Robert III of Scotland

Robert III was king of Scots from 1390 to 1406. Born John Stewart, he took the regnal name Robert but suffered from poor health and struggled to control powerful relatives, especially his brother the Duke of Albany.

The death of his heir David, Duke of Rothesay, and the danger facing his younger son James dominated his final years. James was captured at sea shortly before Robert’s death and began his reign as an English prisoner.

In Nigel Tranter’s A Folly of Princes, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, Robert III remains king of Scotland in name, but real power is contested within his own family. In Nigel Tranter’s The Captive Crown, Scotland’s Stewart monarchy is close to collapse. In Nigel Tranter’s The End of the Line, as the fifteenth century approaches, the weakness of Robert III allows his ambitious brother, Robert Stewart, Earl of Fife, to dominate Scotland as regent.