Dervorguilla of Galloway
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Dervorguilla of Galloway (c.1210 - January 28, 1290), was a 'lady of substance' during the 13th century, wife from 1223 of John, 5th Baron de Balliol, and mother of the future king John I of Scotland. The name Dervorguilla was not a real name, but a Latinization of Dearbhfhorghaill (alternative spellings, Derborgaill or Dearbhorghil). She was a daughter and heiress of the Gaelic prince Alan, Lord of Galloway and his second wife Margaret of Huntingdon.
Through her mother, she was a descendant of king David I of Scotland. Born in or around 1210, she was a grand-daughter of Maud of Chester, and of David of Scotland, 8th Earl of Huntingdon, himself the youngest brother to two Kings of Scotland, Malcolm IV and William the Lion, Dervorguilla's mother Margaret being the couple's eldest daughter.
As her father died without sons, according to both Anglo-Norman feudal laws and to ancient Gaelic customs, she was one of his heiresses. This might be considered an unusual practice in England, but it was more common in Scotland and in Western feudal tradition. Because of this, Dervorguilla bequeathed lands in Galloway to her descendants, the Baliol and the Comyns. Dervorguilla's son John of Scotland was briefly a King of Scots too, known as Toom Tabard (Scots: 'puppet king').
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[edit] Life
The Balliol family into which Dervorguilla married was based at Barnard Castle in County Durham, England. Although the date of her birth is uncertain, her apparent age of 13 was by no means unusually early for betrothal and marriage at the time.
In 1263, her husband Sir John was required to make penance after a land dispute with Walter Kirkham, Bishop of Durham. Part of this took the very expensive form of founding a College for the poor at the University of Oxford. Sir John's own finances were less substantial than those of his wife, however, and long after his death it fell to Dervorguilla to confirm the foundation, with the blessing of the same Bishop as well as the University hierarchy. She established a permanent endowment for the College in 1282, as well as a Code of Statutes which still (ostensibly) governs the College now. The college still retains the name Balliol College, and its main historical society, the Dervorguilla society.
Dervorguilla founded a Cistercian Abbey 7 miles south of Dumfries in West Scotland, in April 1273. It still stands as a picturesque ruin of red sandstone.
When Sir John died in 1269, Dervorguilla had his heart embalmed and kept in a casket of ivory bound with silver. The casket travelled with her for the rest of her life.
In her last years, the main line of the royal House of Scotland became precarious in its lack of heirs. Dervorguilla was the heiress after them in genealogical primogeniture. She died just before the young heiress Margaret, the Maid of Norway; if she had outlived her, she may have been one of the claimants to her throne. Devorguilla was then buried beside her husband at Dumfries Abbey, which was christened 'Sweetheart Abbey', the name which it retains to this day. The depredations suffered by the Abbey in subsequent periods have caused both the graves to be lost.
[edit] Husband
John de Balliol (d. c. 1269). Balliol College of the University of Oxford was founded by him in fulfillment of a pledge and endowed by Devorguilla.
[edit] Successors
Dervorguilla and Sir John appear to have had seven children, all styled 'de Balliol': Hugh (1238-1271); John (1250-1313); and Alan, Alexander, Cecilia, Alianora and Marjory, about whom much less is known.
Owing to the deaths of her elder two sons, both of whom were childless, Dervorguilla's third and youngest surviving son John of Scotland asserted a claim to the crown in 1290 when queen Margaret died. He won in arbitration against the rival Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale in 1292, and subsequently was king of Scotland for four years (1292-96).
[edit] Sources
This article originated with the 'Sweetheart Abbey' guidebook, by J S Richardson HRSA, LLD, FSA.Scotland, published by the Ministry of Works 1951.
The biography 'Dervorguilla, Lady of Galloway', by the colourful classicist Wentworth Huyshe (1913) is condemned as 'romantic twaddle and error' by the historians of Balliol College.
[edit] External links
- Balliol College ran a fundraising campaign in 1989-90 called the Dervorguilla Campaign.
- Dervorguilla Records was a record company founded by Balliol graduates, which from 1992-96 made recordings of Early Music, much of it dug out of the darker corners of the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
