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List of Scottish monarchs
The Royal Coat of Arms of Scotland, as used before 1603 The Kingdom of the Picts just became known as Kingdom of Alba in Gaelic, which later became known in English as Scotland; the terms are retained in both languages to this day. By the late 11th century at the very latest, Scottish kings were using the term rex Scotorum, or King of Scots, to refer to themselves in Latin. The title of King of Scots fell out of use in 1707 when the Kingdom of Scotland merged with the Kingdom of England to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Thus Queen Anne became the last monarch of Scotland (and concurrently, the last monarch of England) and the first monarch of Great Britain. The two kingdoms had shared a monarch since 1603 (see Union of the Crowns), and Charles II was the last Scottish monarch to actually be crowned in Scotland, at Scone in 1651. Coronation OathThe Coronation Oath sworn by Mary II, William II and Anne as monarch of Scotland was approved by the Parliament of Scotland on 18 April 1689. [1] The oath was as follows: WE William and Mary, King and Queen of Scotland, faithfully promise and swear, by this our solemn Oath, in presence of the Eternal God, that during the whole Course of our Life we will serve the same Eternal God, to the uttermost of our Power, according as he has required in his most Holy Word, revealed and contained in the New and Old Testament; and according to the same Word shall maintain the true Religion of Christ Jesus, the preaching of his Holy Word, and the due and right Ministration of the Sacraments, now received and preached within the Realm of Scotland; and shall abolish and gainstand all false Religion contrary to the same, and shall rule the People committed to our Charge, according to the Will and Command of God, revealed in his aforesaid Word, and according to the laudable Laws and Constitutions received in this Realm, no ways repuguant to the said Word of the Eternal God; and shall procure, to the utmost of our power, to the Kirk of God, and whole Christian People, true and perfect Peace in all time coming. That we shall preserve and keep inviolated the Rights and Rents, with all just Privileges of the Crown of Scotland, neither, shall we transfer nor alienate the same; that we shall forbid and repress in all Estates and Degrees, Reif, Oppression and all kind of Wrong. And we shall command and procure, that Justice and Equity in all Judgments be kept to all Persons without exception, us the Lord and Father of all Mercies shall be merciful to us. And we shall be careful to root out all Heretics and Enemies to the true Worship of God, that shall be convicted by the true Kirk of God, of the aforesaid Crimes, out of our Lands and Empire of Scotland. And we faithfully affirm the Things above-written by our solemn Oath.' HousesAlthough genealogists divide the monarchs of Scotland into "Houses", based on continental European ideas of dynasties, it appears that the kings and queens of Scotland, insofar as they thought about their ultimate origins, traced their descent from Fergus Mór, the legendary founder of Dál Riata said to have flourished in the late 5th century, and from his grandson Gabrán mac Domangairt and brother Loarn mac Eirc. James VI is recorded as saying that he was a "Monarch sprunge of Ferguse race". After the Restoration of 1660, when Jacob de Wet was commissioned to produce portraits of Scotland's past and present rulers for Holyrood Palace, the series began with Fergus Mór. List of monarchs of ScotlandHouse of Alpin (848-1034)The reign of Kenneth MacAlpin begins what is often called the House of Alpin, a concept entirely modern. The descendants of Kenneth MacAlpin were divided into two branches; the crown would alternate between the two, the death of a king from one branch often hastened by war or assassination by a pretender from the other. Malcolm II was the last king of the House of Alpin; in his reign, he successfully crushed all opposition to him and, having no sons, was able to pass the crown to his daughter's son, Duncan I, who inaugurated the House of Dunkeld. <onlyinclude>
* Evidence for Eochaid's reign is unclear: he may never have actually been King. If he was, he was co-King with Giric. Amlaíb is known only by a reference to his death in 977, which reports him as King of Alba; since Kenneth II is known to have still been King in 972-973, Amlaíb must have taken power between 973 and 977. ? Giric and Eochaid have uncertain dynastic status, but do not appear to be direct members of the House of Alpin: Eochiad was a son of Run, King of Strathclyde, but his mother may have been a daughter of Kenneth I; Giric's family is unknown, although he may also have been related to the House of Alpin. House of Dunkeld, 1034-1286Duncan succeeded to the throne as the maternal grandson of Malcolm II. After an unsuccessful reign, Duncan was killed in battle by Macbeth, who had a long and relatively successful reign. In a series of battles between 1057 and 1058, Duncan's son Malcolm III defeated and killed Macbeth and Macbeth's stepson and heir Lulach, and claimed the throne. The dynastic feuds did not end there: on Malcolm's death in battle, his brother Donald Ban claimed the throne, expelling Malcolm's sons from Scotland; a civil war in the family ensued, with Donald Ban and Malcolm's son Edmund opposed by Malcolm's English-backed sons, led first by Duncan II and then by Edgar. Edgar triumphed, sending his uncle and brother to monasteries. After the reign of David I, the Scottish throne was passed according to rules of primogeniture, moving from father to son, or where not possible, brother to brother. <onlyinclude>
