[BITList] The Lion, King of Scots

[John Feltham]

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William I  [known as William the Lion]  (1142-1214), king of Scots, was the second of the three sons of Henry, earl of Northumberland  (1152), and his wife, Ada de Warenne  (1178).

Prince and young king, c.1143-1173

Nothing is known of William's childhood except some unusually early public appearances. One charter was issued in his name before 1150 and soon after his father's death, on 12 or 13 June 1153, his grandfather King David I (r. 1124-53) invested him as earl of Northumberland. He held this dignity until his brother King Malcolm IV (r. 1153-65) surrendered the northern counties of England to Henry II of England at Chester in June or July 1157. William was given lands in Tynedale worth £10 per annum which he held until his death, but he neither forgot nor forgave the loss of his earldom. The thread of his diplomatic relations with the kings of England is a series of obstinate attempts to regain it, despite increasingly clear indications that they were not prepared to let him have it.

After 1157 Malcolm IV provided for William in Scotland and he regularly witnessed his brother's charters. He was on the Toulouse expedition of 1159 and probably was knighted then. In 1163 he again saw the hard face of Henry II's lordship when the three brothers went to Woodstock, Malcolm IV did homage, and the youngest, David  (1219), was left as a hostage. A later tradition that William was governor of Scotland in Malcolm IV's closing years is not true; but he had seen his brother's rule at close quarters and was without doubt ready for responsibility when Malcolm died on 9 December 1165.

William was inaugurated as king of Scots on 24 December 1165 at Scone, the traditional place; the rites probably had more ecclesiastical content than at the inauguration of David I in 1124. He inherited a peaceful kingdom. His brother's steward, constable, and chancellor continued in office. His itinerary in his early years shows him in the settled parts of the realm. The style of government may have changed, however; new names appear as witnesses of royal charters and William was a young man in rude health and with a mind of his own. He consulted others, but there is less apparent reliance on major gatherings of magnates such as marked Malcolm IV's rule.

William soon confirmed Malcolm IV's last bequest to Dunfermline Abbey; thereafter he showed little benevolent interest in his family's monastic foundations, except to confirm gifts and make occasional new ones. In 1166 he went to Normandy to see Henry II. His business is unknown; he could have been asking for Northumberland or taking an interest in Brittany, where his sister Margaret was the wife of Count Conan and where Henry II was then winning control of William's niece, Conan's heir. The public view of the king of Scots was that he took part creditably in tournaments. He was at Fougeres and Mont-St Michel in August or September 1166, and it was reported that he and Henry II parted on bad terms.

In 1168 William is said to have been in touch with King Louis VII of France, offering friendship and help in the latter's disputes with Henry II. This contact, if genuine, bore fruit in the 1170s. Before that, William and his brother David attended Henry II's council at Windsor on 5 April 1170. Henry II was preparing for the coronation of his eldest son, Henry, 'the young king'. The brothers probably remained in the south; they were at Windsor again on 31 May and at London on 14 June when young Henry was crowned as king of England. William and David then did homage to him.

War in England, 1173-1174

A later chronicler's statement that William now asked for Northumberland is credible, although there is no contemporary evidence that he did. But young Henry knew the mind of the king of Scots. In March 1173 he rebelled and fled to Louis VII with his brothers Geoffrey and Richard. In return for help against his father he promised the northern counties of England to William, and the earldom of Huntingdon with Cambridgeshire to David. William consulted his barons in the summer of 1173. It was decided to ask Henry II to restore Northumberland and, if that failed, to renounce homage. Henry II refused. The Scots again considered; the king wished to fight; some nobles counselled against it. Louis VII and Count Philippe of Flanders now promised that mercenaries would be landed in England; the offers of lands were renewed. William decided for war. He had joined an anti-Plantagenet alliance, foreshadowing later Scottish policy of friendship with France against England.

About 20 August 1173 the Scottish host moved from its muster at Caddonlea to the castle of Wark on Tweed. The castellan was granted a truce. The bishop of Durham, Hugh du Puiset, would not fight. The Scots moved to Alnwick, Warkworth, and Newcastle, destroying the countryside but unable to take the castles. From Newcastle the host moved west to Carlisle. That castle could not be taken either, and on receiving news of a relief force in the field the Scots returned to Roxburgh. The English force, under the justiciar Ranulf de Glanville, burnt Berwick. Before it turned south to deal with an invasion from Flanders a truce was agreed, until 13 January 1174, and later extended, on payment of 300 marks by the bishop of Durham to the king of Scots, to 24 March 1174.

After Easter 1174, while William's brother David revived a campaign in the English midlands, the Scots, with Flemish mercenaries, set siege to Wark and ravaged to the Northumberland coast. An attempt to fire the castle failed and the siege was abandoned. The Scots moved to Carlisle, but again were no more successful there. Appleby and Brough castles surrendered. Moving east the Scots were resisted when they besieged Prudhoe Castle (near Newcastle), and news of an approaching English army then moved them north to Alnwick. Here the Scottish forces were partly dispersed in raiding parties when, on 13 July 1174, they received a surprise attack. King William's horse was killed and he was trapped underneath it. He surrendered to Ranulf de Glanville and was taken as a prisoner to Newcastle; on 24 July he appeared before Henry II at Northampton and was soon taken to Normandy to be imprisoned at Caen and later at Falaise.

