A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen/Alexander II.

ALEXANDER II., the only legitimate son of king William, surnamed the Lion, was born in 1198. He succeeded his father, December 4, 1214, in his seventeenth year, and was crowned next day at Scone. Alexander II. is characterised by Fordun as a pious, just, and brave king—as the shield of the church, the safe-guard of the people, and the friend of the miserable. He espoused the cause of the English barons against king John, which led to mutual depredations between the two sovereigns; but on the accession of Henry III. to the crown of England, peace was restored; and in 1221, the friendly intercourse of the two nations was established by the marriage of the king of Scot land to Joan, eldest sister of the king of England. This princess died in 1238, without issue; and in the following year Alexander married Mary de Couci, the scion of a French house, which, in its motto, disclaimed royalty, and rested for distinction on its own merits:

Je suis ni roi, ni prince aussi—
Je suis le seigneur de Couci.

During the life of Joan, the British monarchs came to no open rupture, their friendly intimacy being only occasionally interrupted by Henry discovering a disposition to revive the claim of homage from the king of Scotland, which had been given up by Richard I., and by Alexander insisting on his claim to the three northern counties of England; but shortly after the death of Joan, national jealousies broke out, and in 1244, both princes raised armies and prepared for war. By the mediation, however, of several English barons, hostilities were prevented, and a peace concluded. Much of Alexander's reign was occupied in suppressing insurrections of the Celtic inhabitants of Scotland. He died A.D. 1249, in one of the islands of the Hebrides, while engaged in subjecting Angus, the Lord of Argyle, who refused his homage to the Scottish sovereign. He left by his second wife one son, who is the subject of the following article.