by Marc Morris
An appreciation of their aesthetic qualities, though, and of the contribution they made to the prestige of the Crown, had led some commentators to downplay what was surely the primary motivation for the crosses’ construction, namely, the profound grief of the king. Edward and Eleanor had been married for thirty-six years, and during that time they had hardly ever been apart. Their tastes and interests – hunting, chess, chivalry and romance – appear to have coincided almost exactly. Above all, they had shared a sense of adventure. On all the king’s travels, on crusade or on campaign, the queen had been his most constant companion. Her fifteen or sixteen pregnancies are another testament to their closeness, and there is no credible evidence to suggest that either was anything other than faithful. The English may never have taken Eleanor to their hearts, but Edward had always adored her. After her funeral in December 1290 he retreated to Ashridge, a religious house in Hertfordshire, to spend Christmas in what must have been the deepest sorrow. He was still there in January when he wrote a letter to the abbot of Cluny in France, in which he referred to the wife ‘whom in life we dearly cherished, and whom in death we cannot cease to love’.4
Deep as the king’s desolation assuredly was, there is no reason to suppose that it diminished in any way his enthusiasm for the planned crusade. If anything, Eleanor’s death may have intensified Edward’s desire to return to the Holy Land: a picture on the side of the queen’s tomb shows a knight, believed to be Otto de Grandson, offering prayers for her soul there.5 The king was distracted from his declared purpose in the autumn of 1290, but not by the loss of his wife. Rather his plans were disrupted by the death of a seven-year-old Norwegian girl in the distant islands of Orkney.
To explain this cryptic comment, it is necessary to travel back in time, and north in space, and consider the career of Edward’s brother-in-law, King Alexander III of Scotland. Like Edward, Alexander was a strong and successful king. In the 1250s, still in his teens, he had asserted his independence in the face of aristocratic efforts to control him. In the 1260s – much as Edward would do in Wales a decade later – he turned his attention westwards and imposed his authority on a debatable frontier. The islands on Scotland’s western seaboard, nominally under the control of the king of Norway, were effectively independent; but by 1266 the Norwegians had been forcibly persuaded to bow out, and the locals were obliged to acknowledge the superior lordship of the Scottish royal house. So successful, in fact, was Alexander’s rule, that the latter part of his reign suffers from documentary silence. Contrary to the belief of Walter Scott, who once opined that everybody in medieval Scotland was too busy fighting to write anything down, the hush that descends on Scottish affairs in the 1270s is testimony to the peace that their king had succeeded in establishing.6
But, forceful and fortunate in politics, Alexander was far less lucky in his family. First, in 1275, came the death of his queen (and Edward’s sister), Margaret. Then, in the decade that followed, came the successive loss of all their children: their younger son David died in 1281, their only daughter, also Margaret, in 1283, and lastly their elder son, Alexander, in 1284. It was an incredible run of dynastic bad luck, and inevitably raised the question of who would succeed to the Scottish throne when Alexander himself died, for the king had neither brothers nor uncles who might step in and replace him. Prudently, therefore, Alexander – still only in his early forties – elected to remarry. In 1285 he took as his second queen a young Frenchwoman by the name of Yolande of Dreux. Imprudently, however, just a few months into their marriage, the king set out to meet his new wife in a terrible storm. On the evening of 18 March 1286 he rode from Edinburgh to Queensferry, crossed the Firth of Forth by boat, and continued along the coast towards Kinghorn, where Yolande was waiting. But she waited in vain. At some point during the last stage of his ill-advised journey, her husband lost his escort, tumbled over a cliff and broke his neck. Not until the next day dawned was his lifeless body found lying on the shoreline.7
At this point the king of England was readying himself to leave for France, a trip on which the peace of Europe and the fate of the Holy Land were seen to hinge. Discomforting as was the news from Scotland, therefore, it could not be permitted to disrupt or even to delay the urgent business on the Continent. In May Edward set sail from Dover, having heard of Alexander’s sudden death, but not of its drawn-out sequel.
That news reached him sporadically during his stay in Gascony. In the summer of 1286 it was hopeful: Yolande of Dreux, the new and newly widowed Scottish queen, was pregnant. King Alexander, it seemed, had not failed after all. His subjects were now preparing themselves for a long minority, at the end of which the late king’s as-yet unborn child would succeed him. Until that time, Edward learned, Scotland was to be governed by a regency council. By common consent, power had passed to six ‘Guardians’ – two earls, two bishops and two barons – who had sworn to protect the kingdom for Alexander’s heir.8
The following year, however, the intelligence was altogether more desperate. The queen’s pregnancy had ended unsuccessfully with the delivery of a stillborn child. As a result, Scotland had been thrown into confusion. Rebellion had been raised in the south-west of the country, and although the Guardians had suppressed the rising, their authority was now weak and the peace they maintained fragile. What they needed, and what they sought above all, was Edward’s assistance. The Scots would remain on anxious alert until the English king could come there and help them solve their succession crisis.9
The terrible and tragic turn that events had taken in Scotland concerned Edward in more ways than one. Obviously, as king of England, he was bound to take an interest, if only from the point of view of security, in any disarray north of the Border. But far more disturbing were the general ramifications of the Scottish crisis, for it held up a mirror to Edward’s own domestic situation, and presented an alarming future vision of England overtaken by a similar dynastic disaster. Alexander’s untimely end emphasised that death was no respecter of high office and that even vigorous and active kings might be struck down in their prime. Edward’s luck was already legendary. He had emerged unscathed from two bloody battles, survived storms at sea, and had miraculously recovered from the seemingly deadly wound inflicted by an assassin’s blade. But such luck could not last forever. The broken collarbone that the king sustained in Gascony could easily have been a broken neck.