The impact of defeat

The effect on William needs no imagination. He had sought war; he had led from the front throughout and had been in the thick of the action; but he had openly failed. His men rallied round to salvage what they could. Richard, bishop of St Andrews, and Richard, bishop of Dunkeld, both former royal chaplains, and Geoffrey (II), abbot of Dunfermline, crossed to Normandy; several laymen also went to cheer up the king; terms for peace and the king's release were negotiated. There had been a generous pacification between Henry II and his rebellious sons, but the Scots had to accept special terms. On 1 December 1174, by the convention of Falaise (confirmed at Valognes on the 8th), the king of Scots became the liege man of Henry II for Scotland and for all his other lands; he, his brother David, and a group of Scottish clerics granted that 'the church of Scotland shall henceforward owe such subjection to the church of England as it should do'  (Stones, 2); the castles of Roxburgh, Berwick, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling were to be put at the disposal of Henry II and the king of Scots was to assign revenues for their keeping; the harbouring of felons from one country in the other was forbidden and the Scots were to deliver over twenty named noble hostages. It was a comprehensive loss of sovereignty, a political settlement matching military disaster.

William left Normandy on 11 December 1174. He was probably detained in England until the castles had been handed over, and he returned to Scotland in February 1175. Then, like Malcolm IV on his return in 1160, he had to deal with an internal revolt. Galloway had been quiet since 1160 under Uhtred, son of Fergus, but on news of the king's removal to Normandy a revolt broke out and Uhtred was murdered by his brother Gilbert on 22 September 1174. Gilbert then asked to become directly subject to Henry II; this may have been as much a personal as a political request, since they were first cousins, but it was not immediately accepted. Something had to be done about Galloway, but Gilbert's proposal and William's position under the convention of Falaise made immediate independent action impossible.

At York on 10 August 1175 King William, his brother David, and leading Scottish clerics and nobles confirmed the convention by swearing fealty to Henry II; the clerics added an oath that they would make the same subjection to the church of England as their predecessors had customarily made and which they ought to make. William offered his helmet, lance, and saddle on the altar of York Minster, a ceremony of submission with ecclesiastical as well as lay significance. Henry II then gave William permission to deal with Galloway. A Scottish force went there and secured a reconciliation. Whether on his own initiative, or under instructions, in the following year, 1176, King William attended Henry II at Feckenham in Worcestershire on 9 October, bringing with him Gilbert of Galloway, who sought Henry's peace, gave his son Duncan as a hostage, and offered to pay 1000 marks of silver for friendship. The terms were accepted; Duncan was handed over; during the next few years some of the money was paid; and peace again fell temporarily over Galloway.

In and after 1175 other effects of the convention of Falaise had to be endured: English garrisons were in post at Roxburgh, Berwick, and Edinburgh; Jedburgh and Stirling castles may have been occupied briefly, or perhaps not at all; William was issuing charters at Stirling soon after 1175; lands and rents were transferred for the upkeep of the surrendered castles. As for the church, Henry II followed up the York meeting with a council at Northampton in January 1176, summoning King William and his bishops; he there required the Scottish church to make its obedience to the church of England. The Scottish bishops claimed that their predecessors had never made any such submission; Jocelin, bishop of Glasgow, demonstrated a special exemption for his see. The council broke up when the archbishops of Canterbury and York quarrelled over which of them should receive the Scottish submission. Scottish ambassadors were sent to Pope Alexander III (r. 1159-81) who, in the bull Super anxietatibus of 30 July 1176, suspended York's jurisdiction pending an examination of the matter. A legate, Cardinal Vivian, arrived in Scotland, possibly in August 1176, visited Ireland and England, returned to Scotland, and on 1 August 1177 held a council at Holyrood. He seems to have made an examination of many matters and aroused anger by his fiscal exactions. No formal record of the council survives, and so it is not known if the legate considered any claims from York about jurisdiction. The king was not at hand. Before the council convened he had gone south, summoned by Henry II to meet him at Winchester on 1 July 1177 for military service in Normandy.

Ecclesiastical policies

King William probably did not cross the channel because the expedition was postponed. It is evident, however, that while the Scottish bishops had been negotiating with some success to undermine the convention of Falaise, the king himself was still firmly bound to Henry II's lordship. It is probably no accident that he now turned to his one major monastic foundation, a house of Tironensian canons (a daughter of Kelso Abbey) at Arbroath. Some earlier gifts may have been made before the formal act of foundation in the autumn of 1178. It was perhaps as much a political as a religious gesture; the dedication to St Thomas Becket honoured another victim of Henry II. And on the day that William had been taken at Alnwick, Henry II was completing twenty four hours of penance for the murder of Becket. Such a coincidence no doubt had significance for the founder. The abbey was well endowed, but there is no sign of an early start of work on the buildings. There was another round of grants by the king and others in the 1190s; the community was active by c.1200, and enough of the church had been built for the king to be buried there in 1214. Its large-scale ruins suggest a design to rival or surpass Dunfermline Abbey and the buildings at St Andrews, and so to be a fitting centre for a new saint as well as for a royal tomb. Any pleasure the king may have taken in his new foundation was soon disturbed, however, by ten difficult years of an ecclesiastical dispute about the bishop of St Andrews, a major revolt in Ross and Moray, and further trouble in Galloway.

