Chapter XII: William the Lion--1165–1214

Amongst the earliest acts of William after his accession was the performance of feudal service for the fief of Huntingdon, accompanying Henry for this purpose upon one of his numerous expeditions into the French territories. [Sidenote: A. D. 1166.] By his ready acquiescence on a point about which his brother had at first demurred, he may have hoped to influence the English king in favour of his claim upon the northern counties; but if he entertained such expectations he was doomed to disappointment, as Henry limited his grant to the Honor of Huntingdon.[396]

William, however, was not of a disposition to submit with patience to the denial of his rights--for thus would he have characterised his claims; and he was ready to enter warmly into any confederacy promising to extort from the fears of Henry the cession of the coveted fiefs. Two campaigns against the Welsh, conducted with more than equivocal success; the continued hostility of Louis of France; and a doubtful contest with the newly made Archbishop of Canterbury, whose former reputation as a man-at-arms was destined to be eclipsed by his subsequent renown as a martyr,[397] heightened the difficulties of Henry’s situation: and his exasperation was increased against the king of Scotland, whose envoys at the French court, uniting with the representatives of the Welsh princes, were eager to enter into a league with the enemies of the English king.[398] [Sidenote: A. D. 1168.] But the hostility of William was not yet to be openly displayed, for a peace was concluded between the French and English kings, and the opportunity of attacking the latter at a disadvantage passed away. [Sidenote: A. D. 1170.] It was with an appearance, therefore, of renewed cordiality, that William and his brother David appeared at the court of Henry, to assist at the coronation of his eldest son at Westminster; when both the Scottish princes, taking the oaths of fealty and allegiance to the younger Henry, swore upon the sacred relics to be true to the heir of England, saving, as usual, their fidelity to his father.[399] But in spite of these professions of mutual friendship, the alliance in reality was hollow and insincere, the refusal of the northern counties still rankled in the breast of William, and an opportunity for enforcing his claim was not long wanting.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1173.]

Never did the fortunes of the second Henry appear more prosperous than at the very moment when the flight of his eldest son to the court of France, suddenly revealed the extent of the intrigues which were based upon the disaffection of his own children. Whilst the elder king was occupied in strengthening his defences upon the frontiers of France and in securing the important services of twenty thousand Reiters of Brabant, the younger Henry was busily corrupting the unfaithful adherents of his father, and lavishing grants upon the allies whose assistance he wished to purchase. The promise of Northumberland to William, and the offer of the fief of Cambridge to his brother, the Earl of Huntingdon, secured the active co-operation of both the Scottish princes;[400] and towards the close of summer, whilst the attention of the elder Henry was fully occupied in Normandy, the frontiers of England were suddenly invaded from the north.

Siege was laid to Werk and Carlisle, whilst the main body of irregulars, according to the usual tactics of Scottish armies, was dispatched to lay waste the surrounding country. The Bishop of Durham appears to have secretly favoured the confederates, and the Scots were allowed a free passage through the lands of his diocese;[401] but their further progress was checked, before long, by tidings of the approach of a powerful force under the orders of Richard de Lucy, and Humphrey de Bohun, the Justiciary and Constable of England. Raising the siege of Carlisle, William retired across the borders, closely followed by de Lucy and de Bohun, who were beginning to retaliate upon the Lothians the ravages of the Scottish army in England, when the arrival of messengers from the south, brought the unwelcome intelligence of the landing of the Earl of Leicester on Michaelmas Day. Negotiations were hastily opened with the Scottish king, and so well did the English commanders succeed in concealing the real state of affairs, that they obtained a truce until the following January, and were thus enabled to lead back their army to oppose the Earl of Leicester, and to bend all their energies towards confronting the novel danger.[402]

During the whole of the ensuing winter the war was carried on in England without intermission, whilst, with the singular policy of the age, a truce existed in all other quarters; thus enabling the partizans of Henry, in his own kingdom, to unite their forces for the purpose of crushing the Earl of Leicester.[403] [Sidenote: A. D. 1174.] At the expiration of the truce in January, the payment of 300 marks, offered by the barons of Northumberland through the medium of the bishop of Durham, purchased from William a further cessation of hostilities until Easter; and when the term of this second truce had also expired, the armies of the allies[404] at length appeared in the field. Whilst Louis prosecuted the war in Normandy, and the Count of Flanders, with the younger Henry, meditated a descent upon England, William again crossed the Borders with an army, strengthened by a body of mercenaries from the Low Countries;[405] his brother David proceeding at once to the south, as the earl had been chosen to command the English confederates, now left without a head through the capture of the Earl of Leicester.[406]

Leaving a division of his army to blockade Carlisle, William led the main body into Northumberland. Brough and Appleby were captured without resistance, and the castles of Liddel, Warkworth, and Harbottle, fell, in succession, into the hands of the Scots, who then retraced their steps to Carlisle. A close blockade extorted a promise of surrender from the castellan, Robert de Vaux, if no relief arrived before Michaelmas; for his provisions were beginning to fail, and he suspected the townsmen--attached, probably, to the memory of David, who had often made Carlisle his residence--of a favourable inclination towards the Scots. William then marched to invest Prudhoe Castle, upon the southern bank of the Tyne, where he was joined by Robert de Mowbray, the youngest of the victors of Northallerton, who, sorely pressed by the warlike bishop of Lincoln, eagerly advocated the advance of the Scots into Yorkshire, before the fall of his last castle of Thirsk, placing his eldest son in the hands of William as a hostage for the sincerity of his request. William promised to march to his assistance, but, warned of the approach of the Yorkshire barons, he relinquished his intention of relieving Thirsk, and, raising the siege of Prudhoe Castle, commenced his retreat towards the north.[407]

