King Charles III is Not the King of England!

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King Charles III, King George III, King Henry VIII, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Kingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Principality of Wales, Queen Anne, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

From the Emperor’s Desk: This is an updated and expanded article I wrote in 2012 at the start of my blog when Elizabeth II was Queen.

Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

I am a bit of a stickler for correct and proper usage of styles and titles. So it is a bit of a pet peeve of mine when these are used improperly. The main one that bugs me is calling Charles III, King of England. That bothers me because “King of England” is not his correct title! His correct title, simplified here, is King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England has not been a separate sovereign state since 1707.

Wales

The country of Wales was once an independent Principality. The conquest of Wales by Edward I of England was completed by 1283, though Owain Glyndŵr rebelled against English rule in the early 15th century and briefly re-established an independent Welsh principality. The whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542.

Ireland

In 1166, Mac Murrough King of Leinster, had fled to Anjou, France, following a war involving Tighearnán Ua Ruairc, of Breifne, and sought the assistance of the Angevin King Henry II of England, in recapturing his kingdom.

In 1171, Henry arrived in Ireland in order to review the general progress of the expedition. He wanted to re-exert royal authority over the invasion which was expanding beyond his control. Henry successfully re-imposed his authority over Strongbow and the Cambro-Norman warlords and persuaded many of the Irish kings to accept him as their overlord, an arrangement confirmed in the 1175 Treaty of Windsor.

The invasion was legitimised by reference to provisions of the alleged Papal Bull Laudabiliter, issued by an Englishman, Pope Adrian IV, in 1155. The document apparently encouraged Henry to take control in Ireland in order to oversee the financial and administrative reorganisation of the Irish Church and its integration into the Roman Church system.

In 1172, Pope Alexander III further encouraged Henry to advance the integration of the Irish Church with Rome. Henry was authorised to impose a tithe of one penny per hearth as an annual contribution. This church levy called Peter’s Pence, is extant in Ireland as a voluntary donation. In turn, Henry II assumed the title of Lord of Ireland which Henry conferred on his younger son, John Lackland, in 1185.

This defined the Anglo-Norman administration in Ireland as the Lordship of Ireland. When Henry’s successor, King Richard I of England, died unexpectedly in 1199, King John inherited the crown of England and retained the Lordship of Ireland. The Kings of England remained Lord of Ireland until the Crown of Ireland Act 1542.

Henry VIII, King of England and Ireland

When King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church to marry Anne Boleyn his legal claim to the lordship of Ireland was tenuous because that title had been granted by the Pope and was connected to the Roman Catholic Church. The solution to this quandary was to elevate Henry’s title from Lord to King.

By the terms of the Crown of Ireland Act 1542, the Parliament of Ireland created Henry VIII of England as “King of Ireland”. Although the Kings of England, and later the Kings of England and Scotland, we’re also Kings of Ireland, Ireland was not politically joined to England and Scotland and remained a separate independent Kingdom and was ruled in a personal union by the king or queen.

With Wales having been incorporated within the Kingdom of England, and Ireland as a separate Kingdom ruled by the English monarch, let us now focus on how the kingdoms of England and Scotland were united.

Here is a little historical background on the issue. For centuries England and Scotland were separate sovereign Kingdoms each with their own monarch. There was not always peace between the two states as England constantly tried to keep Scotland subdued. Edward I of England (1272-1307) is not known as the Hammer of the Scots for nothing!

The Kingdoms of England and Scotland ruled by separate monarchs until 1603. Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland died without issue and her closest relative that had a claim to the throne was her cousin King James VI of Scotland (1567-1625).

James I-VI, King of England, Scotland and Ireland

James VI of Scotland was deemed the rightful heir though there is debate as to whether or not Queen Elizabeth I actually named the Scottish King as her successor; he was accepted as King and became King James I of England and Ireland. There were other candidates for the English Throne besides the Scottish King, but that’s a subject for another blog entry.

The accession of the Scottish King on the English throne did not politically unite the two nations. Both Kingdoms were ruled by James but remained individual sovereign states that retained their own parliaments and laws. In England and Ireland he is reckoned as James I and in Scotland he is reckoned as James VI.

Although James I-VI liked to consider himself as the first King of Great Britain this title was self appointed and was not approved of by Parliament and the title had no legal barring.

Therefore, from 1603 until 1707 (excluding the Commonwealth period when the monarchy was abolished) the title of the monarch was King/Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland (they also called themselves the Kings of France but that is another story).

In 1707 came the Act of Union uniting the Parliaments of England and Scotland creating the new nation of Great Britain. The uniting of England and Scotland has a complex history which I have written about before on this blog, and will do a deeper dive into it at some future point.

Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland 1702-1707, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland 1707-1714

Suffice it to say, at this point England and Scotland ceased to be independent sovereign states and were then, and now, considered separate states within the union. Ireland remained separate from Great Britain and remained in personal union with the monarch.

The title of the monarch changed accordingly at this time and the titles of King or Queen of England and King or Queen of Scotland passed into history. Anne was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland when the Act of Union of 1707 was passed and her title was changed to Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.

George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg

The title remained King or Queen of Great Britain and Ireland for 93 years until the nation expanded once more. The Act of Union of 1801 joined the Parliament of Ireland with the Parliament of Great Britain. Ireland was now included in the political union with Great Britain and the new state became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

King George III (1760-1820) was the monarch at the time and his title changed accordingly. He was now King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was at this point the pretence to the title King of France was finally dropped.

George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg 1760-1801, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg

From 1714 to 1837 the British monarch was also Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg within the German Holy Roman Empire until 1806 when the Empire was abolished. In 1814 Hanover was created a Kingdom by the Congress of Vienna in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars and the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. Although the British monarchs listed their Hanoverian titles among their British titles, Britain and Hanover were ruled separately and were not politically unified.