House of Fairhair (disputed), 1286-1290The last King of the House of Dunkeld was Alexander III. His wife had borne him two sons and a daughter; but by 1286, his sons were dead, and his daughter, Margaret, had borne only a single daughter to her husband Eric II of Norway before herself dying. Alexander had himself remarried, but in early 1286, he died in mysterious circumstances. His wife, Yolande of Dreux, was pregnant; but by November 1286, all hope of her bearing a living child had passed. Accordingly, in the Treaty of Salisbury, the Guardians of Scotland recognised Alexander's granddaughter, Margaret of Norway, as Queen of Scots. Margaret remained in her father's Kingdom of Norway until Autumn 1290, when she was dispatched to Scotland. However, she died on the journey in Orkney, having never set foot on Scottish soil, and without being crowned at Scone. She is thus sometimes not considered Queen. <onlyinclude>
House of Balliol (1292-1296)The death of Margaret of Norway began a two-year interregnum in Scotland caused by a succession crisis. With her death, the descent of William I went extinct; nor was there an obvious heir by primogeniture. Thirteen candidates presented themselves; the most prominent were John de Balliol, great-grandson of William I's younger brother David of Huntingdon, and Robert de Brus, Lord of Annandale, David of Huntingdon's grandson. The Scottish Magnates invited Edward I of England to arbitrate the claims; he did so, but forced the Scots to swear allegiance to him as overlord. Eventually, it was decided that John de Balliol should become King; he proved weak and incapable, and in 1296 was forced to resign by Edward I, who then attempted to annex Scotland into the Kingdom of England.
House of Bruce (1306-1371)For ten years, Scotland had no King of its own. The Scots, however, refused to tolerate English rule; first William Wallace and then, after his execution, Robert the Bruce (the grandson of the 1292 competitor) fought against the English, and in 1306, Robert was crowned King of Scots at Scone. His energy, and the corresponding replacement of the vigorous Edward I with his weaker son Edward II, allowed Scotland to free itself from English rule; at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the Scots routed the English, and by 1329 the English had agreed by Treaty to accept Scottish independence. Robert's successor, his son David, was a child at his succession. The English renewed their war with Scotland, and David was forced to flee the Kingdom by Edward Balliol, son of King John, who managed to get himself crowned King of Scots and to give away Scotland's southern counties to England before being driven out again. David spent much of his life in exile, first in freedom with his ally, France, and then in gaol in England; he was only able to return to Scotland in 1357. Upon his death, childless, in 1371, the House of Bruce came to an end.
House of Stewart/StuartStewart (1371-1567)Robert the Stewart was a grandson of Robert I by the latter's daughter, Marjorie. Having been born in 1316, he was older than his uncle, David II; consequently, he was at his accession an old man, unable to reign vigorously, a problem also faced by his son Robert III, who had suffered lasting damage in a horse-riding accident. These two were followed by a series of regencies, caused by the youth of the succeeding kings. Consequently, the Stewart era saw periods of royal inertia, during which the nobles usurped power from the crown, followed by periods of personal rule by the monarch, during which he or she would attempt to address the issues created by their own minority and the long-term effects of previous reigns. Governing Scotland became increasingly difficult, as the powerful nobility became increasingly intractable; James I's attempts to curb the disorder of the realm ended in his assassination; James III was killed in a civil war between himself and the nobility, led by his own son; when James IV, who had governed sternly and suppressed the aristocrats, died in the Battle of Flodden, his wife Margaret Tudor, who had been nominated regent for their young son James V, was unseated by noble feuding, and James V's own wife, Marie de Guise, succeeded in ruling Scotland during the regency for her young daughter Mary I only by dividing and conquering the noble factions, and by distributing French bribes with a liberal hand. Finally, Mary I herself, the last direct descendant of Robert II, found herself unable to govern Scotland faced with the surliness of the aristocracy and the intransigence of the population, who favoured Calvinism and disapproved of her Catholicism; she was forced to abdicate, and fled to England, where she was executed for treason against the English queen Elizabeth I. Upon her abdication, her son, fathered by a junior member of the Stewart family, became King.
