Margaret of Scotland, Countess of Kent

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Margaret of Scotland (* between early 1187 and May 1195, † before November 25, 1259 ) was a Scottish princess. She was the third wife of the English justiciar Hubert de Burgh .

origin

Margaret was the eldest child of the Scottish King Wilhelm I and his Anglo-Norman wife Ermengarde de Beaumont . She had two sisters, Isabella and Marjorie , and a brother, who later became King Alexander II of Scotland. Her father also had several illegitimate children.

Possible heir to the throne of Scotland

In April 1195 her father fell seriously ill without having yet a legitimate male descendant. Allegedly, the English King Richard the Lionheart suggested that her father recognize Margaret as heiress and that she should be engaged to Richard's nephew Otto von Sachsen . King Richard promised to hand over the northern English counties of Cumberland and Northumberland as a dowry to Otto, which would have given them to Scotland with the marriage. The Scottish magnates rejected this proposal and declared David, Earl of Huntingdon , a younger brother of their father to be his heir to the throne. Her father recovered, and when her brother Alexander was born in 1198, he became the new heir to the throne.

Transfer to English custody and marriage

After that, Margarete was not mentioned again until 1209. According to the Treaty of Norham , she was to be married to an English prince, possibly the heir to the throne Henry . Together with her sister Isabella , she was handed over to the English government in Carlisle in August 1209 and from then on lived at the English royal court. The planned marriages did not take place, and the English King John Ohneland used the Scottish royal daughters rather as a means of pressure against Scotland. In the Magna Carta , Johann Ohneland had to agree in Article 59 in 1215 that the two sisters were allowed to return to their homeland, which was probably included in the document at the instigation of Isabella's brother Alexander, who had become King of Scotland after the death of her father . But the English king did not keep this promise either. Finally Margarete was married to Hubert de Burgh on October 3, 1221 in London. De Burgh was an English justiciar and had acquired extensive estates through the office, but he came from the knighthood , so that this marriage was not befitting for the king's daughter.

Wife of Hubert de Burgh

During the minority of King Henry III. de Burgh rose to head of the government of England. In February 1227 he was raised to Earl of Kent , making Margaret the Countess of Kent. From their marriage Margarete had only one daughter, Megotta (or Margaret ), who was probably born around 1222. Since de Burgh was only allowed to bequeath the title of Earl of Kent to male descendants, he is said to have planned a divorce from Margarete in 1232. In July of that year, however, he lost the king's favor, was overthrown and fled to church asylum . Margaret herself fled with her daughter to Bury St Edmunds Abbey . She stayed there until 1234, after de Burgh had been pardoned and part of his possessions had been returned. Shortly after her escape, Margaret, in order to save the fate of her family, had her daughter secretly in Bury, probably even without the knowledge of her husband, whose ward Richard de Clare married her daughter. A little later, the guardianship of the wealthy heir Richard de Clare was transferred to Peter des Roches , who had contributed significantly to the overthrow of de Burgh. The secret wedding, which probably never took place, was rumored to be known in 1236, which led to a scandal and again angered the king against de Burgh. With Megotta's death before 1237, the wedding became irrelevant, but Hubert de Burgh was only able to regain the favor of the king after submitting again in 1239. He died in 1243. After his death, Margarete took over the estates that had belonged to them together. She died in autumn, at the latest before November 25, 1259, and was buried like her husband in the Dominican Church in London .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Keith Stringer: David, earl of Huntingdon and lord of Garioch (1152-1219). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
  2. ↑ WW Scott: Ermengarde (d. 1233). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
  3. ^ Archibald AM Duncan: Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (The Edinburgh History of Scotland; Vol. I ). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1975. ISBN 0-05-00203-7-4 , p. 527.
personal data
SURNAME Margaret of Scotland
BRIEF DESCRIPTION scottish princess
DATE OF BIRTH between 1187 and May 1195
DATE OF DEATH before November 25, 1259