In 1920 in the reign of King George V (1910-1936) a large portion of Ireland was given its independence and only the northern counties remained united with Britain. However, this part of Ireland continued to be a constitutional monarchy with the King of the United Kingdom as to their Head of State. The Free State of Ireland was separate from Northern Ireland which was still a part of the United Kingdom.

The Free State of Ireland came to an end with The Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which came into force on April 18, 1949, the 33rd anniversary of the beginning of the Easter Rising. This act created The Republic of Ireland.

Charles III, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Outside the Irish state, “Great Britain, Ireland” was not officially omitted from the royal title until 1953 when Elizabeth II began her reign.

Today, the official title of the King is: Charles III, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of his other realms and territories, King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

Now having said my rant and given the historical background on the evolution of the title of the British monarch I must be honest and say that I do miss the traditional titles of King or Queen of England and King or Queen of Scotland. Those are in the past unless devolution comes to the UK and England and Scotland becomes independent once again. If that does happen I think we would see a return to how things were prior to 1707 when both England and Scotland shared the same monarch.

Longest Reigning British Monarchs

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King Charles III of the United Kingdom, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of England and Scotland, Kingdom of Great Britain, Kingdom of Scotland, Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons, Longest Reigning British Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Longest Reigning Monarchs of the British Isles. This list begins with Alfred the Great as King of the Anglo-Saxons and combines the Kingdoms of England and Scotland and Great Britain and the United Kingdom together to list the longest reigning monarchs.

1. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom ~ 70 years
2. Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom ~ 63 years
3. King George III of the United Kingdom ~ 59 years
4. King James VI of Scotland ~ 57 years*
5. King Henry III of England ~ 56 years
6. King Edward III of England ~ 50 years
7. King William I of Scotland ~ 48 years
8. Queen Elizabeth I of England ~ 44 years
9. King David II of Scotland ~ 41 years
10. King Henry VI of England ~ 38 years
11. King Æthelred II of England ~ 37 years
12. King Henry VIII of England ~ 37 years
13. King Alexander III of Scotland ~ 36 years
14. King Malcolm III of Scotland ~ 35 years
15. King Henry I of England ~ 35 years
16. King Henry II of England ~ 34 years
17. King Edward I of England~ 34 years
18. King Alexander II of Scotland ~ 34 years
19. King George II of Great Britain ~ 33 years
20. King James I of Scotland ~ 30 years
21. King James V of Scotland ~ 29 years
22. King David I of Scotland ~ 29 years
23. King Alfred of the Anglo-Saxons ~ 28 years
24. King James III of Scotland ~ 27 years
25. King George V of the United Kingdom ~ 25 years
26. King James IV of Scotland ~ 25 years
27. King Edward the Elder of the Anglo-Saxons ~ 24 years
28. King Charles II of England and Scotland ~ 24 years
29. Queen Mary I of Scotland ~ 24 years
30. King Charles I of England and Scotland ~ 23 years
31. King Henry VII of England ~ 23 years
32. King Edward the Confessor of England ~ 23 years
33. King James II of Scotland ~ 23 years
34. King Robert I of Scotland ~ 23 years
35. King Richard II of England ~ 22 years
36. King James I of England and Scotland ~ 22 years*
37. King Edward IV of England ~ 21 years
38. King William I of England ~ 20 years
39. King Edward II of England ~ 19 years
40. King Robert II of Scotland ~ 19 years
41. King Canute of Denmark and England ~ 18 years
42. King John of England ~ 17 years
43. King Alexander I of Scotland ~ 17 years
44. King Stephen of England ~ 17 years
45. King Robert III of Scotland ~ 15 years
46. King Edgar I of England ~ 15 years
47. King Æthelstan of England ~ 15 years
48. King George VI of the United Kingdom ~ 15 years
49. King Henry IV of England ~ 13 years
50. King William III of England and Scotland ~ 13 years
51. King George I of Great Britain ~ 12 years
52. King William II of England ~ 12 years
53. King Malcolm IV of Scotland ~ 12 years
54. Queen Anne of Great Britain ~ 12 years
55. King George IV of the United Kingdom ~ 10 years
56. King Ædred of England ~ 09 years
57. King Henry V of England ~ 09 years
58. King Edward VII of the United Kingdom ~ 09 years
59. King William IV of the United Kingdom ~ 06 years
60. King Edmund I of England 06 years
61. King Edward VI of England ~ 06 years
62. Queen Mary II of England and Scotland ~ 05 years
63. Queen Mary I of England ~ 05 years
64. King James II-VII of England and Scotland ~ 03 years
65. King John Balliol of Scotland ~ 03 years
66. King Ædwig of England ~ 02 years
67. King Ædward the Martyr of England ~ 02 years
68. King Harold I of England ~ 02 years
69. King Hardicanute, (Canute III) of England and Denmark ~ 02 years
70. King Richard III of England ~ 02 years
71. King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ~ 326 days
72. King Harold II Godwinson of England ~ 282 days
73. King Edmund II of England ~ 221 days
74. King Edward V of England ~ 78 days
75. King Edgar II of England ~ 63 days
76. King Charles III of the United Kingdom ~ 3 days

* James VI-I of England and Scotland. As King James VI of Scotland he ruled Scotland for 57 years. As King James I of England he ruled for 22 years.

The Name of the Kingdom. Part I.

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Act of Union of 1707, Act of Union of 1801, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Scotland, Parliament King of Great Britain, Queen Anne of Great Britain, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The other day I got into a debate on the internet about the name of the Kingdom after the passing of the Act of Union of 1707 which united England and Scotland.

I was under the impression that this new Kingdom was simply called “Great Britain” or the “Kingdom of Great Britain” and Queen Anne’s title becoming “Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.”

Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland

At the time Ireland was not joined to Great Britain but was in personal union with the sovereign and didn’t politically join Great Britain until the Act of Union of 1801. Therefore in 1801 the country then became known as “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” and the sovereigns title reflected that change.

Now my internet debating friend insisted that the name of the kingdom after the Act of Union of 1707 became ” The United Kingdom of Great Britain.”

