Robert II, King of Scots

Antioch and the other Crusader States are constantly at war with the Muslim states of Northern Syria and the Jazeerah, principally Aleppo and Mosul.

After Ridwan of Aleppo died in 1113, there had been a period of a few years peace.

However, Roger of Salerno, ruling Antioch as regent for the child Bohemond II, had not taken advantage of Ridwan's death; likewise, Baldwin II, Count of Edessa, and Pons, Count of Tripoli, had looked after their own interests and had not allied with Roger against Aleppo, which had come under the rule of the Artuqid atabeg Ilghazi of Mardin in 1117.

The marriage of Pons to Cecile of France, the widow of his mentor Tancred, Prince of Galilee, and daughter of Philip I of France, had helped to reconcile the Norman and Provençal Crusaders, who had fallen out during the Siege of Antioch.

In 1118, Pons had allied with Baldwin II, newly crowned as king of Jerusalem.

Roger had captured Azaz in 1118, leaving Aleppo open to attack from the Crusaders; in response, Ilghazi invades the Principality in 1119.

Baldwin and Pons march north to aid Roger, who decides not to wait for them, and he and his army of seven hundred knights and three thousand foot soldiers, including five hundred Armenian cavalry, are slaughtered at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis; Roger is killed by a sword in the face at the foot of the great jeweled cross which had served as his standard.

The rest of the army is completely destroyed; only two knights survive.

One of them, Raynald Mazoir, takes refuge in the fort of Sarmada to wait for King Baldwin, but is soon taken captive by Ilghazi.

Among the other prisoners is likely Walter the Chancellor, who will later wrote an account of the battle.

The massacre leads to the name of the battle, ager sanguinis, Latin for "the field of blood."

The battle has proved that the Muslims can defeat a Crusader army without the help of the Seljuqs.

However, Ilghazi does not advance to Antioch, where Patriarch Bernard is organizing whatever defense he can.

Instead, llghazi is pushed back by Baldwin and Pons on August 14, and Baldwin assumes the regency of Antioch.

The defeat has left Antioch severely weakened, and subject to repeated attacks by the Muslims in the following decade.

As a result, the Principality will eventually come under the influence of Constantinople.

Antioch becomes a vassal state of Jerusalem, after Roger of Salerno is killed on June 27, 1119, at the Ager Sanguinis (the Field of Blood).

King Baldwin II will serve as regent until 1126, although Baldwin will spend much of this time in captivity in Aleppo.

Walter, the sixth hereditary steward of the Scottish monarchy, had married Marjorie, the eldest daughter of Scotland’s King Robert the Bruce by his first wife, Isabella of Mar.

Edward Bruce had been named heir to the throne but he dies without legitimate children on December 3, 1318 in a battle near Dundalk in Ireland.

Marjorie by this time had died in a riding accident—probably in 1317.

Scotland’s Parliament honors the Bruce line with the passage of a 1318 decree that provides for the coronation of Bruce’s grandson should he die without a son.

That grandson will eventually be crowned Robert II of Scotland, the first king of the Stewart line.

The first document to recognize Kirkcady, a town in the Fife Region of eastern Scotland, located on the Firth of Forth about ten miles (sixteen kilometers) north of Edinburgh, was issued in 1075, when the King of Scots, Malcolm III (reigned 1058–93) granted the shire of Kirkcaladunt, among other gifts, to the church at Dunfermline.

The residents were expected to pay dues and taxes for the church's general upkeep.

Two charters, later confirmed by Malcolm's son David I in 1128 and 1130, refer to Kircalethin and Kirkcaladunit respectively, but do not indicate their locations.

In 1304, a weekly market and annual fair for Kirkcaldy was proposed by the Abbot of Dunfermline to King Edward I, during a period of English rule in Scotland from 1296 to 1306.

The town’s status as a burgh dependent on Dunfermline Abbey is confirmed in 1327 by Robert I, King of Scots (reigned 1306–29).

Robert the Bruce dies at fifty-four on June 7, 1329, and is succeeded by his five-year-old son, whose official coronation as David II will take place in 1331.

The earls of Douglas and Moray soon lead the disgruntled Scots in forcing the newly crowned English puppet-king across the border, Edward III retaliates with troops, who engage the Scots on July 19, 1333 at Halidon Hill near Berwick-upon-Tweed in northern England.

The Scots charge downhill toward the English, a marsh between them, but, forgetting the lesson their fathers taught their English foes at Bannockburn, unwisely enter the marsh, become bogged down and are slaughtered by English longbows.

The boy-king David II flees to France, and his nephew—the son of Walter, the sixth steward, and Marjory, daughter of Robert I—is named regent, ruling Scotland north of the Firth of Forth.

“Restored” to the second Scottish throne, Baliol, under the necessary protection of English troops, rules the south.

King David II and his queen, following the victory of the English invasion force at the Battle of Halidon Hill in July 1333, had been sent for safety into France, where tKing Philip VI of France them received very graciously.

Little is known about the life of the Scottish king in France, except that Château Gaillard was given to him for a residence, and that he was present at the bloodless meeting of the English and French armies in October 1339 at Vironfosse, now known as Buironfosse, in the Arrondissement of Vervins.

Meanwhile David's representative has once again obtained the upper hand in Scotland, and the king is able to return to his kingdom, landing at Inverbervie in Kincardineshire on June 2, 1341, when he takes the reins of government into his own hands.

King Philip, after the French loss at Crécy, appeals to his Scottish allies to help with a diversionary attack on England.

King David II of Scotland responds by invading Yorkshire, but the Scots encounter a much stronger English army that defeats the Scots at Neville's Cross on October 17, 1346, taking the twenty-two-year-old monarch captive and sending him to the elegant English court as an enforced guest.

This greatly reduces the threat from Scotland.

David’s nephew Robert the Steward again becomes regent.

David II of Scotland, held captive for eleven years at the English court, is thoroughly Anglicized at thirty-three.

From Windsor Castle in Berkshire, David and his household had later moved to Odiham Castle in Hampshire.

His imprisonment is not reputed to be a rigorous one.

After several protracted negotiations with the Scots' regency council, a treaty is signed on October 3, 1357, at Berwick-upon-Tweed under which Scotland's nobility agree to pay one hundred thousand marks (to be paid at the rate of ten thousand marks per year) as a ransom for their king.

This is ratified on November 6, 1357, by the Scottish Parliament at Scone.

David returns at once to Scotland.

Edward III and David II had agreed, in the 1363 Anglo-Scottish peace, that should David die without a son Scotland and England will unite under the English crown.

At David’s unexpected death on February 22, 1371, his nephew, the former Scottish regent, Robert Stuart, succeeds him as Robert II.