Dynasty: the Stewarts/Stuarts of Scotland

The Plantagenet kings had their hands full with Scotland.  Not only were there continuing disputes about land, Scotland claiming portions of England such as Northumbria, and Scottish kings owing fealty for lands in England or Plantagenet France, but border wars between the two countries were endemic.  The Plantagenets would know, and even intermarry with three Scottish dynasties, the House of Dunkeld, the House of Bruce, and the Stewarts. 

The Stewarts, like many English and Scottish nobles, began in France.  Alan FitzFlaad, a steward or household official to the Bishop of Dol migrated to England in the wake of the Norman Conquest.  They entered the service of the English king and later migrated to Scotland.  Alan's great-grandson Walter became the first hereditary High Steward of Scotland.  A steward, like a seneschal, was originally a household position but later evolved to a court official with powers of a governor.  It wasn't until Walter Stewart, 3rd High Steward, that the occupation also became a surname.  Walter Stewart was also given the designation, of Dunkeld.  Walter's descendant, six High Stewards later, another Walter, married Marjorie, the daughter of Robert Bruce.  Their son became Robert became Robert II in 1371, when his uncle David II Bruce died childless.  Robert II would be followed his son, Robert III, then James 1-V, Mary, and finally James VI, who later also inherited his mother's claim to the English crown and became James I of England in 1603.

The Stewarts had several crosses back to the Plantagenet family.  James I would marry Joan Beaufort, a granddaughter of Joan of Gaunt.  However, in 1503, James IV would marry Margaret Tudor, a granddaughter of Elizabeth of York and great-granddaughter of Edward IV.  It would be through James I that Plantagenet and Tudor blood flowed to the English Stuarts, who would rule England from 1603-1714.  James I's daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia would transmit the Plantagenet and Tudor heritage to her Hanoverian descendants and on to the present Royal Family.