I assert the term “United” in association with the name of the kingdom only came into effect with the Act of Union of 1801 and not the 1707 Act.

For his proof he cited the UK Parliament website:

“The Acts of Union, passed by the English and Scottish Parliaments in 1707, led to the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 May of that year. The UK Parliament met for the first time in October 1707.”

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/act-of-union-1707/#:~:text=The%20Acts%20of%20Union%2C%20passed,first%20time%20in%20October%201707.

I had never heard that before! All text books and biographies of various monarchs have all said that the Act of Union of 1707 created the Kingdom of Great Britain and the term United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland didn’t come into being until 1801.

I know this may seem a bit petty so forgive me for that…but is the UK Parliament website (and my debating friend) correct or all my old history books right?

If you have any evidence or thoughts leave me a comment!

The Angevin Empire. Part II.

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Administration, Count of Maine, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Normandy, Government, Henry II of England, John of England, Kingdom of Scotland, Kings of france, Lords of Ireland, Principality of Wales, Richard I of England

Administration and government

At its largest extent, the Angevin Empire consisted of the Kingdom of England, the Lordship of Ireland, the Duchies of Normandy (which included the Channel Islands), Gascony and Aquitaine as well as of the Counties of Anjou, Poitou, Maine, Touraine, Saintonge, La Marche, Périgord, Limousin, Nantes and Quercy.

While the Duchies and Counties were held with various levels of vassalage to the king of France, the Plantagenets held various levels of control over the Duchies of Brittany and Cornwall, the Welsh princedoms, the county of Toulouse, and the Kingdom of Scotland, although those regions were not formal parts of the empire.

Auvergne was also in the empire for part of the reigns of Henry II and Richard, in their capacity as Dukes of Aquitaine. Henry II and Richard I pushed further claims over the County of Berry but these were not completely fulfilled and the county was lost completely by the time of the accession of John in 1199.

The frontiers of the empire were sometimes well known and therefore easy to mark, such as the dykes constructed between the royal demesne of the King of France and the Duchy of Normandy. In other places these borders were not so clear, particularly the eastern border of Aquitaine, where there was often a difference between the frontier Henry II, and later Richard I, claimed, and the frontier where their effective power ended.

Scotland was an independent kingdom, but after a disastrous campaign led by King William I the Lion, English garrisons were established in the castles of Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Jedburgh and Berwick in southern Scotland as defined in the Treaty of Falaise.

Administration and government

One characteristic of the Angevin Empire was its “polycratic” nature, a term taken from a political pamphlet written by a subject of the Angevin Empire: the Policraticus by John of Salisbury. This meant that, rather than the empire being controlled fully by the ruling monarch, he would delegate power to specially appointed subjects in different areas.

Britain

England was under the firmest control of all the lands in the Angevin Empire, due to the age of many of the offices that governed the country and the traditions and customs that were in place. England was divided in shires with sheriffs in each enforcing the common law. A justiciar was appointed by the king to stand in his absence when he was on the continent. As the kings of England were more often in France than England they used writs more frequently than the Anglo-Saxon kings, which actually proved beneficial to England.

Under William I’s rule, Anglo-Saxon nobles had been largely replaced by Anglo-Norman ones who couldn’t own large expanses of contiguous lands, because their lands were split between England and France. This made it much harder for them to revolt against the king and defend all of their lands at once. Earls held a status similar to that of the continental counts, but there were no dukes at this time, only ducal titles that the kings of England held.

The Principality of Wales obtained good terms provided it paid homage to the Plantagenets and recognised them as lords. However, it remained almost self-ruling. It supplied the Plantagenets with infantry and longbowmen.

Ireland

Ireland was ruled by the Lord of Ireland who had a hard time imposing his rule at first. Dublin and Leinster were Angevin strongholds while Cork, Limerick and parts of eastern Ulster were taken by Anglo-Norman nobles.

The Lordship of Ireland sometimes referred to retroactively as Norman Ireland, was the part of Ireland ruled by the King of England (styled as “Lord of Ireland”) and controlled by loyal Anglo-Norman lords between 1177 and 1542. The lordship was created following the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169–1171. It was a papal fief, granted to the Plantagenet kings of England by the Holy See, via Laudabiliter. As the lord of Ireland was also the king of England, he was represented locally by a governor, variously known as justiciar, lieutenant, or lord deputy.

France

France in 1180. The Angevin kings of England held all the red territories.
All the continental domains that the Angevin kings ruled were governed by a seneschal at the top of the hierarchical system, with lesser government officials such as baillis, vicomtes, and prévôts. However, all counties and duchies would differ to an extent.

Greater Anjou is a modern term to describe the area consisting of Anjou, Maine, Touraine, Vendôme, and Saintonge. Here, prévôts, the seneschal of Anjou, and other seneschals governed. They were based at Tours, Chinon, Baugé, Beaufort, Brissac, Angers, Saumur, Loudun, Loches, Langeais and Montbazon.

However, the constituent counties, such as Maine, were often administered by the officials of the local lords, rather than their Angevin suzerains. Maine was at first largely self-ruling and lacked administration until the Angevin kings made efforts to improve administration by installing new officials, such as the seneschal of Le Mans. These reforms came too late for the Angevins however, and only the Capetians saw the beneficial effects of this reform after they annexed the area.

Aquitaine differed in the level of administration in its different constituent regions. Gascony was a very loosely administrated region. Officials were stationed mostly in Entre-Deux-Mers, Bayonne, Dax, but some were found on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela and also on the river Garonne up to Agen. The rest of Gascony was not administered, despite being such a large area compared to other smaller, well-administered provinces.

This difficulty when it came to administering the region wasn’t new – it had been just as difficult for the previous Poitevin dukes to cement their authority over this area. A similar state of affairs was found in the eastern provinces of Périgord and Limousin, where there was not much of a royal administrative system and practically no officials were stationed. Indeed, there were lords that ruled these regions as if they were “sovereign princes” and they had extra powers, such as the ability to mint their own coins, something English lords had been unable to do for decades.

