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Source: Wikisource: Dictionary of National Biography Part I

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Titre	Wikisource: Dictionary of National Biography Part I

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ROBERT II King of Scotland RS02 RB01

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[Acts of Parliament (Scotland), vol. i.; Exchequer Rolls, vols. i. ii.; and specially Burnett's Prefaces, Wyntoun's Chronicle; Bower's addition to Fordun's Scotichronicon; John Major's Greater Britain (Scottish History Society, Edinburgh); Extracta e variis Chronicis Scocie; Liber Pluscardensis. Pinkerton and Tytler are the best modern historians of this period. Andrew Stewart's History of the Stewarts discusses, in a supplement, the question of the marriage of Elizabeth Mure, and prints the dispensation.]

[Acts of Parliament (Scotland), vol. i.; Exchequer Rolls, vols. i. ii.; and specially Burnett's Prefaces, Wyntoun's Chronicle; Bower's addition to Fordun's Scotichronicon; John Major's Greater Britain (Scottish History Society, Edinburgh); Extracta e variis Chronicis Scocie; Liber Pluscardensis. Pinkerton and Tytler are the best modern historians of this period. Andrew Stewart's History of the Stewarts discusses, in a supplement, the question of the marriage of Elizabeth Mure, and prints the dispensation.]

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ROBERT II (1316–1390), the Steward, afterwards king of Scotland, son of Walter III, steward of Scotland, and Marjory, daughter of Robert the Bruce [q. v.], was born on 2 March 1316. His father was fifth in direct male descent from Walter I, son of Alan, and this Walter is described as steward (dapifer) of Malcolm IV in a charter of 24 May 1158, which refers to the stewartry (senescallia) as granted to him by David I. In the prior reign of David I, Walter I was witness to two charters without the designation of Steward, so that the surname of the royal house of Stewart probably dates from the reign of Malcolm IV and the person of Walter I. Its earlier genealogy is uncertain, but an ingenious and learned, though admittedly in part hypothetical, attempt to trace it to the Banquho of Boece and Shakespeare, Thane of Lochaber, has been recently made by the Rev. J. K. Hewison (Bute in the Olden Time, pp. 1–38, Edinburgh, 1895). The chief estates of the Stewarts were in the shires of Renfrew. The Cluniac monastery of Paisley was founded by Walter I in 1160. He died in 1177. His son Alan, his grandson Walter II, his great-grandson Alexander, and his great-great-grandson James are all styled Stewards of Scotland. James, who took the patriotic side in the war of independence, died in the fourth year of Robert the Bruce, and was succeeded by his son, Walter III, whose support of Bruce was rewarded by the hand of his daughter, Marjory Bruce, in 1315. Marjory died in 1316, shortly after the birth of her only child, named Robert, doubtless after his maternal grandfather. The tradition that he owed his bleared or red eyes to a Cæsarian operation after his mother's death, by a fall from her horse near Paisley, is not supported by proof. Lord Hailes ingeniously suggested that it may have been invented to account for the colour of eyes which Froissart describes as like ‘sandal wood,’ or perhaps ‘lined with red silk’ (sendal). On 3 Dec. 1318, after the death of Edward Bruce without issue, the parliament of Scone, in presence of the king, enacted that, if Robert the Bruce should die without lawful heirs of his body, the son of Walter the Steward and Marjory should succeed to the crown, and made the further declaration that the succession should be in future to the heirs male in the direct line, whom failing to the heirs female in the same line, whom failing to the nearest collateral heir male. On the death of Walter the Steward in 1326, his son Robert succeeded to the office and estates of his father, and three years later, on the death of Robert the Bruce, the latter's young son, David II, became king [see Bruce, David]. When Edward Baliol, by the aid of the English, got possession of part of Scotland, David II was sent to France, and in 1334 Baliol granted the whole estates of Robert, the young Steward, to David Hastings, earl of Atholl. Robert, like his father, had naturally supported the Bruces, and led, when a boy of sixteen, the second division of the Scottish army at the battle of Halidon on 13 July 1333. After Halidon he took refuge in Dumbarton Castle, which Malcolm Fleming still held for David II, and, crossing to Bute, succeeded, with the aid of Campbell of Lochowe and the islanders of Bute, called St. Brandan's men, in routing and slaying Alan Lile, who held Bute for Baliol. Ayrshire also yielded, and John Randolph, third earl of Moray [q. v.], having returned from France, he and Robert the Steward were chosen in 1334 regents in name of the exiled king. Robert was at this time a popular favourite, and is described by Bower ‘as beautiful beyond the sons of men, stalwart and tall, accessible to all, modest, liberal, cheerful, and honest.’ Next year a parliament was held by the regents in April at Dairsie Castle, near Cupar. The Earl of Atholl attended, and succeeded in creating dissension between the Steward and the Earl of Moray, so the parliament broke up in confusion, which spread throughout the country, each of the regents collecting the customs in the districts where he was most powerful. Later in the year Moray was taken prisoner by the English while engaged in a border raid, and a treaty was concluded with Edward III at Perth on 18 Aug. 1335 by certain nobles, who alleged that they had full powers both from Atholl and the Steward. Atholl alone was made lieutenant of Scotland for Edward, and, though the Steward is said by the English chronicler Knighton to have made his peace with the English king at Edinburgh, it is doubtful how far he shared in the treason of Atholl. Before the close of the year Atholl was killed in an engagement in the forest of Kilblane by a small Scottish force which had rallied to the support of the independence of the country under Sir Andrew Murray (d. 1338) [q. v.], and a council at Dunfermline rewarded Murray with the sole regency of the kingdom. On Murray's death in 1338, Robert the Steward again became regent, and sent Sir William Douglas (1300?–1353) [q. v.], the knight of Liddesdale, to France to obtain aid from Philip of Valois. He laid siege in 1339 to Perth, which Baliol had left in the hands of Ughtred, an English captain. He was aided in the siege by William Bullock, a skilful soldier, though an ecclesiastic, who at this time deserted the English side, and brought over the castle of Cupar in Fife. Some French troops brought by the knight of Liddesdale, and commanded by Eugène de Garancières, arrived while the siege was in progress, and Perth capitulated on 17 Aug. Stirling soon after surrendered, and Robert made a progress through all Scotland north of the Forth. On 17 April 1341 the castle of Edinburgh was recovered by the Steward, through a stratagem of Bullock and the knight of Liddesdale, and on 4 May David II and his queen returned from France, landing at Inverbervie in Kincardineshire. David now assumed the personal government, which he held till the defeat of Neville's Cross or Durham on 17 Oct. 1346, when he was taken prisoner. The Steward, who, along with the Earl of March, had commanded the left wing, made good his retreat to Scotland, when the Steward was again elected regent, under the title of lieutenant of David II. The suspicion that he had deserted the king when the battle turned against him does not appear to be well founded. The expedients adopted for raising the ransom belong to the history of David II [see Bruce, David]. Robert's position was directly affected by the negotiations, at first secret, though their purport must soon have leaked out, to evade the ransom by settling the succession on an English heir. In 1361 this project was broached to an embassy sent by David to York and London, whose members were David's most faithful civil and ecclesiastical advisers. In the same year the Earl of Mar rose against the king, and his castle of Kildrummy was taken. In 1363 the Earl of Douglas seized Dirleton, then in the king's hands, and the Steward, along with his two sons, made a bond with Douglas and the Earl of March to force the king to change his councillors. But David defeated Douglas at Lanark, and March and the Steward submitted. On 4 May 1363 the latter renewed his oath of fealty at Inch Murdach. David soon after went to London, and on 27 Nov. 1363 made a treaty with the English king, by which, on consideration of the discharge of the ransom, the crown was settled on Edward III in the event of failure of issue male of his body. Singularly enough, he had shortly before this date married Margaret Logie with the hope of issue. Both the treaty and the marriage were deadly blows against the Steward's right as heir-apparent, and it is not wonderful that they were followed by the seizure of the Steward and his three sons, who were, according to Fordun, put in separate prisons; but Robert and his fourth son, Alexander, the Wolf of Badenoch, appear to have been both imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. In a parliament at Scone on 4 March 1364 the proposal to transfer the succession from the Steward to Edward III, or his son Lionel, duke of Clarence, was brought forward, and unanimously rejected by the estates, who declared that they would have no Englishman to rule over them. The dispute between the king and Margaret Logie, which culminated in her divorce in 1370, led to the release of the Steward and his sons, and the exchequer rolls appear to prove that the Steward had been incarcerated only between June 1368 and 1369. On 22 Feb. 1371 David died in Edinburgh Castle. Robert the Steward succeeded to the throne under the settlement of Robert the Bruce, and was crowned at Scone on 26 March 1371 under the title of Robert II. He was past his prime, having already reached his fifty-fifth year, and his children were already grown up. His precocious youth was the most brilliant portion of his life. His reign, though it lasted nineteen years, is of secondary importance, except as an epoch in Scottish history, through the commencement of a new race of kings which, notwithstanding its chequered fortunes, held the crown for more than three centuries. In the parliament of 1372 provision was made for the election of the committee of lords of the articles out of the three estates, following the precedent set in the fortieth year of David II. This committee, which became so notable a feature of the Scottish parliament at a later period, ultimately fell under the influence of the king; but its inception appears to have been due to an opposite cause—the desire of the nobles to control the royal power. Next year parliament passed a statute as to the succession, by which it was declared that the king's five sons were to succeed according to the order of birth, in the event of failure of heirs of those elder to them.....