Bishop Richard of St Andrews died in May 1178. Ignoring the king, the local clerics swiftly elected John the Scot, a member of a family based near St Andrews and a nephew of Bishop Matthew of Aberdeen. The king then forced the election of his chaplain, Hugh, who was consecrated before the end of 1178. Over the next ten years Hugh witnessed royal charters and acted as bishop. John appealed to the pope. Alexander III had shown in Super anxietatibus that he was not prepared to let a layman, Henry II, decide a question of ecclesiastical authority; he now supported the canonically elected John, and opposed King William. A legate, Alexius, held a council at Holyrood on 15 June 1180, formally deposed Hugh, and consecrated John. Royal pressure then forced John and his kindred to leave Scotland; they took their case to Henry II in Normandy. Excommunicated by the legate, Hugh took his case to the papal court.

William and his brother David, visiting Henry II in Normandy in 1181 to discuss the dispute, were persuaded to allow the bishop of Aberdeen to return to Scotland. Further agreement was not then possible; later in 1181 William, his constable Richard de Moreville, and other courtiers were excommunicated by the pope's instructions by Roger, archbishop of York, and the kingdom placed under interdict. But Alexander III's death in August 1181, followed, to the great joy of the king of Scots, by that of Archbishop Roger in November that year, gave an opening for reconsideration. Early in 1182 an embassy led by Bishop Jocelin of Glasgow persuaded Pope Lucius III (r. 1181-5) to lift the interdict and excommunication; in an extraordinary gesture of friendship King William was presented with the golden rose customarily given in Lent by the pope to the ruler of the territory where he was in residence. Bishop Hugh then returned from Rome with a legate; during three days of discussions with the king in June 1182 it was proposed that Hugh and John might move to other sees, but the king stood by his bishop. A year later, by a compromise, John became bishop of Dunkeld and was to be paid 40 marks a year by Hugh, who remained at St Andrews. That arrangement lasted from 1183 until 1186, when John reopened the case, on the ground that royal promises had not been kept. Papal letters of 16 January 1188 deposed Hugh and ordered that John was to be installed at St Andrews. This was not done, and Hugh died on 8 August 1188 near Rome, having had personal absolution from the pope.

The dispute was now over. The winner was the persistent king. He had upheld what he believed to be the powers he had inherited from David I and Malcolm IV; in the latter's reign he had seen two royal candidates become bishop of St Andrews in quick succession. His grip on appointments remained firm. The next bishop of St Andrews, Roger, had briefly been the king's chancellor and was also his kinsman; Bishop John of Dunkeld consented to the appointment, but Roger was not consecrated until 1198. Florence, bishop-elect of Glasgow in 1202-7, was the king's nephew. With few exceptions (one was a Douglas and two were monks), up to 1214 vacant bishoprics went to royal servants, and there were allegations of simony over the appointment of Walter, a royal chaplain, as bishop of Glasgow in 1208.

Rebellions in Moray and Galloway

In 1179 William had to deal with the first of a series of revolts, which continued into the reign of his son, Alexander II (r. 1214-49), by the Macheth and Macwilliam families. Malcolm Macheth had apparently tried to win the earldom of Ross in the reign of David I and had been given it by Malcolm IV. After his death in 1168 no successor earl of Ross was appointed. The Macheths were supported by the Macwilliams, descended from King Duncan II and his son William fitz Duncan, said to have been earl of Moray. No earl of Moray had been appointed after William, and increasing evidence for burghs, castles, and knights in the region shows that the Scottish king was strengthening his grip there. Faced with such changes some local lords, especially in Ross, seem to have preferred to support a potential royal line descended from Duncan II. In 1179 the king and his brother led an army to deal with unrest in Ross. Two castles (mottes) were built at Redcastle and Dunskeath, and measures were agreed to strengthen the defences of Inverness. Now, probably, William confirmed David's possession of the earldom of Lennox and the lordship of Garioch; both had strategic importance and the grant of the latter, a compact estate controlling the roads to Moray and Ross, clearly shows the trust placed by the king in his brother. For the moment all these precautions were enough. But in April 1181 the king and David were in Normandy and William did not return to Scotland until at least August. Donald Ban Macwilliam, a son of William fitz Duncan, took advantage of his absence and led a full-scale revolt in Moray and Ross.

This was a serious blow. A later statement by a chronicler that Donald Macwilliam controlled the earldoms of Ross and Moray for some considerable time seems to be well founded. The king is not known to have issued charters in Moray between probably 1179 and 1187, and there was no bishop of Moray for nearly two and a half years (from 17 September 1184 to 1 March 1187). A royal servant, Gillecolm, the marischal, surrendered the castle of Auldearn and went over to the rebels. In November 1186 an outlaw, Aed, son of Donald Macheth, with his (unnamed) nephew and fifty-eight followers, got as far south as Coupar Angus, where they were trapped and killed in the church.

