Alice Comyn

Alice Comyn, Countess of Buchan, Lady Beaumont (1289 – 3 July 1349) was a Scottish noblewoman, a member of the powerful Comyn family which supported the Balliols, claimants to the disputed Scottish throne against their rivals, the Bruces. She was the niece of John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, to whom she was also heiress, and after his death the Earldom of Buchan was successfully claimed by her husband Henry de Beaumont, Earl of Buchan, by right of his wife. His long struggle to claim her Earldom of Buchan was one of the causes of the Second War of Scottish Independence.

Alice was the maternal grandmother of Blanche of Lancaster, and thus great-grandmother of King Henry IV of England.

Alice was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1289, the eldest daughter of Alexander Comyn, Sheriff of Aberdeen and his wife Joan le Latimer and the granddaughter of Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan. She had a younger sister, Margaret, who would later marry firstly Sir John Ross, and secondly Sir William Lindsay, Lord of Symertoun.

Alice's paternal grandparents were Alexander Comyn, 2nd Earl of Buchan, Justiciar and Constable of Scotland, and Elizabeth de Quincy; and her maternal grandparents were William le Latimer and Alicia Ledet. Alice's uncle was John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, one of the most powerful nobles in Scotland. The earl, who died in December 1308, was married to Isabella MacDuff, but the marriage was childless. Alice was John Comyn's heiress to the title of Countess of Buchan, although the earldom had been forfeited to the crown prior to her uncle's death in England to where he had gone as a fugitive.