Marie de Coucy
Alexander II died on 8 July 1249 during an expedition against the Lord of Argyll on the island of Kerrera. Immediately after the news reached her, Marie made sure her 8-year-old son was crowned as soon as possible at Scone. Although her son was a minor and was placed under regency, Marie did not become regent. On 9 June 1250 Marie and her son Alexander III were present in Dunfermline for the observance of the canonisation of Saint Margaret of Scotland and the transference of her remains to the new shrine.
Alexander I of Russia
In the second half of his reign he was increasingly arbitrary, reactionary and fearful of plots against him; he ended many earlier reforms. He purged schools of foreign teachers, as education became more religiously oriented as well as politically conservative. Speransky was replaced as advisor with the strict artillery inspector Aleksey Arakcheyev, who oversaw the creation of military settlements. Alexander died of typhus in December 1825 while on a trip to southern Russia. He left no children, as his two daughters died in childhood. Both of his brothers wanted the other to become emperor. After a period of great confusion (that presaged the failed Decembrist revolt of liberal army officers in the weeks after his death), he was succeeded by his younger brother, Nicholas I.