By now the king was engaged on two fronts. Gilbert of Galloway had made little real effort since 1179 to pay the money he owed to Henry II. In 1184 William, whose lands had been ravaged by the Galwegians, tried to bring him under control. News of the return of Henry II to England led to a truce, and the royal army was sent home. In the late summer William was with Henry II. A decision for action in the following year can be inferred, but on 1 January 1185 Gilbert died. His nephew Roland (Lachlan), son of the Uhtred murdered in 1174, invaded Galloway with the help of King William, and probably also the tacit agreement of Henry II, and on 4 July 1185 defeated the main force of Gilbert's followers. A surviving ringleader, one Gillecolm, was killed on 30 September 1185. In July 1186, at Carlisle, Roland was presented by King William before Henry II and made peace. After this, possibly as late as c.1190, King William granted Roland the lordship of Galloway; Duncan, Gilbert's son, was made lord of Carrick. Thereafter Roland kept Galloway at peace and was loyal to William until his death in 1200. His son and successor, Alan, continued this policy and no more is heard of rebels in Galloway until after Alan's death in 1234.

With the south-west quiet by the end of the campaigning season in 1186, the Scottish king could turn again to the north. In 1187 he led a large army as far as Inverness, whose citizens dissuaded him from taking part in the fighting. Roland of Galloway, with a picked force, brought the rebels to battle on 31 July at 'Mam Garvia' (unidentified, but probably on the north side of the Beauly Firth). Donald Macwilliam and, it is said, 500 of his men were killed and Donald's head was sent to the king.

The king's marriage

The rebellions may have prompted King William, or Henry II, to reflect that the succession in Scotland in the early 1180s was not settled. William was still unmarried and had no legitimate heir except his brother David. Not that he was childless; unlike Malcolm IV, William was not chaste. In 1183 his illegitimate daughter Isabella was married to Robert de Brus [see under Brus,  Robert (II)  de], heir to the lordship of Annandale; in 1184 another daughter, Ada, was married to Earl Patrick of Dunbar. William's illegitimate son Robert of London (d. c.1226), endowed from the royal lands, began to appear regularly in public in the early 1180s.

Henry II, as King William's lord, had a duty in such matters. In 1184, perhaps in July or August, William attended Henry II's court to discuss a request he had made to marry Henry's granddaughter Matilda of Saxony, daughter of Duke Henry the Lion. This proposal was referred to the pope, who forbade it on grounds of consanguinity. In 1185, on the death of Earl Simon (III) de Senlis, Henry II set aside possible claims from the earl's relations and restored the earldom of Huntingdon to King William, who promptly granted it to his brother David. Thereafter Earl David's career was spent more in England and Normandy than in Scotland, but his social position and expectations, reinforced in 1190 by marriage to a sister of Ranulf, earl of Chester, were now more like those of a royal heir.

In May 1186, in a council at Woodstock, Henry II proposed that King William should marry Ermengarde  (1233), daughter of Richard, vicomte de Beaumont, who was the son of an illegitimate daughter of Henry I of England. Her royal blood was thus somewhat undernourished, and the first Scottish reaction was unfavourable. The king consulted his advisers and at last agreed. His reluctance is understandable; a union with Matilda of Saxony would have been more fitting for his royal dignity and in addition Ermengarde was possibly very young. The marriage took place at Woodstock on 5 September 1186; Henry II paid for the four days of festivities and returned Edinburgh Castle as part of the bride's tocher (or dower); the king of Scots was to provide £100 of rents and forty knights feus in Scotland.

Issues of independence

In 1187, when a crusading movement developed in Europe, Henry II and Philippe II of France (r. 1180-1223) proposed a ten per cent tax on moveables and rents-the Saladin tithe. In February 1188 Bishop Hugh of Durham was sent to press the Scots for their contribution. King William used the opening to offer 4000 marks to recover Roxburgh and Berwick castles; Henry II may have agreed to this so long as the tithe was also paid. A meeting of Scottish magnates refused to pay the tithe, and so the matter was dropped. But the issue of the castles soon came back. Henry II died on 6 July 1189; his successor, Richard I, was determined to go on crusade. King William went south in November, met Richard at Canterbury, and did homage for his lands in England. To raise money for the crusade, Richard then abandoned his lordship of Scotland. Under the quitclaim of Canterbury (5 December 1189) King William was released from the homage and submission given to Henry II, Roxburgh and Berwick castles were returned, and the relationship of the kingdoms was to be as in the days of Malcolm IV. The Scots paid 10,000 marks and, in what seems to be an innovation, a tax (aid) was taken for the purpose. Scotland was independent again, at a price.

