Traquair’s Royal Connections - Part 1
Like many I watched the recent Coronation of King Charles III, mainly out of curiosity given you have to be in your mid 70’s to remember what the last one looked like live on the telly. While I found it interesting enough, it struck me as incredibly English. Now, you are probably thinking of course it was, Stewart - he’s the King of England, it’s an Anglican service and it’s held in Westminster Abbey, a building which is at the heart of the Anglian/English world. But somehow I expected more celebration or acknowledgement of the ancient Kingdom of Scotland, from which Charles is, of course, descended. It’s a rich heritage, full of intriguing characters and all we got that day in May was a passing mention of the Stone of Scone, which Charles sat on in his chair, still feeling very much the spoils of war as it was for Edward Plantagenet 700 years ago.
Before you stop reading, I am not going to veer into the realms of Republican or Nationalist politics - heaven knows there are enough blogs on all that. What I want to draw attention to is the Scottish royal heritage which, beyond the predictable big hitters (hello Robert Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots), is not as widely known as I think it should be. So, in need of an hook to hang this on, I looked around for a bit of inspiration. I didn’t have to look far - Traquair House. The sign at the main gate for this former hunting lodge (a couple of miles from my home) makes two bold claims:
Scotland’s Oldest Inhabited House
VISITED BY TWENTY SEVEN KINGS & QUEENS
So I set myself a challenge, find out who those 27 Kings and Queens were, and write a bite sized synopsis of who they were, when they reigned and what their story was. At the end of it, I have hopefully raised the profile of some forgotten figures from Scottish history as well as tying their stories into Traquair, a place I have huge affection for. The first of many stumbling blocks was that the list, compiled some time ago by a very helpful lady called Mrs Vallance, had 32 names on it! However, there are some caveats to the list and I think I can see where the 27 comes from and I’ll try to clarify that at the end of what is going to be a multi part effort. A huge thanks to Gillian and Caroline at Traquair for being very helpful and sourcing the list. Ok, here goes - buckle up for 1,000 years of Scottish history, beginning with Duncan I of House Dunkeld.
1. Duncan 1 (1034 - 1040)
“This Castle hath a pleasant seat; the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself””
King Duncan of Alba was the first of the so called Dunkeld Kings, heirs to House Alpin, Kings of Picts and Gaels as Alba and, eventually, Scotland was forged in the years surrounding the end of the first Millennium. He is reputed to have visited Traquair which, in the early 11th century, would have been a much smaller building (the current house has grown in stages, however nothing as old as the 1000’s is known to survive). He is probably best known as the fictionalised version who Macbeth murders in The Scottish play, which was performed at Traquair in 2000 and 2010, the former directed by the local legend Richard Nisbet, who played doomed King Duncan in the 2010 production.
Courtesy of Shakespeare at Traquair
2. Alexander I (1107 - 1124)
Alexander is known to have signed a Royal Charter at Traquair, and the date of his ascension to the throne is normally given as the birth of Traquair House - 1107. It’s reasonable to assume the house was in the form of a tower at this point - the oldest known part of the house is the tower at the back left as you look from the wineglass lawn. He is one of many Scottish monarchs buried at the magnificent Dunfermline Abbey.
Traquair House today.
The oldest part of the house is at the left of the main building as we look at it here - a tower more in common with the Pele or fortified towers which are abundant in the Borders.
3. David I (1124 - 1153)
A favourite of mine, the man who introduced Norman culture to Scotland and married it with the gaelic Kingdom of Alba, leaving him with a reputation as a perfect King - he is regarded as a Saint by the catholic Church. The so called ‘Davidian Revolution’ brought the Border Abbeys (and other huge religious buildings including Holyrood Abbey, St. Giles Cathedral, Dunfermline Abbey). He created Scotland’s first Burghs or towns, bringing urban life to the likes of Berwick, Roxburgh, Edinburgh and Stirling. If you want to know more about King David, and you really should, then I thoroughly recommend this podcast.