Stuart (1567-1651)The Stewarts of Lennox were a junior branch of the Stewart family; they were not, however, direct descendants of Robert II. In the past, through the means of the Auld Alliance with France, they had adapted their surname to the French form, Stuart. Consequently, when the son of the Earl of Lennox, Henry, Lord Darnley, married the Queen of Scots, Mary I, their son, as the first King of the Lennox branch of the Stewart family, ruled as a Stuart. James VI also became King of England and Ireland as James I in 1603, when his cousin Elizabeth I died; thereafter, although the two crowns of England and Scotland remained separate, the monarchy was based chiefly in England. Charles I, James's son, found himself faced with Civil War; the resultant conflict lasted eight years, and ended in his execution. The English Parliament then decreed their monarchy to be at an end; the Scots Parliament, after some deliberation, broke their links with England, and declared that Charles, son and heir of Charles I, would become King. He ruled until 1651; however, the armies of Oliver Cromwell occupied Scotland and drove him into exile.
The Commonwealth of EnglandIn 1652, following the flight of Charles II, the English Parliament passed the Tender of Union: by its terms, the Kingdom of Scotland was abolished, and annexed into the Commonwealth of England. Scotland would not regain independence until 1660, when at the restoration of Charles II, the old system of the Union of Crowns was restored. Until that time, Scotland was ruled directly from England; the rulers were Oliver Cromwell and his son, Richard, who ruled over the Commonwealth as Lord Protectors, quasi-monarchs.
House of Stuart (restored) (1660-1707)With the Restoration, the Stuarts became Kings of Scotland once more. But Scotland's rights were not respected: the Scottish Parliament was, during the reign of Charles II, dissolved, and his brother James was appointed Governor of Scotland. James himself became James VII in 1685; his Catholicism was not tolerated, and he was driven out of England after three years. In his place came his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, the ruler of the Dutch Republic; they were accepted as monarchs of Scotland after a period of deliberation by the Scottish Parliament, and ruled together as William II and Mary II. An attempt to establish a Scottish colonial empire through the Darien Scheme, in challenge to that of England, failed, leaving the Scottish state bankrupt. This coincided with the accession of Queen Anne, daughter of James VII. Anne was childless, and on her death her nearest heir was her halfbrother, James, in exile in France. The English favoured the Protestant Sophia of Hanover (a granddaughter of James VI) as heir; the Scots preferred Prince James, who as a Stuart was a Scot by ancestry, and threatened to break the Union of Crowns between England and Scotland by choosing him for themselves. To preserve the union, the English elaborated a plan whereby the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England would merge into a single Kingdom, the Kingdom of Great Britain, ruled by a common monarch, and with a single Parliament. Both national parliaments agreed to this (the Scots albeit reluctantly, motivated primarily by the national finances), and the Kingdom of Scotland was merged with England and came to an end. Thereafter, although monarchs continued to rule over the nation of Scotland, they did so first as monarchs of Great Britain, and then of the United Kingdom.
From 1707, the titles King of Scots and Queen of Scots are incorrect. Hence, this list runs up to 1707; for monarchs after that date, see List of British monarchs. Jacobite claimantsDespite having lost his thrones, James VII continued to claim the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. When he died in 1701, his son, James, inherited his father's claims, and called himself James VIII of Scotland and III of England and Ireland. He would continue to do so all his life, despite the fact that the Kingdoms of England and Scotland were ended by their merging as the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1715, a year after the death of his sister, Queen Anne, and the accession of their cousin George of Hanover, James landed in Scotland and attempted to claim the throne; he failed, and was forced to flee back to the Continent. A second attempt by his son, Charles, in 1745, also failed. Both James's children died without issue, bringing the Stuart family to an end.
Other claimants
NotesReferences
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da:Skotske regenter de:Liste der Herrscher Schottlands fr:Liste des rois d'Écosse gd:Rìghrean na h-Alba it:Elenco di monarchi scozzesi he:???? ??????? nl:Lijst van koningen van Schotland pl:W?adcy Szkocji pt:Lista de reis da Escócia simple:Scottish monarchs fi:Luettelo Skotlannin hallitsijoista sv:Lista över Skottlands regenter zh:??????? Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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