Had that been the case, the English crown would have passed to Edward of Caernarfon, a child barely two years old at the time of his parents’ departure for France. Needless to say, it would have been quite unwise, given the fate of all his other sons, for Edward to have pinned too much hope on the boy’s survival. By the same token, it must have been equally clear by 1287 that he and Eleanor could expect no more children. Little Edward, their only surviving son, would also be their last.
It was almost certainly with the example of Scotland uppermost in his mind that Edward set about formalising the arrangements for the English succession soon after his return from Gascony. In the spring of 1290 the king summoned a special meeting of counsellors, including the archbishop of Canterbury and five other bishops, to assemble at Amesbury in Wiltshire. The choice of location is revealing. In 1285, as we have seen, the priory at Amesbury had received Edward’s daughter, Mary, as a nun. But, more significantly, the priory had in the meantime also become home to the king’s mother. Eleanor of Provence was also making preparations for the end of her life, and had quietly followed her granddaughter in taking the veil during her son’s absence. Now in her late sixties, the dowager queen had lived a far less conspicuous and controversial life in the West Country since the death of Henry III some eighteen years earlier. Gone were the days of plotting revenge on her enemies and raising armies to rescue her husband’s realm. Mindful of the divisive and unpopular figure his mother had once been, Edward, while according her great personal respect, had allowed Eleanor no role in politics, just as he had marginalised the political position of his own queen.10
W
hen it came to family matters, however, the king was wont to consult both women, and the question of the succession, although a political concern of the highest order, was ultimately a family affair. For this reason, Edward, his wife and his mother were joined at Amesbury not only by a crowd of senior churchmen, but also by Edmund of Lancaster, the king’s brother, and William de Valence, his half-uncle. Also in attendance was Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, who was about to enter this family circle by virtue of his impending marriage to Edward’s daughter, Joan. Indeed, Earl Gilbert’s presence, as the promissory documents he was induced to issue make plain, was most important, for the king’s daughters were revealed to be his back-up plan. All those gathered at Amesbury agreed that, in the event of Edward’s death, and the premature death of his only son, the kingdom would pass to the eldest of his five surviving daughters.
This was a remarkable provision. From a legal point of view, it was anomalous, in that primogeniture did not normally apply to female heirs. Ordinarily in such circumstances, estates were divided between daughters regardless of precedence of birth. By this decision, therefore, the kingdom of England was understood to be exceptional in its impartibility. But more remarkable still was the daring of the ordinance in the light of historical precedent. Only one earlier king of England, the imperious Henry I (d. 1135), had insisted that his daughter should succeed him, with the result that England had been torn apart by civil war for a generation. For Edward similarly to rule in favour of female succession, even in concert with the episcopate and his extended family, was thus a mark of his supreme self-confidence. At the same time, it exposed his shrinking range of options. The best that all of them could hope for was that Edward himself would continue to reign for many years to come, and that his only remaining son would beat the odds and survive to adulthood.11
There was, however, a better hope still, and it lay with Scotland. Alexander III had died before he could father any more children of his own, but he was not without a direct heir. Between 1281 and 1283 his late daughter, Margaret, had been briefly married to the king of Norway, and at some point towards the end of that period she had given birth to a daughter of her own. This child, also called Margaret, had grown up in Norway, unaware that she would one day become the last hope for her grandfather’s dynasty. In 1284, when his last son died, Alexander had obtained general recognition of her right to succeed him in default of any new children he might have. And when, two years later, the king himself perished, the broad political consensus remained: Margaret, ‘the Maid of Norway’, had the best right to the Scottish throne.12
What if this little girl, aged only three at the time of Alexander’s death, were to be married to Edward’s only son, then approaching his second birthday? The boy would not only succeed his father as king of England, but also become king of Scotland in right of his wife. Their children would become rulers of a double kingdom – perhaps a united kingdom – which would stretch from the English Channel to the Western Isles. The idea appears to have been floated as early as 1284, by Alexander himself, following the death of his last son. In response to a letter of condolence from Edward I, the Scottish king had mused that, through his tiny granddaughter, ‘much good may yet come to pass’. It was an intriguing idea, though at that time only one of many possible futures; if Alexander had more children of his own, the vision would dissolve, and the future king of England would be committed to a disadvantageous match with a Norwegian princess, nothing more. But when Alexander died, the Maid’s succession seemed certain. Messengers began to travel between the English and Norwegian courts. In the spring of 1289, in anticipation of Edward’s imminent return to England, negoti ations began in earnest. Finally, on 6 November that year, an international summit was held at Salisbury. Edward and his advisers met with the Norwegian ambassadors and the Scottish Guardians, and it was agreed: within the next twelve months, Margaret of Norway would marry Edward of Caernarfon.13