These officials were introduced during the 12th century in Normandy and cause an organisation of the duchy similar to the sheriffs in England. Ducal authority was the strongest on the frontier near the Capetian royal demesne.

Toulouse was held through weak vassalage by the Count of Toulouse but it was rare for him to comply with Angevin rule. Only Quercy was directly administrated by the Angevins after Henry II’s conquest in 1159, but it did remain a contested area.

Brittany, a region where nobles were traditionally very independent, was under Angevin control during Henry II and Richard I’s reigns. The county of Nantes was under the firmest control. The Angevins often involved themselves in Breton affairs, such as when Henry II installed the archbishop of Dol and arranged Duke Conan IV of Brittany’s marriage to Margaret of Huntingdon (1144/45 – 1201).

Here is some family background on Margaret that you may find interesting. Margaret was a Scottish princess, the daughter of Henry of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon and Northumbria, and Ada de Warenne. She was the sister of Scottish kings Malcolm IV and William I.

Margaret’s father, Henry of Scotland (1114 — 1152), was heir apparent to the Kingdom of Alba. He was also the 3rd Earl of Northumberland and the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon. He was the son of King David I of Scotland and Queen Maud, 2nd Countess of Huntingdon.

Margaret’s mother, Maud was the daughter of Waltheof, the Anglo-Saxon Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton, and his French wife Judith of Lens. Her father was the last of the major Anglo-Saxon earls to remain powerful after the Norman conquest of England in 1066, and the son of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Her mother was the niece of William the Conqueror, which makes Maud his grand-niece. Through her ancestors the Counts of Boulogne, she was also a descendant of Alfred the Great and Charles the Bald and a cousin of Godfrey of Bouillon.

Margaret’s second husband was Humphrey de Bohun, hereditary Constable of England. Following her second marriage, Margaret styled herself as the Countess of Hereford.

August 24, 1198: Birth of King Alexander II of Scotland.

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Alexander II of Scotland, Henry III of England, Joan of England, John of England, King of Scots, Kingdom of Scotland, William I of Scotland, William the Lion

Alexander II (August 24, 1198 – July 6, 1249) was King of Scotland from 1214 until his death. He concluded the Treaty of York (1237) which defined the boundary between England and Scotland, virtually unchanged today.

He was born at Haddington, East Lothian, the only son of the Scottish king William I the Lion and Ermengarde of Beaumont. He spent time in England (John of England knighted him at Clerkenwell Priory in 1213) before succeeding to the kingdom on the death of his father on December 4, 1214, being crowned at Scone on 6 December the same year.


King of Scots

In 1215, the year after his accession, the clans Meic Uilleim and MacHeths, inveterate enemies of the Scottish crown, broke into revolt; but loyalist forces speedily quelled the insurrection. In the same year Alexander joined the English barons in their struggle against John of England, and led an army into the Kingdom of England in support of their cause. This action led to the sacking of Berwick-upon-Tweed as John’s forces ravaged the north.

The Scottish forces reached the south coast of England at the port of Dover where in September 1216, Alexander paid homage to the pretender Prince Louis of France for his lands in England, chosen by the barons to replace King John. But King John having died, the Pope and the English aristocracy changed their allegiance to his nine-year-old son, Henry, forcing the French and the Scots armies to return home.

Peace between Henry III, Louis of France, and Alexander II followed on September 12, 1217 with the Treaty of Kingston. Diplomacy further strengthened the reconciliation by the marriage of Alexander to Henry’s sister Joan of England on 18 June 18, or June 25, 1221.

Royal forces crushed a revolt in Galloway in 1235 without difficulty; nor did an invasion attempted soon afterwards by its exiled leaders meet with success. Soon afterwards a claim for homage from Henry of England drew forth from Alexander a counter-claim to the northern English counties. The two kingdoms, however, settled this dispute by a compromise in 1237. This was the Treaty of York, which defined the boundary between the two kingdoms as running between the Solway Firth (in the west) and the mouth of the River Tweed (in the east).

Alexander’s first wife Joan of England died in March 1238 in Essex, and was buried in Dorset. Alexander married his second wife, Marie de Coucy, the following year on May 15, 1239. Together they had one son, the future Alexander III, born in 1241.

A threat of invasion by Henry III in 1243 for a time interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries; but the prompt action of Alexander in anticipating his attack, and the disinclination of the English barons for war, compelled him to make peace next year at Newcastle.

Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western Isles, which were still part of the Norwegian domain of Suðreyjar. He repeatedly attempted negotiations and purchase, but without success. Alexander set out to conquer these islands but died on the way in 1249. This dispute over the Western Isles, also known as the Hebrides, was not resolved until 1266 when Magnus VI of Norway ceded them to Scotland along with the Isle of Man.

Alexander attempted to persuade Ewen, the son of Duncan, Lord of Argyll, to sever his allegiance to Haakon IV of Norway. When Ewen rejected these attempts, Alexander sailed forth to compel him, but on the way he suffered a fever at the Isle of Kerrera in the Inner Hebrides. He died there in 1249 and was buried at Melrose Abbey.

He was succeeded by his son, the seven-year-old Alexander III of Scotland.

July 6, 1307: Death of King Edward I of England, Lord of Ireland.

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Battle of Loudoun Hill, Edward longshanks, Hammer of the Scots, King Edward I of England, King Edward II of England, Kingdom of Scotland, Kings and Queens of England, Robert I of Scotland, Westminster Abbey

Edward I (June 17/18, 1239 – July 7, 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Before his accession to the throne, he was commonly referred to as The Lord Edward. The first son of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, the second daughter of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence (1198–1245) and Beatrice of Savoy (1198–1267), the daughter of Thomas I of Savoy and his wife Margaret of Geneva. Edward was involved from an early age in the political intrigues of his father’s reign.