As he approached his own frontiers, the king dispatched the greater part of his army, under the command of Duncan, Earl of Fife, with instructions to disperse his forces over the face of the country, and carry out the usual tactics of Scottish warfare. In order to extend the circuit of his operations, Earl Duncan subdivided the forces committed to his charge, entrusting two separate divisions to Richard de Moreville and the Earl of Angus; whilst with the main body under his immediate command he entered Warkworth upon the morning of Saturday, the 13th of July; and the inhabitants of that place, no longer protected by the garrison of the castle, fell an easy prey to his followers. The town was burnt to the ground, and more than a hundred miserable beings, who, in the vain hope of safety, had fled to the Church of St. Lawrence, were torn from its sacred precincts and massacred with remorseless cruelty. Little did Earl Duncan imagine, as he contemplated the ruins of the burning church, that within a few short miles the fate of Scotland was trembling in the balance.[408]

Upon reaching Newcastle, late on the evening of the 12th of July, the Yorkshire Barons, so often destined to render good service to England, found that the Scottish army had retreated; when a difference of opinion arose as to the expediency of a further pursuit. Several of their number urged that they had already done enough in frustrating the intentions of the enemy against their own neighbourhood, and that it would be merely courting unnecessary danger to pursue eight thousand armed men with only four hundred horsemen. But there were others amongst their ranks who argued that much might be done by a compact and well-equipped body of knights, whilst the Scottish army was dispersed over the country, and whilst William was still in ignorance of their approach; and by the arguments and the authority of those who were in favour of an advance, the hesitation of the dissentients was at length overcome, and the bolder counsels prevailed.[409]

At earliest dawn upon the 13th, the Barons set out from Newcastle. A dense fog overhung the country, appearing to increase as they advanced northwards; and it was still early, though they had ridden fast and far, when several of the party began to suggest the expediency of a return, urging, that in their utter ignorance of their own locality, as well as of the position of the enemy, they might be blindly rushing upon unknown perils.[410] But Balliol, with a resolute determination that has often extricated brave men out of difficulties, refused to listen to such suggestions, avowing his own intention of proceeding at all risks, and the waverers were ashamed to turn back. Onwards they pressed, whilst close upon their right lay Warkworth, swarming with the Scottish foe; but enshrouded in the obscurity of the friendly mist they passed the river Coquet in safety, and continued their adventurous progress. The fog rolled away as the morning advanced, displaying to the delighted eyes of the little band the friendly walls of Alnwick, and they were hastening with alacrity towards its welcome shelter, when they perceived a small body of about sixty knights, who were engaged in tilting in a neighbouring meadow. The tilting party was composed of William and his attendant suite, who paid little or no attention to the approach of a band of horsemen, mistaking them for a party of Earl Duncan’s mounted force returning to the Scottish camp, until a nearer view of the advancing barons revealed the English cognizances. One moment of reflection would have warned the king not to imperil the whole fortune of the war upon such an unequal contest; but no such thoughts crossed the mind of William, and, with the hasty exclamation, “Now will it be seen who is a true knight,” he dashed at once against the enemy with all the reckless gallantry of a knight-errant. The result can be easily imagined. His horse was immediately slain--for this was no tilting match, and his opponents aimed at securing their prize--and before he could disengage himself from the dying charger, William was a helpless captive. His nobles determined to share his fate; many of his suite, who had not been present at the catastrophe, riding in and surrendering to the English barons to avoid the imputation of deserting their sovereign; and, before the close of the same fatal Saturday, the Barons of Yorkshire again entered Newcastle with their illustrious captive in their charge.[411]

On the following morning the royal prisoner was removed, for greater security, to Richmond castle; and the important intelligence of his capture was forwarded in haste to London, where Henry had by this time arrived. Alarmed at the assemblage of the hostile fleet, and anxious to be upon the spot to oppose the threatened invasion, he had crossed from Barfleur in a gale of wind, undeterred by the elements which held his enemies wind-bound at Gravelines, reaching Southampton in safety on the evening of the 8th of July. All that night, and the following day, he is said to have hurried on, without rest or refreshment beyond bread and water, to the tomb of the murdered Becket, at whose shrine either policy, or repentance, dictated the performance of a penance, that, to the ideas of the present age, appears degrading. After he reached London, fatigue and excitement threw him into a fever, from which he was only partially recovered, when the messenger of Ranulph de Glanville, standing by the side of his bed on the morning of Thursday the 18th, aroused him from sleep, before daylight, with the welcome intelligence of William’s capture. All remembrance of his illness vanishing at the joyful tidings, before the close of the same day Henry departed for the north; and ere a fortnight had elapsed from the date of his misfortune, the royal captive was removed from Richmond castle, his legs were fettered under the body of a horse, and in this degrading position he was presented to Henry at Northampton.[412]