Another benefit soon appeared. On 13 March 1192 Pope Celestine III (r. 1191-8) issued the bull Cum universi, decreeing that the Scottish church was a 'special daughter' of the apostolic see and subject to it without any intermediary. The earlier claims of York to superiority were thus firmly denied. If the king had then taken stock he would have had some reason to be content. He had had, it is true, to accept a wife not of his own choice or rank, and he still had no legitimate son to succeed him. But he had exploited a situation in England to recover political independence. Galloway, Moray, and Ross were quiet. Despite the St Andrews dispute he had retained control over senior appointments in the church in Scotland, whose existence as a separate body had now been formally recognized by the pope (and was to be confirmed by reissues of Cum universi, perhaps in 1200 and then in 1218).

Northumberland, however, was still beyond William's reach. In 1189 King Richard sold a life-interest in the earldom to Bishop Hugh of Durham. William then tried to build up local support there. In 1191 his illegitimate daughter Isabella, now a widow, was married to Robert de Ros, lord of Wark. In 1193 another illegitimate daughter, Margaret, was married to Eustace de Vescy, lord of Alnwick. Two lords in the northern part of the earldom were now bound to the king of Scots by marriage, and three years earlier Duncan, earl of Fife, had gained control of the lordship of Mitford by buying the wardship of the heir. But friendly relations with King Richard continued, and in 1193 William volunteered 2000 marks towards his ransom.

After Richard returned to England in early March 1194 the two kings soon met. On 5 April, in Nottinghamshire, William formally sought two favours. The first, granted on 17 April (but not put into effect until the reign of King John), was for an honourable escort and daily subsistence allowances when visiting the English court. This purported to be the revival of an old custom. The second was for the earldom of Northumberland, the lordships of Cumberland and Westmorland, and cheekily, since the Scots had not held it since the 1140s, the earldom of Lancaster, as of right enjoyed by his predecessors. After taking counsel, King Richard's reply, on 10 or 11 April was, not surprisingly, negative. On 17 April, at Richard's solemn crown-wearing at Winchester, William carried one of the three swords of state before the king. Two days later the bishop of Durham surrendered the earldom of Northumberland. William offered 15,000 marks for it. Richard offered the earldom without the castles; this was rejected. On 21 April William tried again and got the same answer; Richard held out hopes of granting the castles after his return from Normandy, but he never came back to England after May 1194, and William had failed again.

Settling the succession

Bishop Hugh of Durham, despite the surrender, continued to control the earldom. His death on 3 March 1195 could not be exploited because of a succession crisis in Scotland. Probably in April or May 1195 King William lay gravely ill at Clackmannan. By one account his eldest legitimate daughter, Margaret, was recognized by the Scots magnates as his heir. By another, there was a proposal that she should be married to Otto, duke of Saxony (brother of the Matilda whom William had sought to marry), who would succeed. A group of Scottish magnates led by the earl of Dunbar claimed that this was contrary to the custom of the kingdom, so long as the king had a brother or nephew who could succeed. But the king recovered and the crisis passed. In 1196 a modified proposal was put forward by the English court but rejected by King William because the queen was pregnant and he hoped for a son. The queen did not provide one then, but two years later, on 24 August 1198, the future King Alexander II arrived. He was the first surviving legitimate son born to a reigning king of Scots for some seventy years and, not surprisingly, a contemporary recorded that 'many rejoiced at his birth'  (Anderson, Early Sources, 2.349).

Between the succession crisis and Alexander's birth the peace of the country was broken again. In 1196 there was a battle near Inverness between the royal forces and a certain Roderick (or Ruaridh; perhaps a descendant of Somerled of Argyll and the eponym of the late thirteenth-century MacRuaridhs) and Thorfinn, son of Earl Harald Maddadson of Orkney and Caithness. The causes are not clear, but the earl's second (bigamous) wife, Hvarflod, was a daughter of Malcolm Macheth; she might have been claiming the earldom of Ross or pursuing a feud after the death of her nephew Aed Macheth at Coupar Angus in 1186. William spent part of 1196 and 1197 in Moray, and in the autumn of 1197 Earl Harald surrendered at Nairn. He was imprisoned at Roxburgh and released when Thorfinn surrendered and took his place. King William encouraged a rival earl, Harald Ungi, and when the latter was killed in 1198 he then called on the king of the Hebrides and Man, Ragnvald, son of Godfrey, for help. But Ragnvald was unable to hold Caithness. A dispute between Earl Harald and Bishop John of Caithness led to the serious injury of the latter, and so another royal effort was required.

Preparations for an expedition were made in the autumn of 1201. An early step may have been the blinding and emasculation of Thorfinn, who died later in prison. Perhaps expecting the worst, or just conscious of his age, the king had the Scottish magnates swear fealty to Alexander on 12 October 1201 at Musselburgh. The winter expedition achieved nothing and another was prepared for the spring of 1202. But Earl Harald, under the safe conduct of Bishop Roger of St Andrews, came to Perth, submitted, and on payment of 2000 pounds of silver was allowed to retain Caithness. He was at peace until he died in 1206, when his sons David and John jointly inherited the earldom.

