The magnificent ruins of Elgin cathedral. The building was torched by Alexander in June 1390
When Robert II came to the throne as Scotland’s first Stewart king in 1371, he had a problem. Unusually for a Scottish monarch, he had many sons, and he needed to provide for them. He did so by handing out lands and titles, including to his third son, Alexander, who was given the highland lordships of Badenoch and Lochindorb. Doubtless Robert hoped that his son, at the time probably in his mid-20s, would prove a force for stability and a bastion of royal authority in the disorderly north. If so, the king was to be disappointed, for Alexander Stewart, later nicknamed ‘the wolf of Badenoch’, would go on to become one of the most notorious figures of the entire middle ages.
Throughout the 1370s and 1380s, Alexander consolidated his power in the highlands. His most significant move was to marry Euphemia Ross, heir to the vastly powerful earldom of Ross, in 1382. This match gave Alexander control of a huge swathe of land stretching from the Cromarty Firth to Torridon, making him one of the greatest landholders in Scotland, although he did not inherit the title ‘earl of Ross’ (he was soon made earl of Buchan instead).