The effects of the calamity which had befallen the king of Scotland were at once instantaneous and decisive. His own army, stunned for the moment, only recovered to break out, as usual, into mutual dissension and strife. Gilbert and Uchtred, the lords of Galloway, hurrying homewards, destroyed the castles which had been built in their province to secure the authority of the king, drove out the royal officers, and then dispatched gifts and envoys to the English king with the offer of their fealty and submission. The Scots availed themselves of the anarchy of the moment to vent their long suppressed animosity against the townsmen and burghers, mostly of English origin, with whom David and his successors had filled the royal burghs and cities of their kingdom. The Earl of Huntingdon, relinquishing his high command, returned in haste to Scotland. Ferrers and De Mowbray threw themselves on Henry’s mercy; Gloucester and De Clare, the waverers of the western counties, met him with assurances of their fidelity; Hugh Bigot dismissed his Flemish auxiliaries; and the Bishop of Durham surrendered his castles, protesting that the presence of his nephew, the Count de Bar, was merely for his own protection: whilst the formidable fleet, which had threatened the invasion of the English coasts, melted away at the news of the disaster; and the Count of Flanders, with the younger Henry, drew off their forces from Gravelines to join Louis of France at the siege of Rouen. Within three weeks from the date of the catastrophe the power of Henry was re-established throughout England; and, as he had nothing more to fear in his own kingdom, he prepared to face his opponents in France, [Sidenote: 8th Aug.] and sailed with his Scottish prisoners for Normandy. Such were the first consequences of William’s fatal error, in mistaking the rash folly of “a true knight” for the gallant bearing of a king.[413]

In another month the war was brought to a triumphant conclusion by the elder Henry, who, at the personal request of Louis of France, set all his prisoners at liberty, with the exception of the king of Scotland, detaining William in fetters at Falaise until the month of December, before the terms of his release were finally arranged.[414] They may be briefly described as follows:--

William was to become the liegeman of his lord, the King Henry, for Scotland, Galloway, and all his other lands, and to perform fealty to his liege lord in the same way as other vassals. His brother, his barons, his clergy, and all his other vassals, were to become the liegemen of the English crown, acknowledging that they held their lands of the English king, and swearing to support him, their liege lord, against the king of Scotland, if the latter ever failed in his fidelity.

The Scottish Church was to acknowledge the subjection due to the English Church; and the English Church was to possess all those rights over the Scottish Church to which the former was justly entitled.

For the strict observance of this convention, the castles of Berwick, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling, were to be made over to Henry, and to receive English garrisons, all expenses being defrayed by the Scottish king; David, and twenty-one of the earls and barons of Scotland, were to remain as hostages until the delivery of the castles; while each of these noblemen was further required to give up his son, or his next heir, as a pledge for the due performance of his part of the treaty after his own release. Three days after the conclusion of the convention of Falaise, William was allowed to leave his Norman prison, and proceed, in the first instance, to England; where he was to remain, in a state of comparative freedom, until the castles already mentioned were delivered over to the officers of the English king.[415]

The conduct of Henry upon this occasion has been characterised by his advocates as generous and lenient; whilst it has been stigmatised by his opponents as harsh and illiberal. Neither view appears to be correct. When William, conceiving himself to have been aggrieved, united in a confederacy which, if successful, would have probably confined Henry within the walls of a monastery for the remainder of his life, the Scottish king was fully prepared to profit to the utmost at the expense of his enemy’s weakness; and Henry did no more with the captive of Falaise than William would have done had their positions been reversed. But to maintain, as it has been sometimes asserted, that he might have put his prisoner to death, is to argue with a total disregard of the principles and sentiments of an age in which the death of an independent prince, like William, would have been even more revolting to the feelings of his contemporaries, than the public scourging of Henry in Canterbury Cathedral would be unsuitable to the ideas of the present time. In depriving his captive of his English fiefs, which were justly forfeited, and in extorting liege homage for Scotland, Henry displayed neither mercy nor leniency, simply availing himself, to the utmost, of an opportunity for advancing his own interests at the expense of his unfortunate rival; and his conduct was that of an able and unsparing politician, exacting his own terms from a fallen foe. As such, it must be judged; and, as such, it is far less open to censure, than his repudiation in prosperity of the promises which he made in his adversity to his earliest and most faithful ally.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1175.]

