scotianostra:On January 17th 1286, The King of Scots’ Alexander III’s son died aged 20.Normally I wo
scotianostra:On January 17th 1286, The King of Scots’ Alexander III’s son died aged 20.Normally I wouldn’t cover births and deaths of what would ordinarily be players Scottish history we know little of as indeed this prince, also called Alexander was. However the young man died childless and his mother, Queen Margaret had passed away some 9 years before, his father hadn’t remarried leaving the succession in question. This only left him with an infant granddaughter, also called Margaret, living in Norway.A second marriage was hastily arranged to Yolande of Dreux and they were wed a year later, unfortunately oor monarch fell off a cliff, in a rush to get home to his wife in March 1286. Yolande, may or may not have been pregnant at the time, and might have miscarried so the succession question remained. Enter King Edward I of England, to oversea things, at the behest of both the Norwegians and Scots, unfortunately (again) the young Queen Margaret died on her way to Scotland leading to the “The Great Cause” where Edward had the best claim to the throne of Scotland.The chosen “pawn” was John Balliol, who Edward forced to abdicate after he signed a treaty with the French, now known as “The Auld Alliance”. This all led to decades of conflict, The First Wars of Scottish Independence. -- source link