A.D. 1266.
Annexation of the Western Isles to the crown of Scotland.
King Magnus of Man died on the 24th of November 1265, and this paved the way for a treaty between the kings of Scotland and of Norway, by which, for payment of a sum of 4000 marks and an annual payment to the crown of Norway of 100 marks, the Isle of Man and all the Sudreys were finally ceded to King Alexander, the Orkneys and Shetland being excepted; and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and metropolitan rights of the archbishop of Drontheim over Man and the Isles reserved. The treaty was concluded in July 1266, and thus were the Sudreys or Western Isles finally annexed to the kingdom of Scotland.[[739]]
Alexander III. had two sons, Alexander and David, and one daughter, Margaret, who was married to Eric, king of Norway, but in the course of three years he was left childless. His son David died at Stirling at the end of June in the year 1281. On the 9th of April 1283 his daughter Margaret died, leaving an only daughter Margaret, commonly called the Maid of Norway, and on the 28th of January following died Alexander, prince of Scotland.
A.D. 1283.
Assembly of baronage of the whole kingdom at Scone on 5th February to regulate succession.
The king immediately summoned the Estates of Scotland to meet at Scone on the 5th of February, and there they became bound to acknowledge Margaret, princess of Norway, as the legitimate heir of their sovereign, ‘failing any children whom Alexander might have, and failing the issue of the prince of Scotland deceased, in the whole kingdom and the island of Man, and the whole other islands belonging to the kingdom of Scotland.’ The nobles present will show that the Estates now represented the entire territory of Scotland. There were the earls of Buchan, Dunbar, Stratherne, Lennox, Carrick, Mar, Angus, Menteith, Ross, Sutherland, Fife, and Atholl, of whom four were Norman intruders into Celtic earldoms, and the earl of Orkney represented the earldom of Caithness; and there were twenty-four barons, of whom eighteen at least represented the Norman baronage of the kingdom; while the Celtic element is represented only by Alexander of Argyll, Angus son of Donald, and Alan son of Rotheric, the native rulers of Argyll and the Isles.[[740]]
A.D. 1285-6.
Death of Alexander the Third.
King Alexander, thus left childless, married Yolande, daughter of the Count de Dreux, on the 14th of October 1285, in the hope of obtaining a male heir to the Crown, but was killed on the 19th of March following, having been thrown from his horse in the dusk of the evening while riding from Queensferry to Kinghorn to visit his queen.[[741]]
FEUDAL
SCOTLAND
W. & A. K. Johnston Edinburgh & London.
Conclusion.