User:Billreid/Robert III of Scotland


 * Robert III redirects here. Robert Curthose of Normandy is also sometimes known as Robert III or Robert II.

Robert III (c. 1337–April 1406), King of Scots (reigned 1390–1406), given name John, was the eldest son of Robert, High Steward of Scotland, afterwards King Robert II and Elizabeth Mure and was legitimated with the marriage of his parents in 1347.

John joined his father and other magnates in a rebellion against his grand-uncle, King David II early in 1363 but submitted to him soon afterwards. He married Anabella Drummond, daughter of Sir John Drummond of Stobhall before 31 May 1367 when the Steward ceded to him the earldom of Atholl. In 1368 David created him Earl of Carrick. His father became king in 1371 upon the unexpected death of the childless King David. In the succeeding years Carrick was influential in the government of the kingdom but became progressively more impatient at his father's longevity. In 1384 Carrick and others influenced a general council to remove King Robert from direct rule and to appoint the earl as the king's lieutenant. Carrick's jurisdiction saw a renewal of the conflict with England and in 1388 the Scots defeated the English at the Battle of Otterburn where the Scots' commander, James, Earl of Douglas, was killed. By this time Carrick had been badly injured by a horse-kick but the loss of his ally, Douglas, saw a turnaround in magnate support in favour of his younger brother Robert, Earl of Fife. A council in December 1388 transferred the lieutenancy to Fife who had proved himself an able administrator.

In 1390, King Robert II died and Carrick ascended the throne as Robert III but without authority to rule directly. Fife continued as lieutenant until February 1393 when power was returned to the king in conjuction with his son David. At a council in 1399 owing to the king's 'sickness of his person', David, now Duke of Rothesay, became lieutenant of the kingdom in his own right but supervised by a special parliamentary council dominated by Fife, now styled Duke of Albany. After this, King Robert withdrew to his lands in the west and for a time played little or no part in affairs of state. He was powerless to interfere when a dispute between Albany and Rothesay arose in 1401 which led to Rothesay's arrest and imprisonment at Albany's Falkland Palace and where Rothesay mysteriously died in March 1402. Albany was absolved from blame by the council and was reappointed as lieutenant. The only impediment now remaining to an Albany Stewart monarchy was the king's only surviving son, James, Earl of Carrick. In February 1406 the 11 year old James and a powerful group of followers clashed with Albany's Douglas allies resulting in the death of the king's councellor Sir David Fleming of Cumbernauld. James escaped to the Bass Rock accompanied by Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney and remained there for a month before boarding a ship bound for France. The vessel was intercepted near Flamborough Head and James was taken into the custody of the English King Henry IV and would remain a prisoner for the next 18 years. Robert III died in Rothesay Castle on 4 April 1406 shortly after learning of his son's capture and was buried at Paisley Abbey.

Heir apparent
John, then styled Lord of Kyle, first appeared in the 1350s as the commander of a campaign in the lordship of Annandale to re-establish Scottish control over English occupied territory. In 1363, John joined his father Robert the Steward along with the earls of Douglas and March in a failed insurrection against King David II. The reasons for the rebellion were varied. In 1362, David II supported several of his royal favourites in their titles to lands in the Stewart earldom of Monteith and thwarted Stewart claims to the earldom of Fife. The king's involvement with Margaret Logie (née Drummond) and soon to be his queen may also have represented a threat in the Steward's own earldom of Strathearn where the Drummonds also had interests, while Douglas and March mistrusted David's intentions towards them. These nobles were also unhappy at the king's squandering of funds provided to him for his ransom and with the prospect that they could be sent to England as guarantors for the ransom payments. The Steward with his position as heir under threat submitted to David on 14 May 1363. The dissention between the king and the Stewarts looked to have been settled before the end of spring 1367. On 31 May the Steward gave the earldom of Atholl to John, who by this time was already married to Annabella Drummond, the daughter of the queen's deceased brother, Sir John Drummond and (probably) Mary, heir of William Montefichet, lord of Auchterarder. David reinforced the postion of John and Annabella by providing them with the earldom of Carrick on 22 June 1368 and the tacit approval of John as the king's probable heir.

David had his childless marriage to Margaret anulled in 1368 and planned to marry the earl of March's sister, Agnes Dunbar, signalling a shift in the political fortunes of John. The king's sudden death in 1371 must have come as a relief for both John and his father. Robert was crowned at Scone Abbey on 27 March 1371 and had in the meantime given John the ancestal lands throughout the Firth of Clyde. As well as being Earl of Carrick John was now also styled Steward of Scotland. The earldom of Fife, the senior earldom in the kingdom, previously provided to John Dunbar by David II was now given to the king's second son, Robert Earl of Monteith&mdash;Dunbar was compensated with the earldom of Moray. Carrick was officially named as heir by the general council that attended the coronation of his father but in 1373 the succession was further strengthened when parliament passed entails defining the way in which each of the king's sons could inherit the crown.

