Margaret, Maid of Norway

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Margaret (Template:Langx, Template:Langx; March or April 1283 – September 1290), known as the Maid of Norway, was the queen-designate of Scotland from 1286 until her death. As she was never crowned, her status as monarch is uncertain and has been debated by historians.

Margaret was the daughter of King Eric II of Norway and Margaret of Scotland. By the end of her maternal grandfather's reign, King Alexander III of Scotland, she was his only surviving descendant and recognized heir presumptive. Alexander III died in 1286, his posthumous child was stillborn, and Margaret inherited the crown.

Owing to her young age, she remained in Norway rather than go to Scotland. Her father and the Scottish leaders negotiated her marriage to Edward of Caernarfon, son of King Edward I of England. She was finally sent to Great Britain in September 1290 but died in Orkney, sparking the succession dispute between thirteen competitors for the crown of Scotland.

Infancy

Margaret, Maid of Norway, was the only child of King Eric II of Norway and his first wife, Margaret, daughter of King Alexander III of Scotland.Template:Sfn She was born in Tønsberg, a coastal town in southeastern Norway,Template:Sfn between March and 9 April 1283, when her mother died, apparently from the complications of childbirth.Template:Sfn

Aged fifteen and possessing little royal authority, King Eric did not have much say about his daughter's future. The infant Margaret was instead in the custody of the leading Norwegian magnate, Template:Ill, Bishop of Bergen. Margaret's upbringing in the city of Bergen shows that her future marriage was expected to be important to the kingdom's foreign policy.Template:Sfn

The 1281 treaty arranging the marriage of Eric of Norway and Margaret of Scotland specified that the Scottish princess and her children would succeed to the throne of Scotland if King Alexander died leaving no legitimate sons and if no legitimate son of King Alexander left legitimate children.Template:Sfn It also stated that the couple's daughters could inherit the Norwegian throne "if it is the custom". The Scottish party seems to have been deceived because the succession law of Norway, codified in 1280, provided only for male succession, meaning that the Maid could not have succeeded to her father's kingdom.Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Heir presumptive

Alexander, brother of Margaret's mother and the last surviving child of the King of Scotland, died on 28 January 1284. The Maid was left as the only living descendant of Alexander III. The King did not wait to discover whether his son's widow, Margaret of Flanders, was pregnant.Template:Sfn Already, on 5 February, he had all thirteen earls, twenty-four barons, and three clan chiefs come to Scone and swear to recognize his granddaughter as his successor if he died leaving neither son nor daughter and if no posthumous child was born to his son.Template:Sfn By April it had presumably become clear that the young Alexander's widow was not expecting a child and that Margaret was the heir presumptive.Template:Sfn

Alexander III's wife, another Margaret, sister of King Edward I of England, had died in 1275, and the oath he exacted strongly implied that he now intended to remarry.Template:Sfn When Edward expressed his condolence to Alexander III that month for the death of his son, the latter responded that "much good may come to pass yet through your kinswoman, the daughter of your niece ... who is now our heir", suggesting that the two kings may have already been discussing a suitable marriage for Margaret. Alexander and his magnates may have hoped for an English match.Template:Sfn

King Alexander took a new wife, Yolanda of Dreux, on 14 October 1285, hoping to father another child. On the evening of 18 March 1286, he set out, in stormy weather on horseback, against advice, to meet with Queen Yolanda, only to be found dead with a broken neck the next day.Template:Sfn

Lady and queen

Following the unexpected death of King Alexander, Scottish magnates gathered to discuss the kingdom's future. They swore to preserve the throne for the right heir and chose six regents, known as guardians of Scotland, to govern the country. Although the succession had been laid out by the time King Alexander III died, Margaret's accession was not yet assured: her stepgrandmother, Queen Yolanda, was pregnant and the child was expected to succeed to the throne.Template:Sfn

There was a dispute in parliament in April involving Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale, and John Balliol, Lord of Galloway. Bruce may have opposed the Maid's succession,Template:Sfn or the two men may have both claimed to be next in line to the throne after Yolanda's child and Margaret.Template:Sfn

Queen Yolanda delivered a stillborn child in November,Template:Sfn and within a few months King Eric's most prominent councillor, Bjarne Erlingsson, arrived in Scotland to claim the kingdom for Margaret.Template:Sfn Bruce raised a rebellion with his son, Robert, Earl of Carrick, but was defeated in early 1287.Template:Sfn The precariousness of the situation made King Eric reluctant to see his three-year-old daughter leave Norway for Scotland.Template:Sfn