Edward I was a tall man (6’2″) for his era, hence the nickname “Longshanks”. He was temperamental, and this, along with his height, made him an intimidating man, and he often instilled fear in his contemporaries. Nevertheless, he held the respect of his subjects for the way he embodied the medieval ideal of kingship, as a soldier, an administrator and a man of faith.

Modern historians are divided on their assessment of Edward: while some have praised him for his contribution to the law and administration, others have criticised him for his uncompromising attitude towards his nobility. Currently, Edward I is credited with many accomplishments during his reign, including restoring royal authority after the reign of Henry III, establishing Parliament as a permanent institution and thereby also a functional system for raising taxes, and reforming the law through statutes.

At the same time, he is also often criticised for other actions, such as his brutal conduct towards the Welsh and Scots, and issuing the Edict of Expulsion in 1290, by which the Jews were expelled from England. The Edict remained in effect for the rest of the Middle Ages, and it was over 350 years until it was formally overturned under Oliver Cromwell in 1657.

The end of his reign was once again occupied with the subjugation of the Scots. The situation changed on February 10, 1306, when Robert the Bruce murdered his rival John III Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, and a few weeks later, on March 25, was crowned King of Scotland by Isobel, sister of the Earl of Buchan. Bruce now embarked on a campaign to restore Scottish independence, and this campaign took the English by surprise.

Edward was suffering ill health by this time, and instead of leading an expedition himself, he gave different military commands to Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, and Henry Percy, 1st Baron Percy, while the main royal army was led by the Prince of Wales. The English initially met with success; on June 19, Aymer de Valence routed Bruce at the Battle of Methven. Bruce was forced into hiding, while the English forces recaptured their lost territory and castles.

Edward acted with unusual brutality against Bruce’s family, allies, and supporters. His sister, Mary, was imprisoned in a cage at Roxburgh Castle for four years.

It was clear that Edward now regarded the struggle not as a war between two nations, but as the suppression of a rebellion of disloyal subjects. This brutality, though, rather than helping to subdue the Scots, had the opposite effect, and rallied growing support for Bruce.

In February 1307, Bruce resumed his efforts and started gathering men, and in May he defeated Valence at the Battle of Loudoun Hill. Edward, who had rallied somewhat, now moved north himself. On the way, however, he developed dysentery, and his condition deteriorated. On July 6 he encamped at Burgh by Sands, just south of the Scottish border.

When his servants came the next morning to lift him up so that he could eat, he died in their arms. King Edward I of England was aged 68.

Various stories emerged about Edward’s deathbed wishes; according to one tradition, he requested that his heart be carried to the Holy Land, along with an army to fight the infidels. A more dubious story tells of how he wished for his bones to be carried along on future expeditions against the Scots.

Another account of his deathbed scene is more credible; according to one chronicle, Edward gathered around him Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln; Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick; Aymer de Valence; and Robert de Clifford, 1st Baron de Clifford, and charged them with looking after his son Edward. In particular they should make sure that Piers Gaveston was not allowed to return to the country. This wish, however, the son ignored, and had his favourite recalled from exile almost immediately. The new king, Edward II, remained in the north until August, but then abandoned the campaign and headed south. He was crowned king on February 25, 1308.

Edward I’s body was brought south, lying in state at Waltham Abbey, before being buried in Westminster Abbey on October 27. There are few records of the funeral, which cost £473. Edward’s tomb was an unusually plain sarcophagus of Purbeck marble, without the customary royal effigy, possibly the result of the shortage of royal funds after the King’s death. The sarcophagus may normally have been covered over with rich cloth, and originally might have been surrounded by carved busts and a devotional religious image, all since lost.

The Society of Antiquaries of London opened the tomb in 1774, finding that the body had been well preserved over the preceding 467 years, and took the opportunity to determine the King’s original height. Traces of the Latin inscription Edwardus Primus Scottorum Malleus hic est, 1308. Pactum Serva (“Here is Edward I, Hammer of the Scots, 1308. Keep the Vow”) can still be seen painted on the side of the tomb, referring to his vow to avenge the rebellion of Robert Bruce. This resulted in Edward being given the epithet the “Hammer of the Scots” by historians, but is not contemporary in origin, having been added by the Abbot John Feckenham in the 16th century.

February 8, 1587: Execution of Mary I, Queen of Scotland.

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Elizabeth I of England, Fotheringhay, Fotheringhay Castle, James I of England, James VI of Scotland, James VI-I of Scotland and England, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Mary I of Scotland

Mary I, Queen of Scots (December 8, 1542 – February 8, 1587), reigned over Scotland from December 8, 1542 to July 24, 1567.

Mary was born on December 8, 1542 at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland, to King James V and his French second wife, Mary of Guise. She was said to have been born prematurely and was the only legitimate child of James’ to survive him. She was the great-niece of King Henry VIII of England, as her paternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor, was Henry VIII’s sister. On December 14, six days after her birth, she became Queen of Scotland when her father died, perhaps from the effects of a nervous collapse following the Battle of Solway Moss or from drinking contaminated water while on campaign.

She spent most of her childhood in France while Scotland was ruled by regents, and in 1558, she married the Dauphin of France, François. Mary was queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland, arriving in Leith on August 9, 1561. Four years later, she married her half-cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and in June 1566 they had a son, James, who became King James VI of Scotland in 1567 after his mother’s abdication and King James I of England in 1603, after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, uniting the two realms in personal union.

After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southward seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Queen Elizabeth I of England. Mary had once claimed Elizabeth’s throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in a rebellion known as the Rising of the North. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England.

In May 1569, Elizabeth attempted to mediate the restoration of Mary in return for guarantees of the Protestant religion, but a convention held at Perth rejected the deal overwhelmingly. The Duke of Norfolk continued to scheme for a marriage with Mary, and Elizabeth imprisoned him in the Tower of London between October 1569 and August 1570. Early the following year, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray (illegitimate son of James V of Scotland) was assassinated. His death coincided with a rebellion in the North of England, led by Catholic earls, which persuaded Elizabeth that Mary was a threat. English troops intervened in the Scottish civil war, consolidating the power of the anti-Marian forces. Elizabeth’s principal secretaries, Sir Francis Walsingham and William Cecil, Lord Burghley, watched Mary carefully with the aid of spies placed in her household.