4. Malcolm IV (1153 - 1165)
“...the Hamlet of Inverleithane...it appears for the first time in connection with the church. Malcom IV was on the throne and his hunting lodge Traquair”
Malcolm IV or Malcolm Virgo (The Maiden), as he was cruelly nicknamed, did indeed use Traquair as a hunting lodge, and it is reported that his son drowned in the River Tweed near the current bridge between Traquair and Innerleithen. This must have been a bastard son, as no legitimate heir was ever produced. The legend goes that to thank the local Church he granted the right of sanctuary on this area, which was part of the lands managed by Tiornensian Monks at Kelso. This story of Innerleithen’s origins is poetically retold every year during the Cleikum Ceremonies, the towns big festival night. Malcolm died aged 24 at Jedburgh Abbey and was succeeded by his brother, William…
Jedburgh Abbey
Built in the reign of David I, and where his grandson Malcolm IV died. Later it hosted the wedding of Alexander III.
5. William I - William The Lion (1165 - 1214)
A huge 48 year reign was no mean feat in the Middle Ages, and William was to be the longest reigning Scottish monarch until James VI who we will get to much, much later. Again we know of William visiting Traquair due to Royal decrees signed there, including one giving a small village near the River Clyde status as a Bishop’s Burgh and the right to hold a market. That small village going on to become Glasgow. William’s nickname of ‘The Lion’ wasn’t due to his prowess on the battlefield. He was know as continuing the development of Scotland started by his grandfather David I, the Leonine nickname came from his standard - Red Lion, Rampant on yellow background which of course is still to this day the Royal Standard of Scotland, and is incorporated into our National identity and football teams kit.
Scottish Football Team, 1871
The Lion Rampant, standard of William The Lion.
Image is public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
6. & 7. Alexander II (1214 - 1249) & Alexander III (1249 - 1286)
Conscious of how long this blog might end up being I am going to cover two Alexander’s for the price of one. Quite a sweeping decision, as between them we are talking about more than 70 years as King of Scots, with two highly significant factors in our relationship with the neighbours to the South taking place. Alexander II was born at Haddington and his son Alexander III at Roxburgh, another piece of evidence for how important the Southern and Eastern part of Lothian and The Borders was to Scotland in the middle ages. Alex I, along with English King Henry III, signed the Treaty of York in 1237, an important piece of legislation which agreed the sovereignty of the North of England and set the Borderline between the Kingdoms of Scotland and England which has remained pretty much the same since, with the exception of hot potato Berwick Upon tweed and the lawless area of Eskdale and Liddesdale known as the Debatable Lands. So, what we needed after this binding document cementing two consolidated and confident Kingdoms was a few centuries of war, terror, and lasting enmity. This was, arguably, kicked off by the unexpected death of Alex III on a stormy night in Kinghorn when he and his horse plunged from the cliffs towards the angry Firth of Forth. This was a crisis - all of his children has predeceased him so only three year old granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway could assume the throne. She promptly died on the crossing to Orkney so it became a large crisis. In fact, to quote another historical figure, Edmund Blackadder, it was a twelve-storey crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour portage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying 'This Is a Large Crisis'. The Scottish Wars of Independence had begun…
8. 9. and 10. Edward I of England (1272 - 1307), Edward II of England (1307 - 1327) & John Balliol, King of Scots (1292 - 1296)
After Margret’s death Scotland became ruled by Guardians. We know this as the Parliament sat at Birgham and listed them, the record remains. For those who don’t know, Birgham is a small village near Kelso, a stones throw from England, and yet again we see the importance of The Borders. My view is that this part of the country was at the heart of Scottish life until we lost the great port of Berwick, the Borders then moved to the periphery where arguably its been ever since.
