Baliol John

Baliol, John, son of the foregoing, was born in 1259, and inherited from his mother the lordship of Galloway. On the death of the Maid of Norway, Alexander III.'s heiress, in 1290, he was one of the three competitors for the Scottish throne, the other two being Robert Bruce, grandson of the second daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon, and John de Hastings, son of the third daughter. Edward I., interfering for his own ends as arbitrator, decided in favour of Baliol in 1292, and the latter submitted to be crowned as vassal to the English king, who immediately began to goad him into resistance by assertions of absolute authority. Baliol refused to be cited before the English Parliament, or to follow his feudal superior into France, and in 1295 he entered into an alliance with the French king, Philip. Edward thereupon invaded Scotland and seized Berwick, whilst Surrey defeated the Scots at Dunbar, and the whole country as far as Perth was speedily subjugated. Baliol was compelled to surrender and to undergo the humiliation of publicly renouncing his crown at Stracathro (July, 1296). He was committed to the Tower with his son Edward, and remained a prisoner till 1299, when he was sent to Bailleul, the home of his ancestors in Normandy, and died there in 1314. His son Edward regained the throne in 1332 with the connivance of Edward III., but after two or three years resigned his claim to England, and died childless in 1363.