How Effective Was the Guardianship in Pursuing Scotland S Interests in the Period 1286-1291?

How effective was the guardianship in pursuing Scotland’s interests in the period 1286-1291?

‘Vacant and without a head and torn to pieces, widowed, so to speak, of a king of its own, and...lacking the protection of any defender.
Chronicle of Pluscarden, i, 178-9 (Trans.,ii, 141)

In 1286, the perceived golden age of Scotland came to an end with the death of Alexander III.[1] His death in the darkness at Kinghorn ignited the chain reaction which would lead ultimately to the direct involvement of Edward I in Scottish affairs.[2] After his death six guardians were elected to help stabilize the political position in Scotland and also to act as caretakers for the kingdom, while a new heir was found. The guardianship was effective and ultimately did the best job it could for Scotland in the trying circumstances they found themselves in. The guardians were effective as they were trying to prepare and protect the kingdom for a new king or Queen. Also they had to pursue the interests of the kingdom during the treaties of Salisbury and Birgham, and catastrophically later,tryto stop the kingdom from splitting into civil war though the Bruce and Comyn factions, once that fragile heir was gone. The guardianship was trying also to take the kingdom back to the perceived golden age it had previously been in and maintain the identity of Scotland as a nation.[3] However the guardianship faced some important issues,the involvement of Edward I king of England may have stopped the guardians being fully effective, as it could have been seento undermine the Guardians, and may have given people reason to doubt the authority of the guardianship. Also, the Bruce/Comyn rivalry caused problems as they were burning castles in key locations inScotland and couldn’t be brought under control for a time. This essay will look at the factors for and against the guardianship and how effective the guardians were in pursing Scotland’s interests, also including the historians views and how they show the effectiveness of the guardianship during the dynastic crisis between April 1286 and the submission to Edward I in June 1291.

Alexander III’s accidental death in 1286 created a huge power vacuum in the Scottish kingdom. The king’s major role’s was the governing of the land,head of dispute settling procedures between leading nobles and central justice issues like the law.[4] The King as a focal point in medieval Scotlandwas crucial to the stability and relative peace, and this is seen in Alexander’s reign and was replaced after it with the destructive wars with England that would ultimately replace it after the death of the young Margaret in 1290. The glue that had to stick one dynastic reign to the next one was to be the guardians and they were left with the daunting task of attempting to maintain peace in Scotland during this turbulent time.

The guardianship of Scotlandduring this period cannot be looked at effectively without looking at the issues before the reign of Alexander III, equally the background to the guardianship under scrutiny and how it was formed and came into being.

Alexander III became king in his minority when his father died on campaign in the west of Scotland enforcing his royal rule.Challenges for more power in the kingdom during the minority came from the Durward’s and also the most dominant political family the Comyns. It must be stated that Alexander was never threatened as king it was the magnatesjostling for power that created the problems. The English king Henry III was also involved in negotiations with the Scottish royal family because both Alexander II and III married English royal relations. Alexander III had come under pressure to accept English over lordshipat this time but he refused and only gave homage for his lands in Tyndale in 1278. The young Alexander held his ground and when the time came to take over the government hewas able to bring the nobles together and rule effectively for a number of years before his death. Alexander III was able to bring the separate parts of the kingdom for example the western Isles which he had recently won (with the Treaty of Perth in 1266)together creating a central government, where the nobles worked effectively together, a strong relationship with England and other factors, led to Alexander’s reign being known as the ‘golden age’ by later chroniclers.
Alexander left a strong ‘community of the realm’ that had taken a number of years to develop. After Alexander’s death in 1286, ‘the clergy and the estates’ according to the chronicler Fordun met in Scone during April 1286.[5] They took an oath to guard the land of Scotland on the future heir’s behalf and keep the peace; six ‘guardians’ were appointed to govern the country until the rightful heir was crowned. During Alexander III’s minority power had went to the strongest faction which had changed over a period of time, in 1286 the men chosen appeared to represent all aspects of the leading members of the ruling class.

These guardians were two earls: Alexander Comyn Earl of Buchan and David Earl of Fife, two Bishops: William Fraser of St Andrews and Robert Wishart of Glasgow, and two Barons: John Comyn of Badenoch and James Stewart. These six guardians were elected to provide a balance between, the two main political fractions of the time, the Bruces and the Comyns. There were two Comyn’s and the Bishop of St Andrew’s who supported the Comyn political faction while James Stewart was linked to Bruce though marriage and was the hereditary holder of an ancient office, Bishop Wishart was also a supporter of the Bruce in the west of Scotland. Fife was young but came from the senior earldom in the land.[6] There was also a balance with certain nobles looking after the north of the Forth and the clerics also representing the leading bishoprics in Scotland. This shows that the election of the guardians was planned out so that each faction had the same amount of representation.

