ndrel to whom she was linked. To
personal profligacy she added sordid avarice, and a positive incapacity
for telling the truth. To these delightful persons the poor little
Scottish maidens, Margaret and Isabel, were consigned. At what age
Marjory joined them in England is doubtful: but it does not appear that
she was ever, as they were, an official ward of the Crown.

The exact terms on which these royal children were sent into England
were for many years the subject of sharp contention between their
brother Alexander and King Henry the Third. The memorandum drawn up
between the Kings William and John, does not appear to be extant: but
that by which, in 1220, they were afresh consigned to the care of Henry
the Third, is still in existence. Alexander strenuously maintained that
John had undertaken to marry the sisters to his own two sons. The
agreement with Henry the Third simply provides that "We will also marry
[This meant at the time, `cause to be married'] Margaret and Isabel,
sisters of the said Alexander, King of Scotland, during the space of one
full year from the feast of Saint Denis [October 8], 1220, as shall be
to our honour: and if we do not marry them within that period, we will
return them to the said Alexander, King of Scotland, safe and free, in
his own territories, within two years from the time specified." [Note
1.]

This article of the convention was honestly carried out according to the
later memorandum, so far as concerned Margaret, who was married to
Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, at York, on the twenty-fifth of June,
1221. Isabel, however, was not married (to Roger Bigod, Earl of
Norfolk) until May, 1225. [Note 2.] Still, after the latter date, the
convention having been carried out, it might have been supposed that the
Kings would have given over quarrelling about it. The Princesses were
honourably married in England, which was all that Henry the Third at
least had undertaken to do.

But neither party was satisfied. Alexander never ceased to reproach
Henry for not having himself married Margaret, and united Isabel to his
brother. Henry, while he testily maintained to Alexander that he had
done all he promised, and no further claim could be established against
him, yet, as history shows, never to the last hour pardoned Hubert de
Burgh for his marriage with the Scottish Princess, and most bitterly
reproached him for depriving him of her whom he had intended to make his
Queen.

The