The Scots were far from unhappy with this prospect. It promised an end to the years of uncertainty since 1286 and to the latent threat of further disorder. A marriage alliance with England would give the Maid a powerful protector, and would mean that her claim was most unlikely to be contested in the future. Accordingly, when the political community of Scotland assembled on the Border at Birgham in March 1290, the Salisbury agreement was unanimously ratified. More than a hundred Scotsmen of substance wrote to Edward I expressing their will to proceed with the wedding.14
Nevertheless, the Scots proceeded with caution. This was not just the union of two royal children but the union of two kingdoms. The fact that Edward was a force to be reckoned with also carried certain negative implications. Would he be too powerful, or too demanding? Realistically, the Guardians recognised that their options were limited, and accepted that England would be the dominant partner in the marriage. But, at the same time, they had sworn an oath to preserve Alexander III’s kingdom intact and undiminished for his eventual heirs. As such, their overriding concern was to safeguard Scotland’s future independence.15
What the Scots needed, in short, was a prenuptial agreement, and to this end negotiations with England dragged on into the summer of 1290. On many issues it was possible to reach consensus. Everyone, for example, accepted that, although the two children were not yet of marriageable age, they should nonetheless be regarded as if married from the moment of the Maid’s arrival, and that Edward of Caernarfon should therefore be regarded as king of Scotland from that point. There was agreement, too, on the question of the routine business of Scottish government. The Scots were concerned to ensure that they would not have to travel to England to do homage to their new king, or to answer or initiate lawsuits. What they demanded – and what Edward conceded – was that such matters should be dealt with in Scotland by a resident viceroy or lieutenant.
When they came to consider the matter of Scotland’s castles, however, the two sides could find no common ground. Edward was determined that all royal fortresses must come under his control, and insisted on his right to appoint their custodians in every case. His attitude was probably borne of bitter memories of 1258, at which point control of England’s royal castles had been handed to a council. Also, no doubt, the king recollected the unpleasant experiences of his sister Margaret after her marriage to Alexander III, whose minority had been blighted by one aristocratic coup after another.
But what seemed to Edward to be a commonsensical means of ensuring Scotland’s future security sounded to the Scots like an unconscionable demand for the surrender of sovereignty. Castles were the instruments of raw power, and for this reason neither side was prepared to compromise. When, in July 1290, the Scots reassembled at Birgham to meet the English king’s ambassadors, articles were drafted with a view to producing a final treaty, but, because of the disagreement on this crucial issue, no treaty was sealed.16
The deadlock was broken, it seems, by the news that the Maid had already set sail from Norway and was en route for Scotland. This intelligence, which apparently reached Edward’s ears in the last days of August, forced him to settle, for fear that the Scots’ bargaining position would be strengthened if they took possession of the girl. On 28 August, therefore, while the English court was at Northampton, the articles drafted earlier in the summer were approved. The contentious matter of castles was fudged: those Scottish envoys present accepted that keepers would be appointed ‘on the common advice of the Scots and the English king’. But the Scots did get a clear statement to safeguard their independence, of the kind they had been seeking since the start. In the most resonant phrase of their agreement, Edward promised that Scotland should remain ‘free in itself, and without subjection, from the kingdom of England’.17
All thoughts now turned to the Maid’s impending arrival. Edward immediately sent his friend, the bishop of Durham, to see to her reception, and a few days later dispatched a welcoming gift of jewels for the little girl who was about to become his daughter-in-law. Meanwhile, the magnates of Scotland, as was traditi
onal, began to assemble at Scone Abbey near Perth in readiness for the enthronement of their new queen. In late September representatives of both nations rode into Scotland’s extreme north, to greet the Norwegian ship which, unexpectedly, had put into the islands of Orkney. Only in the course of their journey did they learn that, during her voyage, the Maid had fallen sick, perhaps from having eaten decayed food. And when, in early October, they returned south, it was with the news that the girl was dead.18
The death of the Maid of Norway finally extinguished the flickering flame that was the bloodline of King Alexander and threw the question of the Scottish succession wide open. It was necessary to forage far back into the royal family tree – over a hundred years – to find other branches that had flourished into the present. But these collateral descents were many, and consequently there was no consensus on who was next in line to the throne. The respective merits of the most important candidates will be considered later in this chapter; for now, it will suffice to note that, in the eyes of many Scots, the man with the best claim to succeed was John Balliol.
Twenty years earlier only a madman or a mystic would have put money on this candidate, and not just because the Scottish royal house had yet to be overtaken by disaster. Born around the middle of the thirteenth century, Balliol was the youngest of four brothers, and as such was apparently destined for a career in the Church. But in the course of the 1270s his family were also visited by an exceptional mortality: during that decade, all three of his elder brothers died without issue, leaving John as the heir to their father’s estates in England and France.19