ROBERT II (1316–1390), the Steward, afterwards king of Scotland, son of Walter III, steward of Scotland, and Marjory, daughter of Robert the Bruce [q. v.], was born on 2 March 1316. His father was fifth in direct male descent from Walter I, son of Alan, and this Walter is described as steward (dapifer) of Malcolm IV in a charter of 24 May 1158, which refers to the stewartry (senescallia) as granted to him by David I. In the prior reign of David I, Walter I was witness to two charters without the designation of Steward, so that the surname of the royal house of Stewart probably dates from the reign of Malcolm IV and the person of Walter I. Its earlier genealogy is uncertain, but an ingenious and learned, though admittedly in part hypothetical, attempt to trace it to the Banquho of Boece and Shakespeare, Thane of Lochaber, has been recently made by the Rev. J. K. Hewison (Bute in the Olden Time, pp. 1–38, Edinburgh, 1895). The chief estates of the Stewarts were in the shires of Renfrew. The Cluniac monastery of Paisley was founded by Walter I in 1160. He died in 1177. His son Alan, his grandson Walter II, his great-grandson Alexander, and his great-great-grandson James are all styled Stewards of Scotland. James, who took the patriotic side in the war of independence, died in the fourth year of Robert the Bruce, and was succeeded by his son, Walter III, whose support of Bruce was rewarded by the hand of his daughter, Marjory Bruce, in 1315. Marjory died in 1316, shortly after the birth of her only child, named Robert, doubtless after his maternal grandfather. The tradition that he owed his bleared or red eyes to a Cæsarian operation after his mother's death, by a fall from her horse near Paisley, is not supported by proof. Lord Hailes ingeniously suggested that it may have been invented to account for the colour of eyes which Froissart describes as like ‘sandal wood,’ or perhaps ‘lined with red silk’ (sendal). On 3 Dec. 1318, after the death of Edward Bruce without issue, the parliament of Scone, in presence of the king, enacted that, if Robert the Bruce should die without lawful heirs of his body, the son of Walter the Steward and Marjory should succeed to the crown, and made the further declaration that the succession should be in future to the heirs male in the direct line, whom failing to the heirs female in the same line, whom failing to the nearest collateral heir male.

On the death of Walter the Steward in 1326, his son Robert succeeded to the office and estates of his father, and three years later, on the death of Robert the Bruce, the latter's young son, David II, became king [see Bruce, David]. When Edward Baliol, by the aid of the English, got possession of part of Scotland, David II was sent to France, and in 1334 Baliol granted the whole estates of Robert, the young Steward, to David Hastings, earl of Atholl. Robert, like his father, had naturally supported the Bruces, and led, when a boy of sixteen, the second division of the Scottish army at the battle of Halidon on 13 July 1333. After Halidon he took refuge in Dumbarton Castle, which Malcolm Fleming still held for David II, and, crossing to Bute, succeeded, with the aid of Campbell of Lochowe and the islanders of Bute, called St. Brandan's men, in routing and slaying Alan Lile, who held Bute for Baliol. Ayrshire also yielded, and John Randolph, third earl of Moray [q. v.], having returned from France, he and Robert the Steward were chosen in 1334 regents in name of the exiled king. Robert was at this time a popular favourite, and is described by Bower ‘as beautiful beyond the sons of men, stalwart and tall, accessible to all, modest, liberal, cheerful, and honest.’ Next year a parliament was held by the regents in April at Dairsie Castle, near Cupar. The Earl of Atholl attended, and succeeded in creating dissension between the Steward and the Earl of Moray, so the parliament broke up in confusion, which spread throughout the country, each of the regents collecting the customs in the districts where he was most powerful. Later in the year Moray was taken prisoner by the English while engaged in a border raid, and a treaty was concluded with Edward III at Perth on 18 Aug. 1335 by certain nobles, who alleged that they had full powers both from Atholl and the Steward. Atholl alone was made lieutenant of Scotland for Edward, and, though the Steward is said by the English chronicler Knighton to have made his peace with the English king at Edinburgh, it is doubtful how far he shared in the treason of Atholl. Before the close of the year Atholl was killed in an engagement in the forest of Kilblane by a small Scottish force which had rallied to the support of the independence of the country under Sir Andrew Murray (d. 1338) [q. v.], and a council at Dunfermline rewarded Murray with the sole regency of the kingdom.

