The Steps to the Empty Throne

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When, in 1286, the well-beloved Alexander the Third, King of Scots, fell over a life cliff to his untimely death, he left utter disaster behind him for his country. His only surviving heir was an infant grandchild, a girl—and a foreign girl at that, and sickly, Margaret the Maid of Norway, daughter of his own daughter who had married the King of Norway and died leaving only this baby. There could have been no less suitable monarch for turbulent Scotland—and almost immediately the dynastic feuding and designing began.

There were innumerable far-out claimants to the throne, mainly descendants of the three daughters of David, Earl of Huntingdon, younger brother of King William the Lion. Of all these, the two with undoubtedly the most valid claims to be next in line to the little Maid of Norway were Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale, and John Baliol. The former was the son of Earl David’s daughter Isabel; the latter the grandson of her elder sister Margaret. Baliol’s father was an English lord, his mother the famous Devorgilla, Lady of Galloway, founder of Baliol College, Oxford.

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