Relations with King John

When John became king of England in 1199 he already had a reputation for untrustworthiness. King William is said to have agreed with William de Longchamp, left to look after England when King Richard was crusading, to recognize Arthur of Brittany (Richard's nephew and William's great-nephew) as Richard's heir. Relations between William and John might therefore have got off to a bad start. At first, all was formally correct. King William soon asked for the northern counties. The two kings met in 1200 at Lincoln and on 21 November William did homage to John; the latter asked for the discussion about the northern counties to be deferred until Whitsun 1201. In May 1201, about to go to Normandy, he sought another postponement. He returned in December 1203; there was further contact in 1204 and, at last, meetings between the kings at York on 9-12 February 1206 and 26-28 May 1207. There is little record of the business. It is known that William's tenure in Tynedale was recognized, and in 1206 King John granted Arbroath Abbey trading privileges in England. A draft agreement (conventio) between the kings was discussed, but there are also signs of suspicion on the part of William, along with protestations from King John that he was acting in good faith. A proposal for a further meeting in October 1207 was not taken up. By now, it must be assumed, William's earlier requests had been rebuffed and relations were tense.

After the death of Bishop Philip of Durham in April 1208, King John took control of the vacant see. He was in the north of England in August 1208; orders were probably then given for the building of a castle at Tweedmouth. This was a direct threat to Scottish security and the trade of Berwick. King William was sufficiently angered to send men across the river to destroy the work. Perhaps as a result of his earlier rebuffs he may also have been negotiating at this time for a French marriage alliance. Whatever the reasons, there was a major crisis in 1209.

In April that year the king of Scots was ill at Traquair. He was well enough to meet John, not on friendly terms, at Bolton, near Alnwick, later in the month. There was another hostile conference at Norham on 23-26 April, when both sides had an army at their back and demands, including the surrender of castles, were made on the Scots. After a council at Stirling in May 1209 the Scottish reply produced a threatening rejoinder. Ambassadors shuttled; again, both sides collected their armies. In the last week of July and the first week of August there was another confrontation at Norham. For the Scots, the strain must have been intense. The king, now an old man, had been in poor health for some years, to judge by how often his doctors appear in his presence. His heir was ten years old and not yet ready to rule. The English army, which included forces sent by the Welsh princes and mercenaries from overseas, was large enough to produce a Scottish capitulation.

By the treaty of Norham of 7 August 1209 the Scots agreed to pay 15,000 marks for peace, and they surrendered hostages, including the king's two eldest legitimate daughters, Margaret and Isabella, with promises of marriage to sons of King John. The castle at Tweedmouth was to be dismantled, but a further £4000 was to be paid by the Scots as 'compensation' for its earlier destruction. About now, it seems, Alexander did homage to John, probably for lands in England. The king's daughters and the other Scots hostages were handed over at Carlisle on 16 August 1209 and the money due under the treaty was to be paid in stages on and after 30 November. A council called to meet at Perth towards the end of September (no doubt to discuss the payments) was washed out by a serious flood in the burgh. The king, Alexander, Earl David, and some magnates escaped in a small boat. The council was adjourned to Stirling. By 1211 most of the money due had been paid; the rest may have been pardoned on condition that the hostages remained in England-as they did. The quitclaim of Canterbury had not been explicitly cancelled and no Scottish castles had been surrendered, but King William was now as effectively under King John's lordship as he had ever been under Henry II's.

The Macwilliam rising and the end of the reign

In 1210 a likely consequence of King John's visit to Ireland was the expulsion of Guthred Macwilliam, now the head of his kin, who invaded Ross early in February 1211 at the invitation, it is said, of some of the local lords and with Irish help. King William could do little at first; he was seriously ill for some two months at Kintore between Christmas 1210 and 24 February 1211. But he recovered and sent an army into the field. The mottes at Dunskeath and Redcastle were refortified. The king was in Moray from about the end of June until the autumn of 1211. Hoping no doubt to repeat the success at 'Mam Garvia' in 1187, a picked force was organized to deal with Guthred. The rebels were scattered and many were killed, but Guthred escaped. By mid-October the king had moved to Forfar; Malcolm, earl of Fife, left in charge in Moray, could not prevent Guthred from capturing and firing one of the castles in Ross. The king was enraged but could not retaliate because the weather was too severe for a winter campaign.

The rising was clearly beyond William's immediate powers, and the Scots probably then sought help from King John. There were discussions at Durham in February 1212; King William was not there but Queen Ermengarde mediated actively. It was agreed that Alexander should be married to a daughter of King John and that he should be knighted; the latter ceremony took place at Clerkenwell on 4 March 1212. The king of England had again shown how much he wished to control Scotland. The kingdom of the Scots was still intact, but Alexander and his sisters were now intended to marry Plantagenets, and the girls and the other hostages from 1209 were still in England. Alexander returned from London, probably with mercenaries provided by John, and set out for Ross about midsummer 1212, his father intending to follow him. However, William spent three days at the end of June in the north of England with John, and in the event neither he nor Alexander was needed in the north of Scotland. Guthred had been betrayed and taken in chains to Moray and then to Kincardine, where it was made known that the king did not wish to see him; he was then beheaded. That was the last Macwilliam rising during the reign, though the family was not finally crushed until the late 1220s.