On Murray's death in 1338, Robert the Steward again became regent, and sent Sir William Douglas (1300?–1353) [q. v.], the knight of Liddesdale, to France to obtain aid from Philip of Valois. He laid siege in 1339 to Perth, which Baliol had left in the hands of Ughtred, an English captain. He was aided in the siege by William Bullock, a skilful soldier, though an ecclesiastic, who at this time deserted the English side, and brought over the castle of Cupar in Fife. Some French troops brought by the knight of Liddesdale, and commanded by Eugène de Garancières, arrived while the siege was in progress, and Perth capitulated on 17 Aug. Stirling soon after surrendered, and Robert made a progress through all Scotland north of the Forth. On 17 April 1341 the castle of Edinburgh was recovered by the Steward, through a stratagem of Bullock and the knight of Liddesdale, and on 4 May David II and his queen returned from France, landing at Inverbervie in Kincardineshire. David now assumed the personal government, which he held till the defeat of Neville's Cross or Durham on 17 Oct. 1346, when he was taken prisoner. The Steward, who, along with the Earl of March, had commanded the left wing, made good his retreat to Scotland, when the Steward was again elected regent, under the title of lieutenant of David II. The suspicion that he had deserted the king when the battle turned against him does not appear to be well founded.

The expedients adopted for raising the ransom belong to the history of David II [see Bruce, David]. Robert's position was directly affected by the negotiations, at first secret, though their purport must soon have leaked out, to evade the ransom by settling the succession on an English heir. In 1361 this project was broached to an embassy sent by David to York and London, whose members were David's most faithful civil and ecclesiastical advisers. In the same year the Earl of Mar rose against the king, and his castle of Kildrummy was taken. In 1363 the Earl of Douglas seized Dirleton, then in the king's hands, and the Steward, along with his two sons, made a bond with Douglas and the Earl of March to force the king to change his councillors. But David defeated Douglas at Lanark, and March and the Steward submitted. On 4 May 1363 the latter renewed his oath of fealty at Inch Murdach. David soon after went to London, and on 27 Nov. 1363 made a treaty with the English king, by which, on consideration of the discharge of the ransom, the crown was settled on Edward III in the event of failure of issue male of his body. Singularly enough, he had shortly before this date married Margaret Logie with the hope of issue. Both the treaty and the marriage were deadly blows against the Steward's right as heir-apparent, and it is not wonderful that they were followed by the seizure of the Steward and his three sons, who were, according to Fordun, put in separate prisons; but Robert and his fourth son, Alexander, the Wolf of Badenoch, appear to have been both imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. In a parliament at Scone on 4 March 1364 the proposal to transfer the succession from the Steward to Edward III, or his son Lionel, duke of Clarence, was brought forward, and unanimously rejected by the estates, who declared that they would have no Englishman to rule over them. The dispute between the king and Margaret Logie, which culminated in her divorce in 1370, led to the release of the Steward and his sons, and the exchequer rolls appear to prove that the Steward had been incarcerated only between June 1368 and 1369. On 22 Feb. 1371 David died in Edinburgh Castle.

Robert the Steward succeeded to the throne under the settlement of Robert the Bruce, and was crowned at Scone on 26 March 1371 under the title of Robert II. He was past his prime, having already reached his fifty-fifth year, and his children were already grown up. His precocious youth was the most brilliant portion of his life. His reign, though it lasted nineteen years, is of secondary importance, except as an epoch in Scottish history, through the commencement of a new race of kings which, notwithstanding its chequered fortunes, held the crown for more than three centuries.

In the parliament of 1372 provision was made for the election of the committee of lords of the articles out of the three estates, following the precedent set in the fortieth year of David II. This committee, which became so notable a feature of the Scottish parliament at a later period, ultimately fell under the influence of the king; but its inception appears to have been due to an opposite cause—the desire of the nobles to control the royal power. Next year parliament passed a statute as to the succession, by which it was declared that the king's five sons were to succeed according to the order of birth, in the event of failure of heirs of those elder to them.....