Anyway, I digress and it’s about to get complicated, so back to the plot. Scotland went on to war footing, and Traquair was fortified (again picture that view of the house from the wineglass lawn and imagine the back left as pele style tower with beacon on top to signal up the river Tweed to the now ruinous tower at Cardrona that the English were on their way). England, under the command of Edward I (known to history and Hollywood as Longshanks), increased it’s interest in Scottish politics and it was he who chaired the committee of noblemen to put John Balliol on the Scottish throne in 1296. The agreed historical narrative is that Edward did this to use the weak Balliol as a puppet to eventually invade Scotland in a display of ruthless cunning. Possibly so, as he did invade four years later, but I look at Longshanks as suffering the same French obsession many of his fellow English Kings did, Scotland was just an opportunity and he was not one to turn down an opportunity. It is known that Traquair briefly fell into English hands after the 1296 invasion, and there followed a second interregnum after Edward casually deposed the man he had put on the throne, Balliol taking up his place as a humiliated figure in Scottish history. A dark time for our country, but heroic figures emerged in Scotland who would define our national character and our struggle to remain a country, not just another Shire of England. William Wallace campaigned across The Borders, and was himself named Guardian of Scotland in Selkirk (which like Traquair was part of the vast Ettrick Forest), and our next visiting King became perhaps the best known of all who sent proud Edward (II - Longhshanks laddie) hame to think again...
11. Robert I - The Bruce (1306 - 1329)
Robert The Bruce
Monument at Stirling Castle, marking the Battle of Bannockburn
Robert The Bruce and his family (of Scoto-Norman decent) had been at the sharp end of Scottish politics for years before he seized the throne in 1306, with the grip of ailing King Edward Longhshanks weakening. Bruce was heavily implicated in the murder of his rival, John Comyn, in Dumfries to help facilitate this ascension so we may be talking about a national icon, but he was no saint. By the time he became King, Traquair was thankfully back in Scottish hands but the war raged on. Bruce had setbacks and victories before his finest hour (or couple of days to be more accurate) at Bannockburn in June 1314. This was a highly significant victory against a much larger English force, allowing Scotland to reclaim sovereignty and even start to raid the North of England. The Wars of Independence would crank up again after his death but it’s hard to argue against the view that he did more than most to ensure that Scotland would, sort of, win in the end. History records Bruce as a fearsome warrior and Bannockburn has helped to define the image of a nation punching above it’s weight. His body is buried, like so many other Scottish Monarchs, in Dunfermline however his embalmed heart has a place here in The Borders, at Melrose Abbey.
12. David II (1329 - 1371)
The son of Robert The Bruce, King David became monarch at just five years old and this vulnerability encouraged another Edward, this time the third, to have a crack at Scotland. Edward III is regarded as a militarily and politically effective King, while his father Edward II has not been as sympathetically portrayed down the years - the effete performance in 1995 documentary Braveheart for instance. David did however grow to maturity, see off rival claimants (including a brass necked Balliol), survive captivity in England and ultimately ensure the survival of the Kingdom of Scots with the signing of the Treaty of Berwick in 1357. He spent his final years rebuilding Edinburgh Castle, which had been destroyed by Scottish forces during the Wars to stop the English getting hold of it. Edinburgh became his seat of power, and he died there in 1371, childless, and is buried in Holyrood Abbey, thus ending the House of Bruce’s short but turbulent run. So, no heir eh? This did not end well the last time when Alexander III fell off that cliff a few generations before, ending the House of Dunkeld begun by Duncan right back in the 1030’s. Did we have the same shit storm this time around? Not quite, mercifully. A nephew ascended to the throne, to become Robert II. He was the son of Walter Stewart, High Steward of Scotland and descendant of Walter fitz Alan, an Anglo-Norman Baron who many regard as the founder of what history knows as the House of Stewart, later Stuart. Oh boy, there’s plenty to say about them, and the subsequent emergence of The Stuarts of Traquair, but It feels like that’s a Part Two story. See you next time…
Sources: Traquair House website, Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments (Peeblesshire), David I - King of Scots by Richard Oram, Kings & Queens of Scotland by Richard Oram, A Gif of Time by Flora Maxwell Stuart, Cleikum Script - St Ronan’s Border Games, List of visiting Kings and Queens - Traquair Office.
