A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen/Alexander III.

ALEXANDER III., born at Roxburgh, September 4, 1241, succeeded his father in the eighth year of his age. He was knighted and crowned only five days after his father's death a precipitation adopted to prevent the interference of the king of England. When only a year old, Alexander had been betrothed to Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry III., a princess of his own age; and in 1251, their nuptials were celebrated at York with great pomp. On the ground of this union, Henry interested himself in the affairs of Scotland, and the young prince was a frequent visitor at the court of his father-in-law. The English monarch, taking advantage of Alexander's youth and other circumstances, endeavoured to prevail upon him to do homage for his crown and kingdom of Scotland; but the young king, with a fortitude and prudence beyond his years, and which gave promise of his future decision, resisted the requisition, saying that he could not treat of affairs of state without the advice of his parliament. During Alexander's minority, the country was divided into factions, and various struggles for ascendancy took place; but the administration was latterly committed to fifteen of the leading chiefs or barons. Alexander had reached the twenty-second year of his age, when his kingdom was invaded by one of the most formidable armaments that had ever sailed from Norway. Haco, king of that country, with a fleet of one hundred and sixty ships, freighted with many thousand northern warriors, who carried terror to almost all the shores of Europe, sailed towards Scotland in the summer of 1263, and after making himself master of the islands of Arran and Bute, arrived in the bay of Largs, near the mouth of the Clyde, and endeavoured to effect a landing. Here a Scottish army, under Alexander, assembled to resist the invasion; and here, on the 2d of October, after a fierce and bloody contest, the Norwegians were repulsed with great loss. A storm arising, completed the dissipation or destruction of their fleet. Haco escaped with difficulty through the strait between Sky and the mainland, since called Kyle Hacken, and reaching the Orkneys, died there, as is said, of a broken heart. By this defeat, all the islands of the western sea, including that of Man, but excepting those of Orkney and Shetland, submitted to Alexander.

From this period to the death of Alexander, Scotland enjoyed tranquillity, only disturbed by the pretensions of the pope and the encroachments of the clergy, both of which Alexander was successful in resisting. Religious crusades were at this time the rage over Europe, and Scotland did not escape the infection, as many of her bravest barons perished in Palestine. In 1274, Alexander attended the coronation of his brother-in-law, Edward I., at Westminster, and after the custom of the times did homage for the lands which he held of him in England. Six months after this, Margaret queen of Scotland died, leaving one daughter and two sons—Margaret, Alexander, and David. David died unmarried in 1281. Margaret was married in 1282, to Eric king of Norway, and died in the following year, after giving birth to an infant daughter, who received her own name. Alexander was married in 1283 to the daughter of Guy earl of Flanders, and died in the following year without issue. Thus, in the couise of a few years, was the unhappy king of Scotland deprived of his wife and all his children—the only remaining descendant of his body being the Maiden of Norway, as she is called in Scottish history, an infant grandchild residing in a foreign land. In 12S5, Alexander, to provide against the evils of a disputed succession, at the request of his nobility, married Joletta, daughter of the Count de Dreux: but shortly after his marriage, in riding along a precipitous road between Bruntisland and Kinghorn, his horse fell over a rock, and the unfortunate monarch was killed. This event took place on the 16th of March, 1286, in the 45th year of his age and 37th of his reign.

With Alexander III. terminated a race of kings, who, from the accession of Malcolm Cean-Mohr, had distinguished themselves by their activity in the administration of justice, and their courage in maintaining the rights and independence of their country against a powerful and too often an insidious foe. Few annals of a rude people, indeed, can present a more remarkable series of patriotic monarchs than those with whom Scotland was blessed from the middle of the eleventh to the close of the thirteenth century, whether we consider their wisdom and impartiality as legislators, their prudence as politicians, or their bravery as warriors, for Malcolm the Maiden and the terms upon which William the Lion effected his release from captivity must only be considered as exceptions to the general excellence of their conduct. But with the death of Alexander III., the peace and prosperity of the country was broken up; and much as he was lamented by the people, and gloomy as were their forebodings on his decease, no anticipation could exceed the real calamities in which the country was involved by his unhappy and untimely end.