Competitors For The Crown of Scotland - The Arguments

The Arguments

In reality only four of these men had genuine claims to the throne: John de Hastings, Balliol, Bruce and Floris V. Of these only Bruce and Balliol had realistic grounds on which to claim the crown. The rest merely wished to have their claims put on the legal record.

John Hastings, an Englishman with extensive estates in Scotland, could not succeed to the throne by any of the normal rules governing feudal legacy and instead had his lawyers argue that Scotland was not a true kingdom at all, based, amongst other things, on the fact that Scots kings were traditionally neither crowned nor anointed. As such, by the normal rules of feudal law the kingdom should be split amongst the direct descendants of the co-heiresses of David I. Unsurprisingly, a court made up of Scots nobles rejected these arguments out of hand.

John Balliol had the simplest, and thus, by some measure, the strongest claim of the four. By the tradition of primogeniture, he was the rightful claimant, and that tradition had been followed in choosing heirs to the Scottish throne since King Edgar in 1097. Indeed the other Scottish claimants (including Bruce) had already tacitly acknowledged the tradition of primogeniture in allowing Margaret of Norway to claim the throne. Balliol also argued that the Kingdom of Scotland was, as royal estate, indivisible as an entity. This was necessary to prevent the kingdom being split equally amongst the heirs as Hastings was suggesting should be done.

Robert Bruce was the next in line to the throne according to proximity of blood. As such, his arguments centered on this being a more suitable way to govern the succession than primogeniture. His lawyers suggested that this was the case in most successions and as such had become something of a 'natural law'. Unfortunately for Bruce, the Scots' tradition for the preceding 200 years had been demonstrably different, relying on primogeniture instead. They also put before the court the suggestion that Alexander III had designated Bruce as heir when he himself was still childless. Whatever the truth of this, the fact remained that Alexander did eventually produce a male heir and that in the same period John Balliol also produced sons, all of whom would have a stronger claim than Bruce. Bruce also began by arguing alongside Balliol that the kingdom was indivisible, but when it became apparent that his own claim was going to fail he instead performed a rapid U-turn and joined Hastings in arguing that it be split amongst the three senior claimants, a fact for which he has been excoriated by many modern historians.

Floris V's argument was that Earl David had resigned the right of himself and his heirs. Although Floris was not a direct descendent of David I, he claimed that David had given up his right to the throne to his brother William in exchange for a grant of land in Aberdeenshire. If true, this would make Floris the rightful King of Scotland. Floris claimed that although he did not possess copies of the documents detailing, the handover of power one must exist somewhere in Scotland, and Edward postponed the court for a full ten months while a search was made through various castle treasuries. No copy was found at the time, but copies later surfaced at Pluscarden. One of the early "certified copies", dating the certification seals of the bishop of Moray and the prior of Pluscarden to 1291, is currently located in the Hague. This document is thought to be a forgery.

Floris's case was rejected for lack of evidence. However, there is evidence that he entered into an agreement with Bruce in which if one of them was to successfully claim the throne, he would grant the other one third of the kingdom as a feudal fief. Other clauses in the agreement strongly suggest that of the two, only Bruce could really expect to be a successful claimant. This has been interpreted to mean that Floris and Bruce were in collusion, with Bruce hoping that taken together their arguments could defeat Balliol, with Bruces's claim then being upheld in favour of Floris'. It is striking that there is no record of Bruce and Floris being at loggerheads during the proceedings.