Robert II.

Robert II., king of Scotland 1371-90, was born 2d March 1316, two years after the battle of Bannockburn. His father was Walter Stewart (q.v.), his mother Marjory, only daughter of Robert the Bruce; and both parents he lost in infancy. Throughout the disastrous reign of his uncle, David II., he was one of the most prominent of the patriotic nobles of Scotland, twice acting as regent during his exile and captivity, and fighting at Halidon Hill (1338) and Neville's Cross (1346). On David's death (22d February 1371) he obtained the crown, and became the founder of the Stewart dynasty, in virtue of the law of succession settled by the Council of Estates at Ayr in 1315. 'A man not valiant,' Froissart describes him, 'with red bear eyes, who would rather lie still than ride;' and partly from disposition, partly from the infirmities of age, Robert proved a peaceable, if not exactly a pusillanimous ruler. Such wars as were waged with England were not only conducted, but organised, by his powerful and intractable barons, particularly the Earls of Douglas, Mar, March, and Moray, who shaped the policy of the country very much according to their pleasure. The misery inflicted on both sides of the Border by the raids of these warlike chiefs, and the reprisals of the English wardens—the Percies and others—were frightful; famine and pestilence became chronic; but the most celebrated incidents of Robert's reign were the invasions of Scotland by an English military and naval force under the command of the Duke of Lancaster ('old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster') in 1384, and again by King Richard II. himself in 1385, which wasted the land as far as Edinburgh and Fife, and the grand retaliatory expedition of the Scotch in 1388, which culminated in the battle of Otterburn (q.v.). Robert died at his castle of Dundonald in Ayrshire, 19th April 1390. He married first, in 1349, his mistress, Elizabeth Mure of Rowallan, and secondly, in 1355, Euphemia, daughter of the Earl of Ross and widow of the Earl of Moray.