In a contemporary source they are referred to as the ‘guardians of peace’[7], because in many respects that’s what they were trying to do within the kingdom, in the absence of a monarch. The Guardians described themselves as being ‘elected by the community of the realm’ a term the leading historian of the period often uses to describe the leading men of the kingdom.[8]

The guardians had control in theory but had to rule practically, to do this they needed officials to carry out and maintain their authority in the kingdom. It can be shown that within Scotland, offices like the chancery and exchequer were still working financially under the new regime.[9] Rents and tributes still had to be paid and the justice system still had to operate if the new regime were to be effective in their task. The people still had to have the ability to see law and order maintained in the countryside. The guardians used the kingdoms sheriffdoms to do this. The office was used to the full by the guardians and this is how many of the localities were governed. Almost all of the names that maintained these posts are known to us and were probably ‘inherited’ form Alexander III suggesting a degree of continuity with the old regime. Indeed not only maintaining it but adding their authority and effective administration, William de Soulis in 1291 received the sheriffdom of Inverness from the ‘gardeins’.[10]

The guardians were elected to protect the kingdom while a new heir was found, they were there to protect Scotland, her interests and the people. They wanted to protect the realm and its identity so that Scotland was more of a kingdom rather than just a ‘land’ as perhaps was claimed by the English kings in the past and also the papacy to a degree because Scotland lacked the right to holy oil for its monarch that European Christian kings and Queens should have had and this perhaps allowed Edward I to see Scotland as obtainable.

Alexander III’s children all died before him as did his wife and it looked like there would be no heir left to take the kingship of Scotland if he was to die. It could be said that he failed to give his kingdom a new heir even after finding a new French wife, Yolande who was possibly pregnant when he died. The only person left was his young granddaughter Margaret the Maid of Norway. In 1284 Alexander III had pushed to have Margaret accepted as the heir and next queen of Scotland despite there being no precedent for this in the kingdom, he got the full backing of his 13 earls and 25 Barons whilst he was alive. After the death of Alexander, the guardians of Scotlandcarried out the wishes of their late king and named Margaret as the next heir of Scotland and tried to protect her interests during her short life. Therefore, the guardians of Scotland were effective and successful in protecting Margaret and the interests of the kingdom as they fought for her right as Queen and also tried to protect her future and the kingdoms through the treaties of Salisbury and Birgham, however the protection of the maid came to nothing as she died in 1290 either in Orkney or on the voyage over from Norway before reaching Scotland.[11]

The treaties of Salisbury and Birgham were in many ways key to protectingScotland’s interests, the treaty of Salisbury was drafted on 6th November 1289; the treaty stated that the maid of Norway was to arrive in Scotland or England by 1st November 1290. The treaty of Salisbury concluded that Edward I had the right to interfere in Scottish affairs, if Scotland was not being governed peacefully and also if the Scots or Norwegians (the maid was the daughter of their king, Eric II) were in dispute about the role of the maid. This suggests the effectiveness of the guardians as they were protecting the rights of the maid, so that she could come to the kingdom protected and ready to take the throne.

The treaty of Birgham was created on 18th July 1290, on March 14th 1290, a large number of Scottish nobles had gathered in a parliament/council at Birgham near Roxburgh to ratify the treaty of Salisbury. The treaty of Salisbury had suggested the marriage of the maid to Edward’s son, the late Alexander III had hinted at this in a letter with Edward I. On 17th March the Scots sent a letter to Edward I giving their consent to the marriage of the future Edward II and Margaret. And in July 1290, the treaty was concluded, Edward I’s son and Margaret Maid of Norway were to be married meaning that Scotland and England would eventually have one ruler, this may have been part of Edward’s plan, however at that time the English king was seen as protecting his relation and it would have suited the guardians to have his protection. G.W.S Barrow, states that he did not think the Treaty of Birgham contained any hint of English overlordship, “ a document of wise statesmanship and patriotism, but it was essentially a cautious protective document which could be borne only by a king.”[12]The English historian Michael Prestwich states the guardians were effective in their task giving them, “full credit to the care with which the Scottish negotiators approached their task.”[13]

Edward was a mature, accomplished king who had been on crusade and was a respected politician in a European context. His legal mind and attention to detail was renowned throughout the British Isles. The danger was there however for the Scots because his conquest of Wales had been recognised and was a burning issue south of the border and the guardians would have been aware of the English kings ambitious nature for conquest.

