Alexander II of Scotland

Alexander II (1198–1249), son of William the Lion, succeeded his father in 1214 aged sixteen. In the First Barons’ War he supported John’s rebel barons and campaigned in northern England, then made peace with Henry III and married his sister Joan in 1221.

He crushed the MacWilliam risings and subdued Galloway, while the Treaty of York in 1237 fixed the Anglo-Scottish border much as it remains. After Joan’s death he married Marie de Coucy in 1239, mother of Alexander III. In 1249 he sailed to subdue the Hebrides but died on Kerrera.