In 1584, Mary proposed an “association” with her son, James. She announced that she was ready to stay in England, to renounce the Pope’s bull of excommunication, and to retire, abandoning her pretensions to the English Crown. She also offered to join an offensive league against France. For Scotland, she proposed a general amnesty, agreed that James should marry with Elizabeth’s knowledge, and agreed that there should be no change in religion. Her only condition was the immediate alleviation of the conditions of her captivity. James went along with the idea for a while but then rejected it and signed an alliance treaty with Elizabeth, abandoning his mother. Elizabeth also rejected the association, because she did not trust Mary to cease plotting against her during the negotiations.

In February 1585, William Parry was convicted of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth, without Mary’s knowledge, although her agent Thomas Morgan was implicated. In April, Mary was placed in the stricter custody of Sir Amias Paulet, and at Christmas she was moved to a moated manor house at

On August 11, 1586, after being implicated in the Babington Plot, Mary was arrested while out riding and taken to Tixall. In a successful attempt to entrap her, Walsingham had deliberately arranged for Mary’s letters to be smuggled out of Chartley. Mary was misled into thinking her letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham. From these letters it was clear that Mary had sanctioned the attempted assassination of Elizabeth. She was moved to Fotheringhay Castle in a four-day journey ending on September 25, and in October was put on trial for treason under the Act for the Queen’s Safety before a court of 36 noblemen, including Cecil, Shrewsbury, and Walsingham.

Mary was convicted on October 25, and sentenced to death with only one commissioner, Lord Zouche, expressing any form of dissent. Nevertheless, Elizabeth hesitated to order her execution, even in the face of pressure from the English Parliament to carry out the sentence. She was concerned that the killing of a queen set a discreditable precedent and was fearful of the consequences especially if, in retaliation, Mary’s son, James, formed an alliance with the Catholic powers and invaded England.

On February 1, 1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant, and entrusted it to William Davison, a privy councillor. On February 3, ten members of the Privy Council of England, having been summoned by Cecil without Elizabeth’s knowledge, decided to carry out the sentence at once.

At Fotheringhay, on the evening of February 7, 1587, Mary was told she was to be executed the next morning. She spent the last hours of her life in prayer, distributing her belongings to her household, and writing her will and a letter to the King Henri III of France.

On February 8, Her servants, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, and the executioners helped Mary remove her outer garments, revealing a velvet petticoat and a pair of sleeves in crimson brown, the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church.

She was blindfolded by Kennedy with a white veil embroidered in gold, knelt down on the cushion in front of the block, on which she positioned her head, and stretched out her arms. Her last words were, In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum (“Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit”).

Mary was not beheaded with a single strike. The first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. The second blow severed the neck, except for a small bit of sinew, which the executioner cut through using the axe. Afterwards, he held her head aloft and declared, “God save the Queen.” At that moment, the auburn tresses in his hand turned out to be a wig and the head fell to the ground, revealing that Mary had very short, grey hair. Cecil’s nephew, who was present at the execution, reported to his uncle that after her death “Her lips stirred up and down a quarter of an hour after her head was cut off” and that a small dog owned by the queen emerged from hiding among her skirts.

When the news of the execution reached Elizabeth, she became indignant and asserted that Davison had disobeyed her instructions not to part with the warrant and that the Privy Council had acted without her authority. Elizabeth’s vacillation and deliberately vague instructions gave her plausible deniability to attempt to avoid the direct stain of Mary’s blood. Davison was arrested, thrown into the Tower of London, and found guilty of misprision. He was released nineteen months later after Cecil and Walsingham interceded on his behalf.

Mary’s request to be buried in France was refused by Elizabeth. Her body was embalmed and left in a secure lead coffin until her burial, in a Protestant service, at Peterborough Cathedral in late July 1587. Her entrails, removed as part of the embalming process, were buried secretly within Fotheringhay Castle. Her body was exhumed in 1612, when her son, King James VI-I of Scotland and England ordered that she be reinterred in Westminster Abbey in a chapel opposite the tomb of Elizabeth.

In 1867, her tomb was opened in an attempt to ascertain the resting place of James I; he was ultimately found with Henry VII, but many of her other descendants, including Elizabeth of Bohemia, Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the children of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, were interred in her vault.

This date in History: August 15, 1057. Death of King MacBeth of Alba (Scotland).

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Duncan I of Scotland, Grouch of Scotland, Kenneth III of Scotland, King of Alba, Kingdom of Scotland, kings and queens of Scotland, Lulach, MacBeth, Malcolm III of Scotland, William Shakespeare

Macbeth (c. 1005 – 15 August 1057) was King of Scots from 1040 until his death. He was titled King of Alba during his life, and ruled over only a portion of present-day Scotland.

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MacBeth, King of Alba (Scotland).

During this time period Scotland was called the Kingdom of Alba and I’d like to give some background on that terminology.

The Kingdom of Alba refers to the Kingdom of Alba (Scotland) between the deaths of Donald II in 900 and of Alexander III in 1286. The name is one of convenience, as throughout this period the elite and populace of the Kingdom were predominantly Pictish-Gaels or later Pictish-Gaels and Scoto-Norman, and differs markedly from the period of the Stuarts, in which the elite of the kingdom were (for the most part) speakers of Middle English, which later evolved and came to be called Lowland Scots. There is no precise Gaelic equivalent for the English terminology “Kingdom of Alba”, as the Gaelic term Rìoghachd na h-Alba means ‘Kingdom of Scotland’. English-speaking scholars adapted the Gaelic name for Scotland to apply to a particular political period in Scottish history during the High Middle Ages.

