Wales and the Maid of Norway, heiress of tho Scottish crown. The states of Scotland readily assented to the proposition of the English, and even consented that their young sovereign should be educated at the court of her royal father-in-law. But, while Eleanora was anticipating the pleasant task of rearing the future Queen of England, she was overwhelmed with sorrow by the intelligence, that the tender frame of the priceless child, unable to sustain the rigors of the voyage, had fallen a victim to death at the Orkneys, on her way to England. Her loss was the greatest calamity that ever befell the Scottish nation, fully justifying the touching couplet, " The North wind sobs where Margaret sleeps, And still in tears of blood her memory Scotland steeps." The succession of the Scottish crown became at once a matter of dispute, and all the evils which Eleanora had foreseen began to darken the political horizon. The line of Alexander being extinct, the crown devolved on the issue of David, Earl of Huntington, who figures as Sir Kenneth, in the "Talisman". The earl had three daugh-ters, from one of whom descended John Baliol, from an-other Robert Bruce; and the rival claims of these two competitors having for some time agitated the kingdom, it was agreed to submit the arbitration of the affair to Edward, in the same manner as Henry III. had made Louis IX. umpire of his difficulties upon the continent. But the noble virtues of the saintly monarch were poorly represented in the English king. Edward at once claimed the crown for himself as lord paramount of the country, appointed Baliol as his deputy, and sent six regents to take possession of Scotland. The brave men of the north resisted this aggres-sion with a spirit that fully proved their Scandinavian origin, and Edward hastened to the Scottish border to en-force his claims. Queen Eleanora was absent in Ambresbury, to witness the profession of her daughter Mary, who there, with the Welsh Princess Guendoline,was veiled a nun under the care ELEANORA. 455