In the course of the summer after the release of William, both the English kings, who now affected the closest intimacy and regard, repaired in company to York: and here, upon the 10th of August, they were met by the king of Scotland, bringing with him Earl David, no longer lord of Huntingdon, with the bishops, abbots, earls, barons, knights, and other freeholders of Scotland, who united with their king in swearing fealty to the two Henries, and in ratifying the convention of Falaise. All became the liegemen of the English kings in the Cathedral church of St. Peter--a fabric of an earlier date than the present noble minster--and yet further to secure the exact fulfilment of the treaty, the clergy swore to lay their native land under an interdict, and the laity pledged themselves to hold, as true men, to their English suzerains, if ever William of Scotland proved unfaithful to his oath.[416]

For fifteen years the convention of Falaise remained in full force, and every action of Henry, down to the day of his death, exhibits the tenacity with which he clung to its scrupulous fulfilment. Not a papal legate was allowed to enter Scotland who had not first sworn to do nothing detrimental to the interests of the English king, with an additional promise to return through England--a proviso that precluded the possibility of evasion--whilst a similar pledge was exacted from all the Scottish clergy who attended the eleventh Council at the Lateran. William was continually summoned to attend, as a vassal, at the Court of his English lord; and he brought his earls and barons, when required, to assist at the councils of their common superior. He crossed the sea to Normandy, at the command of Henry, to submit to that king’s decision in his dispute about the bishopric of St. Andrews; license was granted for his expeditions into Galloway; and he conducted the lords of that province to perform fealty to Henry, or to promise to abide by the decrees of the English court. In short, a comparison between the usual state of Scotland, and her condition during these fifteen years of real feudal subjection, affords one of the clearest and most convincing proofs of her entire freedom from all dependance upon her southern neighbour, at every other period of her history, before the reign of the first Edward.

The oaths of fealty and allegiance tendered in the church of St. Peter riveted upon Scotland the yoke of feudal dependance; but her Church was destined to vindicate with success her ecclesiastical liberties, and to evade the claims of the English metropolitans, which a special clause in the convention of Falaise had, to all appearance, triumphantly established. The contest which embittered the whole of the reign of Alexander, seems to have slumbered in the days of David, to break out afresh in the time of his eldest grandson, Malcolm, when the papal chair was occupied by Nicolas Breakespear, under the title of Adrian IV., the only Englishman who ever rose to be the head of the Church of Rome.[417] His partiality to the land of his nativity was frequently manifested, and availing himself of the papal claim to dominion over all the islands, founded upon the imaginary Donation of Constantine, he willingly lent himself to the ambitious policy of Henry, authorising that king to conquer, and exact obedience from, the people of Ireland for the advancement of the interests of the Roman Church.[418] It is also probable that Adrian was inclined to favour the pretensions of the English metropolitans to the obedience of the Scottish bishops; for, immediately upon his death, a mission was dispatched to the next pope, [Sidenote: A. D. 1159.] and the successive appointments of the bishops of Moray and St. Andrews to the office of papal legate for Scotland guaranteed, for the time, the independence of the Scottish Church.[419]

Upon the death of the bishop of St. Andrews, Roger, archbishop of York--the same prelate who was the rival and opponent of Becket--obtained the office of legate for England, [Sidenote: A. D. 1163.]and repaired to Norham towards the close of Malcolm’s reign, to summon the Scottish bishops to submit to his pretensions. Ingelram the archdeacon, and Solomon the dean of Glasgow, with Walter, prior of Kelso, were deputed to maintain the liberties of their Church; both parties appealed to Rome, and the Scots achieved a notable triumph when Ingelram was consecrated to the bishopric of Glasgow in spite of the opposition of the archbishop.[420]

The dispute again languished until the concessions recently extorted from William appeared to deal a death-blow to all the liberties of Scotland. [Sidenote: A. D. 1176.] A great council was held at Northampton in the January after the meeting at York, at which, in obedience to a summons from his suzerain, William was in attendance with the bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries of his kingdom, as liege subjects of the English king; and at the conclusion of the council the Scottish clergy were commanded, upon their allegiance, and in virtue of the oath which they had already sworn, to acknowledge their dependance upon the English Church. They denied that any such submission was due; and in reply to the assertion of the archbishop of York that the bishops of Glasgow and Galloway were rightfully his suffragans, Jocelyn of Glasgow, the spokesman of the Scottish party, affirmed that his see was “the daughter of Rome,” and consequently independent of all other authority.[421]

But the cause of the Scottish bishops was best served by the disputes of the English metropolitans, as the archbishop of Canterbury opposed the pretensions of his own see to the rival claims of York; and Henry, foreseeing that he would be called upon to decide between the archbishops, and dreading the very idea of another collision with a churchman, hastily dismissed the Scottish clergy without exacting from them any admission of canonical dependance upon either see.[422] Upon their return to Scotland a deputation immediately set out for Rome,[423] and in the course of the same year an injunction was obtained from the pope forbidding the archbishop of York to press his claims except before the Roman Court:[424] and twelve years later the dispute was finally set at rest by the declaration of Pope Clement III., that the Church of Scotland was in immediate dependance upon the see of Rome.[425]

But the difficulties of William were not confined to ecclesiastical disputes, for the confusion amongst the Scottish army, after his capture at Alnwick, was only precursory of the anarchy, and disorganization, prevailing in the remoter provinces of his dominions for several years afterwards. Conspicuous amongst the disturbed districts was Galloway, for the alliance between the brothers, who were lords of the province, lasted only as long as it was their mutual interest to unite for the overthrow of the Scottish supremacy. The king’s officers, or _Maors_, [Sidenote: A. D. 1174.] who appear to have been paralyzed at the suddenness of the attack, were either massacred or driven out of the country almost without resistance; and fourteen years after the conquest of the principality, the royal authority was eradicated from Galloway, in fewer weeks than it had taken years to establish.

