| Notes |
- 3rd Earl of Ross.
"[He] was among the nobles who swore in 1284 to uphold the claim of Margaret, the Maid of Norway, to the Scottish throne. In 1290 he subscribed the treaty of Birgham, for Margaret's marriage to Prince Edward of England. A supporter of John Balliol in the Great Cause, he was given custody by King John of a new sheriffdom embracing the outer isles, Skye, Wester Ross, and Kintail. When Anglo-Scottish hostilities began he was captured at the battle of Dunbar; imprisoned in the Tower of London he was not released until 1303, after his wife had petitioned Edward I for her husband's freedom. Shortly afterwards Edward made him warden of Scotland beyond Spey. William's Comyn connections caused him to oppose Robert Bruce in 1306, and when the latter's wife, daughter, and sister took sanctuary at Tain he handed them over to the English. But after his appeals for help to Edward II failed to bring him relief against Scottish attacks he made a truce and then, on 31 October 1308, submitted to King Robert. He was treated leniently and retained his lands (to which Dingwall was added in 1321). With his eldest son he attended Robert's first parliament in 1309, and he was one of the eight earls who set their seals to the declaration of Arbroath in 1320." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, citation details below]
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
- 1323
[2]