Robert II, King of Scots
1316 CE to 1390 CE
Robert II (2 March 1316 – 19 April 1390) reigns as King of Scots from 1371 to his death as the first monarch of the House of Stewart.
He is the son of Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland and of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce and of his first wife Isabella of Mar.
Edward Bruce had been named heir to the throne but he died 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.
Parliament decrees her infant son, Robert Stewart, as heir presumptive, but this lapses on 5 March 1324 on the birth of a son, David, to King Robert and his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh.
Robert Stewart inherits the title of High Steward of Scotland on his father's death on April 9, 1326, and a Parliament held in July 1326 confirms the young Steward as heir should Prince David die without a successor.
In 1329 King Robert I dies and the six-year-old David succeeds to the throne with Sir Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray appointed Guardian of Scotland.
Edward Balliol, son of King John Balliol, assisted by the English and Scottish nobles disinherited by Robert I, invades Scotland, inflicting heavy defeats on the Bruce party on August 11, 1332, at Dupplin Moor and Halidon Hill on July 10, 1333.
Robert fights at Halidon, where his uncle and former guardian, Sir James Stewart, is killed.
Following this battle, Robert's lands in the west are given by Balliol to his supporter David Strathbogie, the titular Earl of Atholl.
Robert takes refuge in the fortress of Dumbarton Castle in the Clyde estuary to join his uncle, King David.
In May 1334, David escapes to France, leaving Robert and John Randolph, 3rd Earl of Moray, as joint Guardians of the kingdom.
Robert succeeds in regaining his lands but following Randolph's capture by the English in July 1335, his possessions are once again targeted by the forces of Balliol and King Edward III of England.
This may have persuaded Robert to submit to Balliol and the English king and may explain his removal as Guardian by September 1335.
The Guardianship transfers to Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell but following his death in 1338 Robert is reappointed and retains the office until King David returns from France in June 1341.
Robert accompanies David into battle at Neville's Cross on October 17, 1346, but he and Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, escape or flee the field and David is taken prisoner.
In October 1357, the king is ransomed for one hundred thousand marks to be paid in installments over ten years.
Robert had married Elizabeth Mure around 1348, legitimizing his four sons and five daughters.
His subsequent marriage to Euphemia de Ross in 1355 produces two sons and two surviving daughters and provides the basis of a future dispute regarding the line of succession.
Robert joins a rebellion against David in 1363, but submits to him following a threat to his right of succession.
In 1364, David presentsa proposal to Parliament that would cancel the remaining ransom debt if it was agreed that a Plantagenet heir would inherit the Scottish throne should he die without issue.
This is rejected and Robert succeeds to the throne at the age of fifty-five following David's unexpected death in 1371.
England still controls large sectors in the Lothians and in the border country, so King Robert allows his southern earls to engage in actions in the English zones to regain their territories, hals trade with England and renews treaties with France.
By 1384, the Scots have retaken most of the occupied lands, but following the commencement of Anglo-French peace talks, Robert is reluctant to commit Scotland to all-out war and obtains Scotland's inclusion in the peace treaty.
Robert's peace strategy is a factor in the virtual coup in 1384 when he loses control of the country, first to his eldest son, John, Earl of Carrick, afterwards King Robert III, and then from 1388 to John's younger brother, Robert, Earl of Fife, afterwards the first Duke of Albany.
Robert II dies in Dundonald Castle in 1390 and is buried at Scone Abbey.
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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.