Reign of King Alexander III of Scotland

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen)

Domains

Changes of government, elections and reigns

Dates

Date of occurrence 1249-1286

Places

Scotland (Location)

Alexander III became King at the age of seven, on the sudden death of his father from a fever. The period of his minority, between 1249 and 1262, were disrupted by two rival factions vying for power, one headed by Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, and the other by Alan Durward, Justicia of Scotia.

Once he reached his majority, however, Alexander managed to take control, and one of the first acts of his reign was to continue his father's attempt to regain the Western Isles from Norwegian control. When his formal claim to the islands was rejected by the Norwegian king, Haakon, Alexander engineered the negotiations to his enemy's disadvantage, driving Haakan into the mouth of a storm. After defeat at the Battle of Largs, Haakan's …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

278 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Reign of King Alexander III of Scotland". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 July 2012 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=605, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Reign of King Alexander III of Scotland

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback