Margaret, Maid of Norway
Margaret (Norwegian: Margrete, Scottish Gaelic: Maighread; March or April 1283 – September 1290), known as the Maid of Norway, was the queen-designate of Scotland from 1286 until her death.
By the end of her maternal grandfather's reign, King Alexander III of Scotland, she was his only surviving descendant and recognized heir presumptive.
She was finally sent to Great Britain in September 1290 but died in Orkney, sparking the succession dispute between thirteen competitors for the crown of Scotland.
[5] Alexander III's wife, another Margaret, sister of King Edward I of England, had died in 1275, and the oath he exacted strongly implied that he now intended to remarry.
[4] When Edward expressed his condolence to Alexander III that month for the death of his son, the latter responded that "much good may come to pass yet through your kinswoman, the daughter of your niece ... who is now our heir", suggesting that the two kings may have already been discussing a suitable marriage for Margaret.
On the evening of 18 March 1286, he set out, in stormy weather on horseback, against advice, to meet with Queen Yolanda, only to be found dead with a broken neck the next day.
Although the succession had been laid out by the time King Alexander III died, Margaret's accession was not yet assured: her stepgrandmother, Queen Yolanda, was pregnant and the child was expected to succeed to the throne.
[9] Queen Yolanda delivered a stillborn child in November,[8] and within a few months King Eric's most prominent councillor, Bjarne Erlingsson [no], arrived in Scotland to claim the kingdom for Margaret.
[16] The Treaty of Birgham, agreed on 18 July, provided that Scotland was to remain fully independent despite the personal union[17] and that Margaret alone would be inaugurated as monarch at Scone.
[21] Having suffered on Orkney for up to a week from either food poisoning or, less likely, motion sickness, Margaret died between 26 and 29 September 1290[21] in the arms of Bishop Narve.
Another of her biographers, Norman H. Reid, insists that Margaret was "accepted as queen" by her contemporaries but that, owing to the lack of Inauguration, "[her] reign never started".
Pope Nicholas IV considered Margaret to be the monarch of Scotland and treated her as such, sending to her a bull regarding the episcopal election of Matthew de Crambeth.
[17] In modern historiography she is nearly unanimously called "queen", and reference books give 19 March 1286, the date of Alexander III's death, as the start of her reign.
[27] Margaret's family ties resulted from the marital diplomacy that sought to ensure peace among the three kingdoms on the North Sea – Norway, Scotland, and England,[1] and placed her at the centre of the Scottish succession intrigues.