A son, David, the future Duke of Rothesay, was born to Carrick and Annabella on 24 October 1378. In 1381, Carrick was calling himself  'lieutenant for the marches'  sustained by his connections to border magnates such as his brother-in-law, James Douglas son of William, Earl of Douglas who he succeeded in 1384.

Lieutenant of the kingdom
Carrick was the pre-eminent Stewart magnate south of the Forth-Clyde line just as his younger brother Alexander, earl of Buchan, lord of Badenoch and Ross was in the north. Northern nobles and prelates criticised Buchan's methods and the lawless activities of his intimidatory Gaelic mercenaries. These complaints demonstrated the inability or reluctance of Robert II to control his son and so lost him council support. In 1384, the king's failure to take a leading role in prosecuting the war with England or to restrain Buchan's activities in the north was the backdrop to the November sitting of the general council at Holyrood&mdash;at this meeting the decision was taken to sideline the king and provide the ruling powers to Carrick. In 1385, the general council sharply condemned Buchan's behaviour and sat with the intention of maneuvering Carrick into firmly intervening in the north. Carrick's supporters were unhappy with him for not tackling the issues surrounding the earl of Buchan but were pleased at the resumption of hostilities with England. In July 1385, a Scottish army that included a French force commanded by Admiral Jean de Vienne penetrated into the north of England without any serious gains but provoked a damaging retaliatory attack by Richard II. A series of truces halted any further significant fighting but on 19 April 1388, English envoys sent to Scotland to again extend the ceasefire returned to Richard's court empty-handed&mdash;by 29 April Robert II was conducting a council in Edinburgh to authorise renewed conflict with England.

Although the Scots army defeated the English at the Battle of Otterburn in Northumberland in August 1388, its leader James, Earl of Douglas was killed. Douglas died childless and this triggered a series of claims on his estate&mdash;Carrick backed Malcolm Drummond, the husband of Douglas's sister while Carrick's brother Fife took the side of Sir Archibald Douglas, lord of Galloway who held an entail on his kinsman's estates and who ultimately succeeded to the earldom. Carrick had been made the king's lieutenant partly on the need to curb the excesses of Buchan but despite this by February 1387 Buchan had become even more powerful and influential when he was appointed Justicier north of the Forth. Fife, with his powerful Douglas ally, and those loyal to the king ensured at the December 1388 council meeting that the guardianship of Scotland would pass from Carrick (who had recently been badly injured from a horse-kick) to Fife on the elderly Robert II's behalf.

There was general approval of Fife's intention to properly resolve the situation of lawlessness in the north and in particular the activities of Buchan his younger brother. Buchan was stripped of his position of justiciar and which was soon to be given to Fife's son, Murdoch Stewart. In January 1390 Robert II was in the north-east perhaps to strenghen the now changed political outlook in the north of the kingdom. He returned to Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire in March where he died on the 19 April and was buried at Scone on 25 April.

Kingship
The new king was granted permission by parliament in May 1390 to change his regnal name from John to Robert, probably in part to maintain the link back to Robert I but also to disassociate himself from King John Balliol. Fife and Douglas were now faced with the possibility of a resurgent Robert III gaining support from the council to rule unrestrictedly and thus to reverse the Fife dispensations to his political allies. Robert remained uncrowned until 14 August and can be seen as a period for Fife and his affinity to consolidate their positions in advance of the coronation&mdash;this four month interval included the defiant incendiary attacks on Forres and Elgin by Buchan possibly in part as a protest at Fife's re-appointment as the king's lieutenant.

In 1392, the king endowed his son David, now earl of Carrick, with a large annuity that allowed the young prince to build up his household and affinity. King Robert regained political influence in 1393 when the general council decided that Fife's lieutenancy should end and that Carrick now of age should assist his father. This independence of action is evidenced in 1395–6 when he responded to Carrick's unauthorised marriage to Elizabeth Dunbar, daughter of George Earl of March by ensuring its annulment. The king appears to have also taken over the conduct of foreign affairs, preserving the peace with Richard II and managing to increase the power of the Red Douglas Earl of Angus in the southeast of the country as a counter-balance to Fife's Black Douglas allies. He further demonstrated his authority when in an attempt to reduce interclan feuding and lawlessness, he arranged and oversaw a gladiatorial limited combat between the clans of Kay and Quhele (Clan Chattan) in Perth on 28 April 1396. David of Carrick progressively acted independently of his father taking control of the Stewart lands in the southwest while maintaining his links with the Drummonds of his mother and all at a time when Fife's influence in central Scotland remained strong.

The king was increasingly blamed for the failure to pacify the Gaelic areas in west and north. The general council held in Perth in April 1398 criticised the king's governance and enpowered his brother Robert and his son David&mdash;now respectively the Dukes of Albany and Rothesay&mdash;to lead an army against Donald, Lord of the Isles and his brothers. In November 1398, an influential group of magnates and prelates met at Falkland Castle that included Albany, Rothesay, Archibald, earl of Douglas, Albany's son Murdoch, justiciar North of the Forth along with the bishops Walter of St Andrews and Gilbert of Aberdeen&mdash;the outcome of this meeting manifested itself at the council meeting held in January 1399 when the king was forced to surrender power to Rothesay for a period of three years.

The kin of the border earls took advantage of the confusion in England following the deposition of Richard II by Henry duke of Lancaster and harried and forayed into England causing considerable damage and taking Wark Castle around 13 October 1399. A far reaching dispute between Rothesay and George Dunbar, earl of March occurred when Rothesay, rather than remarrying Elizabeth Dunbar as previously agreed, decided to marry Mary Douglas, daughter of the earl of Douglas&mdash;March, enraged by this wrote to Henry IV on 18 February 1400 and by July had entered Henry's service. In 1401, Rothesay took on a more assertive and autonomous attitude, circumventing proper procedures, unjustifiably appropriating sums from the customs of the burghs on the east coast before provoking further animosity when he confiscated the revenues of the temporalities of the vacant bishopric of St Andrews. Rothesay had also in conjunction with his uncle, Alexander Stewart, earl of Buchan, confronted Albany's influence in central Scotland&mdash;as soon his lieutenancy expired in 1402 Rothesay was arrested and imprisoned in Albany's Falkland Castle where he died in March 1402. Rothesay's death probably lay with Albany and Douglas who would have looked upon the possibility of the young prince acceding to the throne with great apprehension&mdash;they certainly fell under suspicion but were cleared of all blame by a general council,  'where, by divine providence and not otherwise, it is discerned that he departed from this life.' 

Following Rothesay's death&mdash;with the restoration of the lieutenancy to Albany and the Scottish defeat at the battle of Humbleton&mdash;Robert III experienced almost total exclusion from political authority and was limited to his lands in the west. By late 1404 Robert, with the aid of his close councillors Henry Sinclair, earl of Orkney, Sir David Fleming and Henry Wardlaw, had succeeded in re-establishing himself and intervened in favour of Alexander Stewart, the earl of Buchan's illegitimate son, who was in dispute with Albany over the earldom of Mar. Robert III again exhibited his new resolve when in December 1404 he created a new regality in the Stewartry for his sole remaining son and heir James now earl of Carrick&mdash;an act designed to prevent these lands falling into Albany's hands. By 28 October 1405 Robert III had returned to Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire. With the king's health failing, it was decided in the winter of 1405–6 to send the young prince to France out of the reach of Albany. Despite this, the manner of James's flight from Scotland was unplanned. In February 1406, the 12 year old James together with Orkney and Fleming at the head of a large group of followers left the safety of Bishop Wardlaw's protection in St Andrews and journeyed through the hostile Douglas territories of east Lothian&mdash;an act probably designed to demonstrate James's royal authority but also a move by the prince's custodians to further their own interests in the traditional Douglas heartlands of southern Scotland. Events went seriously wrong for James&mdash;he had to escape to the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth along with the earl of Orkney after his escorts were attacked by James Douglas of Balvenie and which resulted in Sir David Fleming's death. Their confinement on the rock&mdash;its normal use was as a prison&mdash;was to last for over a month before a German ship en route for France picked them up. On 22 March 1406 the ship was taken off Flamborough Head by English pirates who delivered James to King Henry IV of England. Robert III had moved to Rothesay castle where, after hearing of his son's captivity, died 4 April 1406 and was buried in the Stewart foundation abbey of Paisley.

