The house of the hereditary Stewards of Scotland that took the crown in 1371 under Robert II and ruled Scotland — and later all of Britain — for more than three centuries.
The family rose through the office of High Steward of Scotland, a great hereditary post controlling the royal household and estates, granted to Walter fitz Alan in the twelfth century; from the office the family took the surname Stewart. Their decisive step toward the throne came when Walter, the sixth High Steward, married Marjorie, daughter of Robert the Bruce.
When Bruce’s son David II died childless in 1371, the crown passed by that marriage to Marjorie’s son, Robert the Steward, who became King Robert II — the first of the Stewart line.
Robert II was already in his mid-fifties at his accession and left much of the fighting on the English border to his sons and magnates; his reign preserved the kingdom won by the Bruce but did little to strengthen royal authority. His son Robert III was physically frail and politically overshadowed by his brother, the Duke of Albany.
It was Robert III’s son James I, held prisoner in England for eighteen years, who returned in 1424 determined to break the power of the great nobles — a campaign that reformed royal government but ended in his assassination in 1437.
From these beginnings the Stewarts became one of Europe’s great royal houses. They ruled Scotland through the turbulent minorities and forfeitures of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and in 1603 James VI of Scotland inherited the English crown as James I, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England under the family (now often spelled Stuart).
The dynasty reigned over the British kingdoms until the death of Queen Anne in 1714, a span of more than three centuries from Robert II’s accession — a remarkable ascent from a stewardship to the thrones of three kingdoms.