algamation. It was left for the future to decide whether the habit of
co-operation, continued for generations, might not ultimately involve a
more organic union. Unluckily for this island, the policy which
ultimately made the stubborn Celts of Brittany content with union with
France, never had a chance of being carried out here. Edward made every
preparation for bringing over the Maid of Norway to her kingdom and her
husband, and neither the Scots nor the Norwegians grudged his leading
share in accomplishing their common wishes. But the child's health gave
way before the hardships of the journey. Before All Saints' day had come
round, she died in one of the Orkneys, where the ship which conveyed her
had put in.

The death of the queen threatened Scotland with revolution. The regents'
commission became of doubtful legality, and a swarm of claimants for the
vacant throne arose, whose resources, if not their rights, were
sufficiently evenly balanced to make civil strife inevitable. Since
southern Scotland had become a wholly feudal, largely Norman, and partly
English state, there had been no grave difficulties with regard to the
succession. Now that they arose, there was doubt as to the principles on
which claims to the throne should be settled. There was no legitimate
representative left of the stock of William the Lion. The male line of
his brother David, Earl of Huntingdon, had died out with John the Scot,
the last independent Earl of Chester. The nearest claimants to the
succession were therefore to be found in the descendants of David's
three daughters. But there was no certainty that any rights could be
transmitted through the female line. Moreover there was a doubt whether,
allowing that a woman could transmit the right to rule, the succession
should proceed according to primogeniture or in accordance with the
nearness of the claimant to the source of his claim. If the former view
were held then John of Balliol, lord of Barnard castle in Durham and of
Galloway in Scotland, had the best right as the grandson of Earl David's
eldest daughter. Yet less than a century before, the passing over of
Arthur of Brittany in favour of his uncle John, had recalled to men's
mind the ancient doctrine that a younger son is nearer to the parent
stock than a grandson sprung from his elder brother; and if the view,
then expressed in the _History of William the Marshal_,[1] was still to
hold good, Robert Bruce, lord of Skelton in Yorkshi