Little is known about Macbeth’s early life, although he was the son of Findláech of Moray and may have been a grandson of Malcolm II. He became Mormaer of Moray – a semi-autonomous lordship – in 1032, and was probably responsible for the death of the previous mormaer, Gille Coemgáin. He subsequently married Gille Coemgáin’s widow, Gruoch, although they had no children together. Grouch was the granddaughter of Kenneth III of Scotland via Boite mac Cináeda (“Boite son of Kenneth”; d. 1058) was a Scottish prince, son of King Kenneth III of Alba (Scotland).

In 1040, Duncan I launched an attack into Moray and was killed in action by Macbeth’s troops. Macbeth succeeded him as King of Alba, apparently with little opposition. His 17-year reign was mostly peaceful, although in 1054 he was faced with an English invasion, led by Siward, Earl of Northumbria, on behalf of Edward the Confessor.

Macbeth did not survive the English invasion for long, for he was defeated and mortally wounded or killed by the future Malcolm III (“King Malcolm Ceann-mor”, son of Duncan I) on the north side of the Mounth in 1057, after retreating with his men over the Cairnamounth Pass to take his last stand at the battle at Lumphanan. The Prophecy of Berchán has it that he was wounded and died at Scone, sixty miles to the south, some days later. Macbeth’s stepson Lulach was installed as king soon after.

Macbeth was initially succeeded by his stepson Lulach, but Lulach ruled for only a few months before also being killed by Malcolm III, whose descendants would rule Scotland until the late 13th century. Macbeth is today best known as the main character of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth and the many works it has inspired. However, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is based on Holinshed’s Chronicles (published in 1577) and is not historically accurate.

Name

Macbeth’s full name in Medieval Gaelic was Mac Bethad mac Findlaích. This is realised as MacBheatha mac Fhionnlaigh in Modern Gaelic, and anglicised as Macbeth MacFinlay (also spelled Findlay, Findley, or Finley). The name Mac Bethad, from which the anglicised “MacBeth” is derived, means “son of life”.[2]Although it has the appearance of a Gaelic patronymic it does not have any meaning of filiation but instead carries an implication of “righteous man”or “religious man”. An alternative proposed derivation is that it is a corruption of macc-bethad meaning “one of the elect”.

Royal ancestry

It is questioned by historians whether or not MacBeth had any royal ancestry at all. Some sources make Macbeth a grandson of King Malcolm II and thus a cousin to Duncan I, whom he succeeded. He was possibly also a cousin to Thorfinn the Mighty, Earl of Orkney and Caithness. Nigel Tranter, in his novel Macbeth the King, went so far as to portray Macbeth as Thorfinn’s half-brother. However, this is speculation arising from the lack of historical certainty regarding the number of daughters Malcolm had.

This date in History: July 22, 1706: Treaty of Union is signed.

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Act of Union, Articles of Union, East India Company, House of Hanover, king James I-VI of England and Scotland, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Great Britain, Kingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of Scotland, Parliament, Queen Anne of England, Queen Anne of Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth I of England, Treaty of Union

The Treaty of Union is the name usually now given to the agreement which led to the creation of the new state of Great Britain, stating that England (which already included Wales) and Scotland were to be “United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”, At the time it was more often referred to as the Articles of Union.

James I-VI, King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, last monarch of the Tudor dynasty, died without issue on March 24, 1603, and the throne fell at once (and uncontroversially) to her first cousin twice removed, James VI of Scotland, a member of House of Stuart and the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots. By the Union of the Crowns in 1603 he assumed the throne of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland as King James I. This personal union lessened the constant English fears of Scottish cooperation with France in a feared French invasion of England.

After this personal union, the new monarch, James I and VI, sought to unite the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England into a state which he referred to as “Great Britain”. Nevertheless, Acts of Parliament attempting to unite the two countries failed in 1606, in 1667, and in 1689.

By 1698 the main impetus for uniting the two realms was economics. While remaining separate kingdoms the two nations were often in trade wars with one another as both states vied for supremacy in trading with other foreign states. This competition created friction between the two states. England was also under pressure from the London-based East India Company, which was anxious to maintain its monopoly over English foreign trade. The East India Company threatened legal action towards the Scots on the grounds that the Scots had no authority from the king to raise funds outside the king’s realm.

Deeper political integration had been a key policy of Queen Anne ever since she had acceded to the thrones of the three kingdoms in 1702. Under the aegis of the Queen and her ministers in both kingdoms, in 1705 the parliaments of England and Scotland agreed to participate in fresh negotiations for a treaty of union.

Treaty negotiations

It was agreed that England and Scotland would each appoint thirty-one commissioners to conduct the negotiations. The Scottish Parliament then began to arrange an election of the commissioners to negotiate on behalf of Scotland, but in September 1705, the leader of the Country Party, the Duke of Hamilton, who had previously attempted to obstruct the negotiation of a treaty, proposed that the Scottish commissioners should be nominated by the Queen, and this was agreed. In practice, the Scottish commissioners were nominated on the advice of the Duke of Queensberry and the Duke of Argyll.

Negotiations between the English and Scottish commissioners began on 16 April 1706 at the Cockpit-in-Court in London. The sessions opened with speeches from William Cowper, the English Lord Keeper, and from Lord Seafield, the Scottish Lord Chancellor, each describing the significance of the task. The commissioners did not carry out their negotiations face to face, but in separate rooms. They communicated their proposals and counter-proposals to each other in writing, and there was a blackout on news from the negotiations. Each side had its own particular concerns. Within a few days, England gained a guarantee that the Hanoverian dynasty would succeed Queen Anne to the Scottish crown, and Scotland received a guarantee of access to colonial markets, in the hope that they would be placed on an equal footing in terms of trade.

Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland (1702-1707), Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. (1707-1714)

After the negotiations ended on July 22, 1706, acts of parliament were drafted by both Parliaments to implement the agreed Articles of Union. The Scottish proponents of union believed that failure to agree to the Articles would result in the imposition of a union under less favourable terms, and English troops were stationed just south of the Scottish border and also in northern Ireland as an “encouragement”. Months of fierce debate in both capital cities and throughout both kingdoms followed. In Scotland, the debate on occasion dissolved into civil disorder, most notably by the notorious ‘Edinburgh Mob’. The prospect of a union of the kingdoms was deeply unpopular among the Scottish population at large, and talk of an uprising was widespread. However, the Treaty was signed and the documents were rushed south with a large military escort.

The Kingdom of Great Britain was born on May 1, 1707, shortly after the parliaments of Scotland and England had ratified the Treaty of Union by each approving Acts of Union combining the two parliaments and the powers of the two crowns. Scotland’s crown, sceptre, and sword of state remained at Edinburgh Castle. Queen Anne (already Queen of both England and Scotland) formally became the first occupant of the unified throne of Great Britain, with Scotland sending forty-five Members to the new House of Commons of Great Britain, as well as representative peers to the House of Lords.

Although there were 25 articles to the Treaty, I will post the first two which are relevant to the Crown and the Succession.

Article 1 states “That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain.”

Article 2 provided for the succession of the House of Hanover, and for Protestant succession as set out in the English Act of Settlement of 1701.

The History of the titles of the Prince of Wales: Part VIII

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Clan MacDonald, Edward IV of England, History of the Titles of the Prince of Wales, House of MacDonald, James IV King of Scots, Kenneth III of Scotland, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Scotland, Lord of the Isles, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Wars of the Roses

The History of the Lordship of the Isle is long and complex, so for the sake of brevity and staying on topic I will limit the scope of this entry to a basic understanding how the title Lord the Isles came to be part of the titles to the heir to the British throne.

HRH The Lord of the Isles

The Lord of the Isles (Scottish Gaelic: Triath nan Eilean or Rìgh Innse Gall) is a title of Scottish nobility with historical roots that go back beyond the Kingdom of Scotland. The Isles refers to west coast and islands off of present-day Scotland were those of a people or peoples of uncertain cultural affiliation lived until the 5th century.

The Isles

The Isles emerged from a series of hybrid Viking/Gaelic rulers in the Middle Ages, who wielded sea-power with fleets of galleys (birlinns). Although they were, at times, nominal vassals of the Kings of Norway, Ireland, or Scotland, the island chiefs remained functionally independent for many centuries. Their territory included the Hebrides (Skye and Ross from 1438), Knoydart, Ardnamurchan, and the Kintyre peninsula. At their height they were the greatest landowners and most powerful lords in Britain after the Kings of England and Scotland. Though seen as a title of Scottish Nobility at one point the Lords of The Isles held the title of King along with sovereignty.

In 973, Maccus mac Arailt, King of the Isles, Kenneth III, King of the Scots, and Máel Coluim I of Strathclyde formed a defensive alliance, but subsequently the Scandinavians defeated Gilla Adomnáin of the Isles and expelled him to Ireland.

In the late 11th Century the Norse nobleman Godred Crovan became ruler of Man and the Isles, but he was deposed in 1095 by the new King of Norway, Magnus Bareleg. In 1098, Magnus entered into a treaty with King Edgar of Scotland, intended as a demarcation of their respective areas of authority. Magnus was confirmed in control of the Isles and Edgar of the mainland. Lavery cites a tale from the Orkneyinga saga, according to which King Malcolm III of Scotland offered Earl Magnus of Orkney all the islands off the west coast navigable with the rudder set. Magnus then allegedly had a skiff hauled across the neck of land at Tarbert, Loch Fyne with himself at the helm, thus including the Kintyre peninsula in the Isles’ sphere of influence. (The date given falls after the end of Malcolm’s reign in 1093.)

Clan Donald, also known as Clan MacDonald (Scottish Gaelic: Clann Dòmhnaill is a Highland Scottish clan and one of the largest Scottish clans. By the Thirteenth Century the Norse-Gaelic Clan Donald came to rule the independent Isles. The Norse-Gaelic Clan Donald traces its descent from Dòmhnall Mac Raghnuill (d. circa 1250), whose father Reginald or Ranald was styled “King of the Isles” and “Lord of Argyll and Kintyre”. Ranald’s father, Somerled was styled “King of the Hebrides”, and was killed campaigning against Malcolm IV of Scotland at the Battle of Renfrew in 1164. The chiefs of the Clan Donald held the title of Lord of the Isles until 1493 and two of those chiefs also held the title of Earl of Ross until 1476.

Successive Lords of the Isles fiercely asserted their independence from Scotland, acting as kings of their territories well into the 15th century. Then in 1462, John MacDonald II, Lord of the Isles, signed a treaty with Edward IV of England to conquer Scotland with him and the Earl of Douglas. The treaty between Edward IV and MacDonald II has been used to show how the MacDonald Lords were viewed as independent rulers of their kingdom, freely entering into national and military treaties with foreign governments.

King James IV of Scotland 1488-1513

Unfortunately for the MacDonald sovereigns, the civil war in England, known as the Wars of the Roses, prevented the completion of the alliance between Edward IV and MacDonald II. Upon the discovery of his alliance with Edward IV in 1493, MacDonald II had his ancestral lands, estates, and titles taken from him by James IV of Scotland. In addition to James IV seeking revenge on MacDonald II, he possessed a larger military force and was able to impose his will on the West Coast of Scotland, though uprisings and rebellions were common.

Though the Lordship was taken away from the MacDonald family in the 15th century, waves of successive MacDonald leaders have contested this and fought for its revival ever since. However, once the land and title where seized by the Scottish Crown the eldest male child of the reigning Scottish (and later, English then British) monarch has been styled “Lord of the Isles.” The office itself has been extinct since the 15th century and the style since then has no other meaning but to recall the Scottish seizure of the ancient Norse-Gaelic lordship and crown. Thus Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales, is the current Lord of the Isles.