In January or February 1213 both kings were again near the border but did not meet. Efforts to persuade Alexander to meet John were resisted. King William was probably now permanently ill; for the rest of 1213 he remained in the lowlands, and was still able to conduct some business, including, in December, an important judgment of the succession to the earldom of Menteith. The early months of 1214 were spent similarly. Then, in the spring or early summer, David, joint earl of Caithness, died. The king, no doubt mindful that the new earl, John, had Macheth blood, made one last effort and travelled to Moray; he was at Elgin on 17 August. He agreed a peace with the earl and received his (unnamed) daughter as a hostage. He then returned by easy stages to Stirling, where, having commended Alexander to his bishops and magnates as his heir, and settled his other affairs, he died on 4 December 1214. He was probably seventy-two years old and had reigned for almost exactly forty-nine years. Alexander was inaugurated as king of Scots on 6 December and his father was buried at Arbroath on the 10th.

The government of Scotland

In the fourteenth century John Fordun called King William 'the lion of justice'. William 'the harsh', said an Irish annalist nearer to the reign, and the regular execution of rebels and the treatment of the king's opponents in the St Andrews election dispute bear that out. The king was very conscious of his royal majesty and dignity and when they were slighted his anger was probably as awe-inspiring as that of Henry II. It is surely no accident that most of the major revolts of his reign broke out when he was abroad or ill. William 'the active' would be as apt a nickname. He never relaxed his grip of business except when seriously ill; he enjoyed tournaments and hunting, and even late in life was ready to go into the field with his troops. His six known illegitimate children (a daughter, Aufrica, and a son, Henry Galithly, as well as the four already named) might make William 'the saint' seem far fetched, yet an Icelandic annalist called him 'the holy', and at York in 1206 he is said to have cured a sick child by touch. Stories of his devotion and saintly qualities circulated very soon after his death.

But it is 'the lion' which has endured, and with good reason. From early in the reign, when he defined and probably curtailed the judicial powers originally granted by David I to the Brus lords of Annandale, to nearly the end of his life, he can be found in his court, presiding, listening, and deciding. Judgments are recorded in royal acta. From time to time he promulgated 'assizes', that is, statements of the law. Some dealt with special problems, like the tracking of thieves in Galloway or improving the efficacy of local and baronial courts. Others, dealing with theft, or with the harbouring of criminals, appear to have been drawn up with knowledge of such English measures as the assize of Clarendon of 1166 and the 1195 proclamation for keeping the peace. The king's justiciars, all lay aristocrats, appeared in unbroken succession. The Celtic 'judex' still had a place in court and as a witness to decisions, yet the way was also open, especially by the use of papal judges-delegate in ecclesiastical cases from the mid-1170s, for the influences of canon law to come to Scotland, and soon after 1200 advice was being sought from Pope Innocent III on doubtful points.

Other institutions of the king's government were also growing. His chapel (writing office) increasingly had its own specialized staff, producing documents of consistent quality; through it the king's rule had become literate, precise, and controlled, and in ways no different from other north European realms. New burghs were founded. Some-Nairn, Dumfries, and Ayr-began life as frontier posts; Clackmannan and Forfar appeared within royal estates; Dundee was a trading settlement. With a burgh there usually came a sheriff, and by 1214 they, too, were more widespread than in 1165, having appeared in Moray, Nairn and Inverness (and probably Aberdeen), and to the south-west in Ayr (and probably Dumfries). The sheriffs looked after the king's interests but were also expected to help the church, for instance by enforcing payment of teinds (tithe). There are the first traces of sheriff courts.

The king's revenues, paid largely in kind but increasingly in money, were collected locally. There was a 'camera' (financial centre), with its own staff and records, probably based soon after 1175 at Stirling. An annual audit, no doubt with sessions of an exchequer, can be detected in the 1180s. The king could take tolls on merchandise and had powers to tax. An assembly at Musselburgh in, probably, 1190 agreed on the sums to be raised to pay for the quitclaim of Canterbury, and by the end of the reign it was probably usual for councils of magnates to be called to give advice on and agree to such 'aids'.

Holding land by knight-service had become a normal tenure and by 1214 it can be seen to have spread north of the Tay and into Moray. But the Celtic 'common army' obligations for the rest of the population continued and local levies probably made up most of the forces which the king called out for both internal and external campaigns; known use of mercenaries is rare.

The king's justiciars, sheriffs, and chamberlains were usually laymen (though Archibald, abbot of Dunfermline, had some financial duties in the early 1190s) and almost all were members of the new immigrant aristocracy which had come into being in the reigns of David I and Malcolm IV alongside the survivors of the Celtic earls. Early members of this group (Moreville, Brus, Lindsay, Stewart) were joined by other baronial families (Hay, Barclay, Seton, Comyn). Major magnates such as the earls of Fife and Dunbar, the Stewards (later Stewarts), and the Bruses, had their own followings of knightly families, usually descendants of men who had made their way to Scotland before 1165 and who were now entrenching themselves, for example by intermarriage, by taking names from their lands (Polloc, Moray, Hume), and by using places in the church for sons or younger brothers. They had come to stay.