It then occurred to the elder brother Gilbert that his father had suffered no rival to share his dominions; and, after ascertaining the sentiments of his immediate adherents, he determined upon entrusting a body of men to his son, Malcolm, with instructions to remove all impediments from his path to undivided power. The son was worthy of the father, and surprising the unsuspecting Uchtred in his island home, he tore out his eyes and tongue, and then, with still more atrocious barbarity, left him in this state to perish slowly and in agony. So speedily had this tragedy been enacted, that when Henry dispatched his chaplain, Roger Hoveden, from Normandy, with directions to put himself in communication with Robert de Vaux at Carlisle, and to negotiate with the lords of Galloway about the transfer of their allegiance to the English crown, the envoys, upon their arrival in Galloway, found Gilbert sole ruler of the province. He entered with eagerness upon the subject of their mission, guaranteeing a yearly tribute of two thousand marks of silver, and a thousand head of cattle and hogs, if Henry would release him from his dependance upon the king of Scotland; but as the envoys possessed no power to conclude an arrangement without submitting the terms to Henry, they could only promise to lay the proposal before their king, and, with this reply, they took their leave. [Sidenote: 23d Nov.] As it was late in November before they reached Galloway, by the time they returned to Normandy the convention of Falaise must have been decided upon, if it had not been already completed; and as the clause accepting the homage of William for Galloway precluded Henry from entering into a separate agreement with Gilbert, he availed himself of the crime of the latter as an excuse for breaking off the negotiations, and for refusing to treat upon any terms with the murderer of “his cousin Uchtred.”[426]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1175.]

Immediately after the conclusion of the ceremony at York, Henry granted license to William to march an army into Galloway, empowering him to seek out and seize the murderer, and bring him before the court of his liege lord for punishment.[427] Gilbert submitted without resistance; and, in the autumn of the following year, William again presented himself at the court of Henry, [Sidenote: A. D. 1176.] with the lord of Galloway in his suite; but a fine seems to have been considered as a sufficient atonement for fratricide, and, upon the 9th of October, Gilbert swore fealty to the English king, giving up his eldest son Duncan as a hostage for his allegiance, and purchasing the royal favour at the price of a thousand marks of silver. No sooner had he returned to his principality than, driving out of the province all who were not of native origin, he denounced the penalty of death against every true-born Galwegian who dared to acknowledge that he held his lands of the king of Scots. His hatred against William was intense, and as no fear ever seems to have crossed his mind that he might forfeit the newly acquired favour of Henry by hostilities against his subject and ally, until the day of his death the Galwegian prince never omitted an opportunity of harassing and plundering the neighbouring provinces of Scotland; nor did his estimate of Henry’s character prove to be incorrect.[428]

Few kings who lived in that age were fortunate enough to escape a collision with the Church of Rome, nor was William destined to be amongst the number. His quarrel with Pope Alexander III. arose out of a dispute connected with the bishopric of St. Andrews. Upon the death of Bishop Richard in 1178 the chapter elected John Scot to the vacant see; but the king, who had destined the bishopric for his own confessor Hugh, and was not accustomed to be dictated to in matters of church patronage, ordered his nominee to be installed and consecrated by the Scottish bishops, [Sidenote: A. D. 1180.] whilst the pope, espousing the opposite side, commissioned his legate, the sub-deacon Alexis, to consecrate John. Yielding to the advice of his clergy, William offered no opposition to this proceeding, but he swore by the arm of St. James--his favourite oath--that the same kingdom should not hold himself and John Scot, and after the conclusion of the ceremony he effectually frustrated the intentions of the pope by banishing John, with his uncle Matthew, bishop of Aberdeen, and all his relations, from the country. Alexander, highly exasperated, retaliated by threatening to extinguish the liberties of the Scottish Church which he had hitherto protected, and he engaged the king of England to interfere in his behalf, conferring the office of legate for Scotland upon the archbishop of York, and authorizing that prelate to excommunicate William, and to lay his dominions under an interdict if he still persisted in his determination. [Sidenote: A. D. 1181.] It was in vain that Henry summoned William to Normandy, where the banished prelates had taken refuge, and endeavoured to effect an arrangement. The king steadily refused to permit John Scot to enjoy the bishopric of St. Andrews, offering to appoint him to the chancellorship, with a promise of the first see that fell vacant in his dominions; and as the pope determined with equal firmness that none but John Scot should preside over the contested diocese, refusing to listen to any sort of compromise, every one who acknowledged Hugh was excommunicated by the papal legate, whilst all who denied his claim were banished by the king.

Such was the state of Scotland towards the close of the year 1181, when, to the unfeigned delight of William, he was unexpectedly released from his difficulties by the deaths of the aged pope and of Roger, archbishop of York, the inveterate opponent of the liberties of the Scottish Church. The bishop of Glasgow and the abbot of Melrose were commissioned to set out immediately for Rome, for the purpose of negotiating an arrangement with the new pope; and Lucius III., [Sidenote: A. D. 1182.] reversing the policy of his predecessor, absolved William from the excommunication, released his kingdom from the interdict, and forwarded to him the Golden Rose in token of amity.[429] It was subsequently agreed that both bishops, resigning their sees, should be reinstated by the pope, Hugh retaining the bishopric of St. Andrews, and John Scot receiving Dunkeld; and though six years elapsed before the dispute was brought to a final close, after the death of Alexander no serious misunderstanding arose between the king of Scotland and the papal see.[430]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1181.]

