A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

End of First Period of the reign.

We have now reached what may be considered as the close of the first period of Edward’s reign, which had been occupied by legislation and by the conquest of Wales. From this time onwards, it is the conquest of Scotland, and the great constitutional effort of the reign, intermingled with foreign affairs, which we shall have to observe.

Relations with Scotland.

It is uncertain when Edward’s thoughts were first directed to the Northern kingdom, but events had been rapidly occurring, which threw Scotland almost entirely into his hands. Quite early in the reign he seems to have wished, as was natural for one of his legal mind, to have the disputed question of homage cleared up. Again and again homage had been paid to his predecessors; but, except in the case of William the Lion’s homage to Henry II., it had been always open to the Scotch King to assert that it was for fiefs in England, and not for Scotland, that his homage was rendered. Even that clear instance had been annihilated by the subsequent sale of the submission then made by Richard I. It would seem in fact that the claim to overlordship was really based upon much earlier transactions. Scotland consisted of three incorporated kingdoms—the Highlands, or kingdoms of the Scots, Galloway, which was part of the British kingdom of Strathclyde, and the Lothians, which had undoubtedly been a part of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. In the time of the English Empire the King of Scots and all the people had chosen Eadward the Elder as father and lord; that is to say, they had what is technically called commended themselves to the English King. Strathclyde had been conquered by Eadmund, and by him had been granted to Malcolm as a fief, on condition of military tenure; while afterwards the Lothians had been granted by Eadgar to the Scotch kings as an English earldom. Thus, on various grounds, all parts of the Kingdom of Scotland acknowledged the English King as their overlord. When England fell into the hands of the Normans, William, professedly assuming the position which his predecessor had held, would naturally expect the same homage to be paid to him. It is equally certain that the Scotch kings would object to pay it. It had therefore been a constantly open and disputed question till the time of Edward. Meanwhile the feudal law, which had not existed at the time of the original commendation, had grown up and been formulated. Edward, as we have seen, intended to use it to the full. He therefore desired the uncertain acknowledgment of the old supremacy to be brought, as it had never hitherto been, within the precise and clearly-defined limits of feudal overlordship. The character of Alexander III. was such as to strengthen such ideas. In 1275, his wife, Edward’s sister Margaret, had died. The tie of relationship thus broken, Edward had demanded and received, in 1278, a homage, which he declared to his chancellor was complete and without reservation;[46] and since that time, more than once, Alexander had seemed to acknowledge the supremacy.

Extinction of the Scotch royal family.

Proposed marriage of the Maid and Prince Edward.

Accepted with restrictions. 1290.

But it was the rapid extinction of that monarch’s family which brought matters to a crisis. Margaret had had two sons and one daughter, Margaret. Both the sons had died young, and the daughter had married Eric, King of Norway, with the promise that she was to retain her rights to the Scotch succession. In accordance with this, when she died in her first confinement, her little child of the same name, spoken of as the Maid of Norway, was, in 1284, declared heiress of the throne. In 1286 King Alexander died. He had married again, but had no children; the crown would therefore have naturally come to the Maid of Norway. During her absence, a regency, consisting of the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, the Lords Fife, Buchan, and Comyn, and others, was appointed. But already other claimants had come forward, and their respective parties had begun a civil war. To Edward it seemed the opportunity had arrived of establishing his rights without violence. A marriage between his son and the Maid of Norway at once occurred to him. For this he had secretly cleared the way by obtaining from the Pope a dispensation to enable these cousins to marry. Armed with this, but acting ostensibly in the Norwegian interest, he contrived to bring about a meeting at Salisbury between commissioners on the part of Eric, of the Scotch government, and of himself, at which it was agreed that the young Queen should be received in Scotland free of matrimonial engagements, but pledged not to marry except by the advice of Edward and with the consent of her father. Almost immediately after this, the plan of the marriage was made public, and was at once willingly accepted by the Scotch, who were anxious to be saved from a civil war, but who, while accepting it, took care, at a parliament held at Brigham in 1290, to guard with scrupulous care the independence of the kingdom.

Invitation to Edward to settle the succession.

Death of the Maid.