Marriage negotiations

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The Great Seal of Scotland used by the government of the realm after the death of King Alexander III

In May 1289, Eric II sent envoys to Edward I as part of the kings' unfolding discussion about the future of Margaret, whom they called "lady and queen". The Scots could only observe the negotiations between the two kings as Margaret was still with her father.Template:Sfn

Eric was indebted to Edward, and Edward was determined to make the most of the situation. The guardians, accompanied by Bruce, finally met with English and Norwegian envoys at Salisbury in October. The Treaty of Salisbury was drawn up on 6 November 1289, stating that Eric and Margaret, "queen and heir of the kingdom", asked Edward to intervene on behalf of his grandniece so "that she could ordain and enjoy therein as other kings do in their kingdoms".Template:Sfn

Margaret was to be sent, by 1 November 1290, to England directly or via Scotland. Once the Scots could assure Edward that Scotland was peaceful and safe, he would send her to them. Edward was allowed to choose her husband, though her father retained the right to veto the choice. At Edward's request, a papal dispensation permitting Margaret to marry her granduncle's son, Edward of Caernarfon, was issued on 16 November 1289.Template:Sfn

The guardians and other prelates and magnates wrote that they were firmly in favour of the English match for "the lady Margaret queen of Scotland, our lady". It was strongly implied that Margaret's husband would be king, and Edward insisted on referring to Margaret as queen to speed up the accession of his own son, although the Scots themselves normally described her only as their lady.Template:Sfn

Negotiations about Margaret's marriage, dower, succession, and the nature of the intended personal union between England and Scotland continued into 1290. A lavishly provisioned ship failed to fetch the Maid in May because of diplomatic difficulties.Template:Sfn The Treaty of Birgham, agreed on 18 July, provided that Scotland was to remain fully independent despite the personal unionTemplate:Sfn and that Margaret alone would be inaugurated as monarch at Scone.Template:Sfn

Fatal journey

By late August 1290, Margaret was preparing to sail from Bergen to the island of Great Britain or was already at sea. The ship was her father's but he did not accompany her;Template:Sfn the most prominent men in her entourage were Bishop Narve and Baron Tore Håkonsson.Template:Sfn She presumably embarked in good health but became ill during her journey. The ship landed in Orkney, a Norwegian archipelago off the coast of Scotland, on about 23 September.Template:Sfn

Having suffered on Orkney for up to a week from either food poisoning or, less likely, motion sickness, Margaret died between 26 and 29 September 1290Template:Sfn in the arms of Bishop Narve.Template:Sfn The Scottish magnates, who had assembled at Scone for the child queen's inauguration, learned about her death in October.Template:Sfn Her body was returned to Bergen, where King Eric insisted on having the coffin opened to confirm his daughter's identity. He then had it buried in the north wall of the chancel of Christ Church, now destroyed.Template:Sfn

Legacy

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Lerwick Town Hall stained glass window depicting "Margaret, Queen of Scotland and daughter of Norway"

Margaret was the last legitimate scion of the line of King William the Lion.Template:Sfn Thirteen men laid claim to succession, most notably Bruce and Balliol.Template:Sfn King Eric half-heartedly claimed the Scottish crown as well and died in 1299.Template:Sfn In 1301 she was impersonated by a German woman, False Margaret, who was burned at the stake.Template:Sfn

Historians debate whether Margaret should be considered a queen and included in the list of Scottish monarchs. She was never inaugurated,Template:Sfn and her contemporaries in Scotland described her as queen very rarely, referring to her instead as their "lady". She was usually called Scotland's "lady", "heir", or "lady and heir" and rarely as "queen" during the deliberations of the Great Cause after her death.Template:Sfn One of her biographers, Archie Duncan, argues that because she was "never inaugurated, she was never queen of Scots".

On the other hand, documents issued from late 1286 no longer refer to the "king whosoever he may be", indicating that Margaret may have already been regarded as queen. Another of her biographers, Norman H. Reid, insists that Margaret was "accepted as queen" by her contemporaries but that, owing to the lack of Inauguration, "[her] reign never started". Pope Nicholas IV considered Margaret to be the monarch of Scotland and treated her as such, sending to her a bull regarding the episcopal election of Matthew de Crambeth.Template:Sfn In modern historiography she is nearly unanimously called "queen", and reference books give 19 March 1286, the date of Alexander III's death, as the start of her reign.Template:Sfn

Family tree

Notes

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References

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Bibliography

External links

Margaret at the official website of the British monarchy

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