During the absence of William in Normandy, whilst he was in attendance at the court of Henry upon the subject of his dispute with the papal see, some of the leading nobility of Scotland--probably of _Moravia_--taking advantage of the distracted state of the kingdom, made overtures to Donald Bane, a son of William Fitz Duncan, inviting him to assert his claim upon the throne of Scotland. This Donald, better known as Mac William, had already put forward his pretensions to the Scottish crown, but his attempts had been hitherto limited to predatory incursions, nor had he ever yet obtained a permanent footing in the country; but the old spirit of disaffection still lingered in the north and west, where the enemies of the king flocked to the standard of his hostile kinsman as readily as they had once gathered around the banner of the heir of Moray, and the insurrection soon rose to a formidable head.[431] Upon his return to England towards the close of July, William received intelligence of the invasion of Donald Bane, but it was not until the middle of September that he obtained the permission of Henry to absent himself with his attendant barons from the English court, and to take measures for the defence of his kingdom. He at once hurried with his brother David toward the provinces in possession of the enemy, but Mac William appears to have avoided an encounter, and the king was obliged to remain satisfied with strengthening his hold upon the marches and lowlands of Ross-shire, and confining his enemy to the remoter Highland districts, by the erection of the two castles of Eddirton and Dunscath.[432]

Although he was now released from the interdict, William found too much occupation, in attending to the internal dissensions of his own kingdom, to attempt any interference in the quarrels between Henry and his sons. Mac William in the north was still unsubdued, whilst Gilbert of Galloway openly invaded the Lothians, plundering the country, massacring the inhabitants, and refusing to listen to any terms of accommodation. [Sidenote: A. D. 1184.] Such was the state of disorder created by the Galwegians, that in the year 1184 William had assembled an army to repress the outrages of Gilbert, when the return of Henry from Normandy induced him to alter his intentions, and, dismissing his followers, he hastened southwards to meet the English king. Mingled motives may have dictated this change of purpose, though, as a vassal of the English crown, he was not strictly justified in avenging himself upon another vassal without the license of his superior; but at this time particularly, he was anxious to avoid every cause of quarrel with Henry, for the Duchess of Saxony had arrived in the train of her father from Normandy, and William was a suitor for the hand of her daughter Matilda. Simon de St. Liz also, upon whom the Honor of Huntingdon had been conferred, had lately died without an heir, and the Scottish king was equally on his guard lest any misunderstanding should interfere with his claims upon his former fief.[433]

Henry readily promised his consent to the proposed union if a papal dispensation could be obtained, but though the relationship was somewhat distant--for Matilda was eight degrees removed from William according to the old computation of the civil law, though only four by the later canonical method of reckoning--the pope refused compliance, and from subsequent occurrences it is not improbable that Henry was secretly opposed to the marriage. As a set off to the failure of his suit with Matilda, the forfeiture of Huntingdon was reversed, and though several of the English barons put forward pretensions to the fief, [Sidenote: A. D. 1185.] offering large sums of money for its possession, it was restored by Henry to the Scottish king, who immediately sub-infeoffed it to his brother David.[434]

The renewal of the grant of Huntingdon was decided upon at a council held at London in the middle of Lent 1185, at which the king of Scotland and his nobility were in attendance, to consult upon a letter which had been received from Pope Lucius respecting the relief of Jerusalem.[435] William had been recently released from one of his bitterest and most implacable foes, for Gilbert of Galloway had died in the preceding January. Duncan, the heir of the deceased lord, was still residing at the court of England in his original capacity of a hostage; but a competitor for the principality had already arisen in Roland, the eldest son of the murdered Uchtred, who had now passed ten years in exile at the Scottish court, where he had married Helena, the daughter and heiress of the Constable--the same Richard de Moreville who had been included in the excommunication of William for his staunch adherence to the cause of his royal master. Roland, therefore, was attached to the connection with Scotland both by interest and inclination; he was a Scot rather than a Galwegian, and in his attempt to recover the inheritance of his father he was assisted by a numerous band of auxiliaries from the kingdom in which he had so long resided.[436]

[Sidenote: 4th July.]

The summer found him in Galloway, entering upon a course of brilliant and unchequered success. Gillepatrick, Henry Kennedy, and Samuel, the partners of the late lord in his hostilities against Scotland, and the leaders of the faction now in arms to secure the succession of his son, were one after the other defeated and slain: a similar fate was in store for Gillecolum, who appears to have held the lands of Gilbert against either claimant, but of whom little else is known except his incessant ravages of the Lothians; and further resistance was soon crushed out by the vigorous measures of Roland, who inflicted summary vengeance on all who refused to acknowledge his authority. His residence in Scotland had converted him into a feudal baron, and he lost no time in securing the submission of the province by rebuilding, and garrisoning, the royal castles which had been destroyed by the sons of Fergus, on their return after the catastrophe at Alnwick.[437]