This concern is emphasised in the main point of the treaty of Birgham which included:‘Scotland was to remain separate from England,elections of prelates were to take place only in Scotland and no one holding of the Scottish crown was to be compelled to leave Scotland in order to do homage or fealty or pay relief. This last issue would be a problem for the future king John Balliol. No Scot was to answer for any crime committed in Scotland except in Scotland itself and no parliament dealing with Scottish affairs was to be held outside Scotland. These last two key points suggest the Scottish guardians were on a tight leash because they were only magnates after all, with in some cases English lands, were aware of the dangers posed by Edward I. The final clause stated ‘by this treaty the rights of neither kingdom are in any way to be increased or decreased’, which it could be arguedshows the effective leadership shown by the guardians that they were not going to compromise the sovereignty of the kingdom[14]

The first shocking and unexpected priority of the Scottish guardians was to find a new king when it had been established that the young Margaret was dead. All the effort put into the treaties of Salisbury and Birgham had come to nothing and it made the job of being effective harder. The vacant throne of Scotland polarised opinion within the Scottish community. It would have put an intolerable pressure on both the four remaining guardians (two having died and not been replaced) and the two leading factions hoping to contest the kingship.

Evidence of the Bruce-Comyn rivalry can be seen throughout the period of 1286-1291, both family’s sensed that they had a chance to be the future monarch, despite their oath of 5 Feb 1284 when in the Act of Parliament they promised to defend the maid claiming, “against all men we shall maintain, sustain and defend her with all our strength and power.” In Bower’s chronicle he suggests that a, “great division arose in the kingdom, among both the clergy and people, between the parties of Robert Bruce and John.”[15] Even in the Exchequer Roll of 1288/90 the documents state that land was left, “uncultivated on account of the war”, this suggests that large numbers of young men were called by their leaders to either fight or defend property. Other sources discuss extra castle guards and likewise information in relation to a war like footing.The Bruce’s attackedthe Balliol lordship of Buittle, because the Balliols were close allies of the Comyns, and also the royal castles as Wigton and Dumfriesfor example in the south west of Scotland.

In September 1286, a pact was made at Turnberry, between supporters of the Bruce fraction. The Bruce’s were all present: Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, his son Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, James Stewart of Jedburgh, Walter Stewart earl of Menteith and his sons, Patrick earl of March, Angus Macdonald Lord of Islay, Richard De Burgh Earl of Ulster and Thomas de Clare, These men all signed a pact that they would support each other and unite against their enemies, whoever they might be, interestingly Irish nobles had close ties to the Bruce family and they all swore to uphold the law for Edward I.

The Bruce/Comyn rivalry was an intense affair, and it isn’t surprising that the guardians turned to Edward I after the death of the maid. The need for Edward’s assistance was highlighted again in 1289 with the death of Alexander Comyn, Scotland’s most experienced political leader and guardian who had served in Alexander’s government. This tension could have lead to a break down in parliament and civil war, as the Bruce’s would have had more power. This was followed by the death of the earl of fife, who was murdered by an associate of the Comyn’s, Alexander Abernethy, a Fife landowner who was in dispute with the murdered earl. This further affected the already unstable political position of Scotland with only four active guardians. The guardians tried to bring the civil war under control, but as they were involved in both factions, this seemed impossible. This rivalry of the main political factions could have stopped the guardians pursuing the country’s interests as the situation split the country. However it didn’t as they were able to bring the situation under control, one of the guardians James Stewart, broke away from the other guardians; he turned on the Bruce forces in the south west of Scotland and imposed government law and order.

The relations of Scotland and England were harmonious during the reign of Alexander III as the two royal families were interconnected though a series of marriages. It appears that at first Edward I, didn’t want anything to do with the affairs of Scotland after the death of Alexander III, he was more interested in Gascony. However, he did become involved in the affairs of the maid of Norway, and was given the right to intervene if Scotland was not governed peacefully or if there was a dispute about the role of the maid between Scotland and Norway, but he also wanted the Scots to accept him as their overlord, submitting to Edward and England as their superior. Edward got involved in the Isle of Man in June 1290 which at that time belonged to Scotland and also appointed Bishop Bek of Durham into Scotland to ‘manage’ Scotland for him as lieutenant.[16]