Alexander was born in 1198, his mother's name being Ermengarde, and he was crowned at Scone in circumstances of great pomp by William de Malvoisin, Bishop of St Andrews, on the Friday before the Feast of St Nicholas, 1214, being the day after his father's death, in presence of the Earls of Fife, Stratherne, Atholl, Angus, Menteith, Buchan, and Lothian. On the 25th June 1221, Alexander married Joan, daughter of King John, and eldest sister of Henry III. of England; and the Queen of Scotland having died without issue on 4th March 1237-38, he married again on 15th May 1239, Mary, daughter of Ingelram de Couci of Picardy, and by her he had a son, Alexander, born at Roxburgh on 4th September 1241. In the early part of his reign, and indeed before his first marriage, the Scottish monarch took part with the barons of England in resisting the tyranny of King John, and thereby assisted to call forth that famous instrument known as "Magna Charta." For this action Alexander was excommunicated by the Pope; but not only did this high-minded monarch, and great Church protector, disregard the spiritual sentence of Rome, but when a Papal Legate (Otho) sub

sequently entered the kingdom, and held a council at Edinburgh, the sovereign refused to see him, and only permitted the council to be held upon condition that it should not be drawn into a precedent. In the year 1244, Alexander was prudent enough to avoid a war with Henry III. of England, although the Scottish monarch mustered an army of 100,000 men in the prospect of a conflict; but having on one occasion led an expedition against some troublesome petty chiefs in the West Highlands of Scotland, the king was seized with a fever, and died in the small island of Kerrera, near Oban, on 8th July 1249, in the fifty-first year of his age and the thirty-fifth of his reign. His remains were interred in Melrose Abbey.

Alexander III. was only in the eighth year of his age when his father died. He was crowned at Scone on 13th July 1249, by David de Bernham, Bishop of St Andrews, in presence of the principal nobles and clergy of the kingdom. On the 26th December 1257, he married Margaret, daughter of Henry III. of England, and there were three children born of this marriage―viz., Margaret, born in 1262, married Eric, King of Norway, in 1281, died in 1283, leaving one child, Margaret, the Maiden of Norway; Alexander,