Intelligence of Roland’s proceedings must have reached Henry in the course of the same year, but he passed them over without notice until his return from Normandy, [Sidenote: A. D. 1186.] when, shortly after Christmas, William and his barons were again in attendance at the court of England. They were treated by Henry with the most marked and studied courtesy, for it was his object to prepare them for the marriage which he had projected between Ermengarde de Bellomont and William; and the anxiety of Henry to conclude a union which would confer no increase of political importance upon his royal vassal, strengthens the supposition that he had looked unfavourably upon the alliance with Matilda of Saxony. Such thoughts may have passed through the mind of William, for he delayed his final consent to Henry’s proposal until after a lengthened conference with his barons, who were possibly influenced in favour of the projected marriage by the prospect of regaining, as the dowry of their future queen, the important castle of Edinburgh.[438]

As the grand object of Henry was now attained, he was at liberty to turn his attention to the affairs of Galloway; and accordingly he directed William, on his return to Scotland, to summon the new lord of the province to repair to the English court, for the purpose of rendering an account of his conduct in entering upon the lands of Duncan, and other barons of Galloway, seizing upon their castles, and disposing of their possessions without any reference to his suzerain. Roland took no further notice of the summons than to strengthen the natural defences of the country by felling trees in the passes, and by endeavouring, in various other ways, to render the approaches to the province impassable for an invading force. But Henry was in earnest, and he concentrated the whole military force of England on Carlisle, where he was met by the Scottish contingent under William and his brother David, whom he deputed to bring Roland to his presence. They returned at first without success, for the lord of Galloway appears to have been reluctant to entrust himself within the power of Henry without some pledge for his safety; but after a second mission, in which the bishop of Durham and Ranulph de Glanville were associated with the former envoys, and empowered to give hostages for his security and safe conduct, Roland placed himself in the hands of the Scottish princes, and was presented by William to the English king. It was not the object of the latter to proceed to extremities, for as long as the lord of Galloway admitted his dependance upon the English crown, it was immaterial to Henry by whom the fief was held; and he was satisfied with accepting the allegiance which Roland tendered for his father’s lands, with his promise to abide by the decision of the English court respecting the claims of his cousin Duncan. The three sons of the Galwegian chieftain were then delivered over as hostages for the fidelity of their father; William, his brother, and his barons bound themselves on oath to enforce the adherence of Roland, if necessary, to his English allegiance; and as a further security against a breach of faith, the bishop of Glasgow promised, upon the relics of the saints, to fulminate against the prince, if he proved a traitor, all the pains and penalties incurred by a disobedient son of the Church.[439]

Such was the conclusion of the disturbances of Galloway, and from the date of this arrangement Roland remained in undisputed possession of the whole principality. It is impossible to say whether Duncan ever prosecuted his claim upon his paternal inheritance; but, immediately upon the death of Henry, William, who had all along been favourable to Roland, conferred the district of Carrick as an earldom upon Duncan, on condition that the new earl should resign all claims upon the lordship of his cousin.[440] In this arrangement Duncan willingly acquiesced, thus becoming the first possessor of the Earldom of Carrick, a fief which was destined once more to revert to the crown, when the illustrious great-grandson of the first earl ascended the throne of Scotland as Robert the First. Ere long William reaped the full benefit of having secured a firm and devoted adherent in Roland of Galloway.

[Sidenote: Sept.]

Upon his return from this expedition, Henry celebrated the marriage of William and Ermengarde with much pomp and ceremony, placing the palace of Woodstock at the disposal of the royal pair. After four days spent in feasting and revelry, the young queen departed for her husband’s kingdom, the earl of Huntingdon escorting her, with the rest of the Scottish nobility who had been present at the celebration of the marriage; whilst William, instead of attending upon his bride in her progress to the north, accompanied the English king to Marlborough.[441]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1187.]

Six years had now elapsed since the establishment of Mac William in the country, where his influence and power had increased to a formidable extent, and the affairs of the north began to assume an alarming aspect. The majority of the barons and thanes of Ross, and other portions of _Moravia_, had by this time ranged themselves beneath his banner;[442] whilst the connection of the lords of Argyle, and the Isles, with the family of Malcolm Mac Heth, must have disposed the leading nobles of the Western Highlands to display a very lukewarm adherence to the royal cause. With the greater part of the north and west either openly, or secretly, in his favour, Mac William could also calculate upon the support of many other leading men, who had been parties to his first establishment in the country; and the king perceived that a crisis had at length arrived, in which he must either immediately crush his competitor, or risk the loss of half his kingdom.[443]

Accordingly, in the summer of 1187, all the military force of Scotland which had not openly declared for Mac William, was ordered to concentrate upon Inverness; and William contemplated placing himself at the head of his army, following his rival into the remoter Highlands, and forcing him to a decisive contest, about the result of which he entertained little doubt. Many of his barons, however, who were alive to the dangers of the impending campaign in a wild and mountainous region, vehemently opposed the royal project, dreading the repetition of some disastrous accident from the fiery and impetuous courage of the king. They were uneasy, also, about the fidelity of a certain portion of the royal army, who were quite as well inclined to favour Mac William as to support the cause of the king; and, acquiescing at length in the prudence of their advice, William consented to remain at Inverness, and to entrust the immediate conduct of the war to leaders upon whose ability and fidelity he could depend.