The gradual crystallization of the 'ecclesia Scoticana' and its formally recognized direct relationship with the pope is another sign of a kingdom being extended and consolidated. Scottish clerics had attended the church councils at Tours in 1163 and at the Lateran (Rome) in 1179, and there had been many direct contacts with Alexander III and his successors. Such activity, and the issue of Cum universi, showed that the church in Scotland was a national body, established on normal contemporary European lines. Vacant bishoprics were usually filled quickly; a hierarchy of lesser dignitaries is apparent within each diocese; more university graduates were promoted as the reign progressed. The extent of the king's control over 'his' church would not have aroused comment in, say, Capetian France. But the practice of appointing many former royal servants as bishops, however much it may have helped to consolidate the institution, and to produce a more widely spread network of loyal supporters, probably did little for spiritual standards; no twelfth-century Scottish cleric was canonized and only one, the Cistercian Waldef of Melrose, was venerated.

After 1190 lowland Scotland was usually peaceful. The revolts against the king must have caused considerable destruction, especially in Moray and further north and west, but elsewhere there was a thriving economy. The population was probably growing; some burghs, Perth and Dundee in particular, were expanding quickly. Agriculture, especially sheep and cattle rearing, was also expanding and by c.1200 at the latest Scotland was exporting basic products such as wool and hides in quantity to Flanders and trading by sea with England. By the middle of the reign there was greater use of money in town and country in most of lowland Scotland. At different times mints were at work at Roxburgh, Berwick, Edinburgh, and Perth, and the major recoinage in 1195, which made Scottish pennies equal in value to English sterlings, guaranteed their wider acceptance in European trade. Wealth from wool sales probably went into major new building at the monastic houses founded before 1165, and there was much church building, exemplified by new cathedrals (St Andrews and Glasgow), burgh churches (Aberdeen, Dundee, and Crail), and parish kirks (Symington in Ayrshire, Leuchars, and Duddingston).

King William's achievement

When King William died, Alexander II's immediate prospects were not promising: his father had not recovered the northern counties of England; his sisters were not yet married, and they and other Scottish hostages were still in English hands; King John's lordship was still effective; the Macheths and Macwilliams were still active. By 1221 many of these problems had disappeared. But even in 1214 the reality was that after all the defeats, disappointments, and rebellions of the reign, no castles and territory inherited from Malcolm IV had been lost, royal rule was more firmly established over more of the land, and the line of David I was still on the throne. A French speaker, surrounded by a French-speaking court (William is not known to have been conversant with Gaelic or English), the king 'of Scots', as he consistently styled himself, nevertheless embodied his people and his realm. Scotland, in the language of most of its people, in its king-making ritual, in its territorial divisions, in its ways of raising armies, and in some legal matters, still strongly showed its Celtic roots. It was not quite like any of the other kingdoms of northern Europe, and yet in its royal house, in the major institutions of government, in its church, and in its main economic and trading links, it was undeniably one of them. King William's tenacity and obstinacy had successfully continued the task begun by his grandfather David I of forging a new kingdom of the Scots, and, through the dynastic, ecclesiastical, and economic links created or strengthened during his reign, of bringing it more fully into the main streams of European life.

W. W. Scott 

Sources  A. O. Anderson, ed., Scottish annals from English chroniclers, AD 500 to 1286 (1908) + A. O. Anderson, ed. and trans., Early sources of Scottish history, AD 500 to 1286, 2 (1922) + A. C. Lawrie, ed., Annals of the reigns of Malcolm and William, kings of Scotland (1910) + G. W. S. Barrow, ed., Regesta regum Scottorum, 1-2 (1960-71) + W. Bower, Scotichronicon, ed. D. E. R. Watt and others, new edn, 9 vols. (1987-98), vol. 4 + R. Somerville, ed., Scotia pontificia: papal letters to Scotland before the pontificate of Innocent III (1982) + A. A. M. Duncan, Scotland: the making of the kingdom (1975), vol. 1 of The Edinburgh history of Scotland, ed. G. Donaldson  (1965-75) + G. W. S. Barrow, The kingdom of the Scots (1973) + G. W. S. Barrow, Scotland and its neighbours in the middle ages (1992) + G. W. S. Barrow, Kingship and unity (1981) + G. W. S. Barrow, The Anglo-Norman era in Scottish history (1980) + E. L. G. Stones, ed., Anglo-Scottish relations, 1174-1328 (1965) + G. S. Gimson, 'Lion hunt: a royal tomb-effigy at Arbroath Abbey', Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 125 (1995), 901-16 + A. A. M. Duncan, 'John king of England and the kings of Scots', King John: new interpretations, ed. S. D. Church (1999), 247-71 + D. D. R. Owen, William the Lion, 1143-1214: kingship and culture (1997)
Likenesses  seal, U. Durham L., Durham Cathedral muniments, Misc. ch. 609 [see illus.]



ooroo

Bad typists of the word, untie.