Reputation
Abbot Walter Bower reported that Robert III described himself as  'the worst of kings and the most miserable of men' . Contemporary chronicler Sir Jean Froissart had unjustly written about Robert III's father and how the late king (in his 70th year) did not seek war with England but would rather stay at home. Writing at the time when Robert III was still earl of Carrick and his brother Robert was earl of Fife, an unknown pro-Fife propagandist promulgated the cause of Fife before the coup that removed Carrick from power. A lack of scholarly investigation of the first two Stewart kings led historians through to the third quarter of the 20th century to follow these early sources.

Gordon Donaldson in 1950 writes of the first two Stewart kings ‘ that a famous dynasty, which was to produce so many men of remarkable ability. . . made a somewhat pedestrian beginning '. He immediately qualifies this statement with ‘ it is true that the sources, both record and narrative, are scanty '. He goes further and explains ‘ admittedly, no attempt has yet been made to bring the resources of modern historical research to bear on Robert II and Robert III. . . but it is beyond the bounds of probability that even if this is done either of them will emerge as a man who did much positively to shape Scottish history. ' When Robert III re-established his personal rule in 1393 Donaldson  characterises it as a period of anarchy and of a king who couldn’t control his brothers Albany and Alexander of Buchan or his son Rothesay.

Ranald Nicholson agrees with Donaldson and describes Robert III as a failure and writes ' if the achievements of David II are to be seen in perspective they must be viewed not only with the triumphs of Robert I in the foreground but with the failures of the first Stewart kings in the background '. like his father, because he wasn’t dominant. Nicholson’s opinion was that in his period as lieutenant from 1380–4, Robert (John, earl of Carrick) was incapable of dealing with the breakdown of law and order citing the number of legal cases but disregarded the effects of the death of Carrick's ally, the earl of Douglas on the kingdom as a whole. Carrick after being crippled by the kick of a horse was explained by Nicholson as the excuse needed to have him replaced by his brother Robert, earl of Fife as the king’s lieutenant. Nicholson writes ‘ nothing much was to be hoped for in the heir apparent and goes on to blame Robert III for the destruction of Forres and Elgin despite the lieutenancy of Fife at the time.

Michael Lynch states that earlier 20th century historians made hasty evaluations of both Robert II and Robert III, when they characterised them as ‘ pathetically weak personalities ‘  and their reigns as ‘ nineteen years of senility and sixteen of infirmity ‘. Lynch also makes the point that the complaints made in the later chronicles of lawlessness and disturbance in the country was not widespread bu mainly confined to the north with the king’s brother Alexander, lord of Badenoch and earl of Buchan at its root. The death of John, lord of the Isles heralded a state of dissention between the lordship and the crown that was to last for two generations and which even Robert III’s successor James I was unable to deal with properly. Lynch states that much of the troubles during Robert III’s reign derived from the sharp deterioration of the royal revenues. The unruliness of northern Scotland was the result of competing factions within the royal family&mdash;Lynch suggests that the weakness in kingship before 1406 ‘ can be exaggerated ‘  citing Buchan’s enforced appearance at Robert III’s council to answer for his incendiary attack on Elgin and its cathedral and Albany’s obtainment of a submission from the lord of the Isles. Alexander Grant, in Independence and Nationhood (1984) found Robert III to be  ' probably Scotland's least impressive king ' . Grant puts this in perspective and writes that it is notable that Robert III's reign could have been worse compared to the turmoil and violence experienced in England and France when ruled by weak kings&mdash;even on Robert’s death, Scotland didn’t descend into open civil war but was restricted to positioning among the royal family and its magnate groupings.

In Stephen Boardman’s examination of his life he presents the younger Robert, then John, earl of Carrick, as a very ambitious man and fully engaged in the running of the country, at the centre of Anglo-Scottish diplomacy and who became the pre-eminent magnate in Scotland and whose political importance south of the Forth would eclipse that of his father’s, ‘. Boardman describes how in 1384 he callously engineered the council to remove his father from power and to place it  in his hands. Many of the problems of Robert III’s feckless rule, Boardman argues, stemmed from the death of his brother-in-law and close ally James, 2nd earl of Douglas at Otterburn in 1388 when his deliberately constructed and powerful affinity south of the Forth crumbled. That same year Carrick lost the lieutenancy to his brother Robert earl of Fife that was, Boardman suggests, a blow to the future king’s status and standing and which he would not properly overcome. According to Boardman, when Robert became king in 1390 he was the victim of his father’s style of government characterised by Robert II’s creation of his sons, sons-in-law and other major territorial nobles as powerful magnates to whom he delegated extensive authority&mdash;as a result Robert III’s brothers refused to act simply as liegemen to the king. Robert III, already weakened by council when he ascended the throne was in the end completely subordinated to the magnatial power of Albany and Douglas.