A fresh difficulty arose, after the king’s decision, from the positive refusal of some of his principal nobles to march without the king against Mac William. At a moment of such vital importance to the royal cause, when the exertions of the well-affected were paralysed by this unexpected sedition, the eyes of all the army were turned upon the Lord of Galloway; and it was well for William that, in this crisis, he could count upon the fidelity of that powerful baron.[444] No hesitation marked the conduct of Roland, who at once threw the whole weight of his influence and authority upon the side of his royal master; and when, in consequence of the dispute, it was arranged that the main body of the army should remain with William at Inverness, placing himself at the head of three thousand of his own followers, upon whose fidelity he could depend, he set out in search of Mac William, in the determination of carrying out in person the original intentions of the king.

The fate of Scotland was decided by an accident; and it has twice been the destiny of Inverness to witness, in its vicinity, the termination of a contest for a crown. Upon the moor of Mamgarvy, some long forgotten spot in that neighbourhood, the party of Roland unexpectedly fell in with a body of the enemy, whose numbers were about equal to their own. Neither party shunned the contest, but the royalists gained the day, and amongst the slain was discovered the lifeless body of Mac William. His death terminated the war, and the victor returned in triumph to Inverness, to earn the grant of the broad lands of Galloway with the head of his royal master’s most formidable and inveterate opponent.[445]

The death of Donald Bane at once restored peace throughout the north of Scotland. The strength of his cause had lain, not so much in the devotion of his adherents to his own person, as in their disaffection towards the reigning sovereign; and the same feelings which had induced many of the Scottish nobles to look with indifference upon the increase of Donald’s power, rendered them equally careless about its extinction. No enthusiastic clansmen burned to avenge the slaughter of their chief; for no hereditary attachment united his followers to Mac William, like the feelings which once bound the men of Moray to the descendants of their early kings and mormaors.[446] The cause of Mac Heth was identified with the claims of the ancient line of Kenneth Mac Duff; but the powerful chieftains of the North and West, who adhered to that family from hereditary associations, must have followed the banner of Mac William from enmity to the reigning family, or from dislike to their feudal innovations, rather than from any clannish feeling of attachment to the heir of Malcolm Ceanmore’s eldest son, who claimed to be the rightful representative of the rival line of Atholl.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1188.]

Scotland had at this period almost regained the position in which she stood before the fatal capture of her king. Galloway was at length pacified, the north and west were no longer in open rebellion, and Scottish men-at-arms once more garrisoned the castle of Edinburgh; but Henry still retained Roxburgh and Berwick, the keys of the southern frontier, and for the cession of these important fortresses William offered to pay 4000 marks of silver. Henry signified his readiness to restore the castles if William, in return, would agree to grant him the tenths of the kingdom of Scotland for the projected crusade, an arrangement to which the latter promised to consent, if he could prevail upon his people to give their sanction to the terms; but when the bishop of Durham, who was deputed by his king to collect the promised aid, arrived for this purpose upon the frontiers of Scotland, he was met between Werk and Brigham by the Scottish king, who unexpectedly prohibited his further advance. William renewed his original offer for the castles, explaining to the bishop, that, personally, he was still ready to adhere to his compact with Henry; but that upon assembling his barons and clergy in council, they had unanimously refused to listen to the arrangement, asserting that they would refuse to grant away the tenths of Scotland, though both kings had sworn to levy them in person. In vain the English envoy attempted to turn the Scots from their purpose; threats and persuasion were equally unavailing, for the determination of the latter was inflexible; and as the bishop was not empowered to take into consideration the propositions of the Scottish king, he was obliged to return empty handed to the south, and convey to his master in Normandy the impotent result of his mission.[447]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1189.]

In the following year the ingratitude of his favourite son John, for whose sake he had provoked the hostility of Richard, by evading the acknowledgment of the latter as his rightful successor, completed the ruin that fatigue and chagrin had commenced, and, early in July, Henry of England died of a broken heart at Chinon. Earl David appears to have been implicated in the rebellion of Richard, for Huntingdon was amongst the fiefs granted by the latter at Tours, upon the day after the army of the confederates was enabled, through the continued drought, to enter that town by fording the shallow Loire.[448] The death of Henry was fraught with most important consequences for Scotland, for Richard, with all the enthusiasm of his impetuous nature, was burning to lead the chivalry of Europe to the re-conquest of the Holy Sepulchre, and as money was most essential for carrying out the crusade, in every imaginable method he sought to procure it. The great offices of the crown were put up for sale; the favour of the king was purchased by his illegitimate brother Geoffry; and the earldom of Northumberland was bought by the bishop of Durham.[449] Ten thousand marks of silver were paid by William as the price of the independence of his kingdom and of the restoration of the castles of Roxburgh and Berwick; and in the following November, about six weeks after the coronation of Richard, at which the earl of Huntingdon had assisted, bearing one of the swords of state, the archbishop of York, with the sheriff and barons of the shire, met William at the Tweed, and in obedience to the commands of their sovereign, escorted him with every mark of honour to Canterbury. Here upon the 5th of December, after duly performing “such homage for his English dignities as his ancestors were wont to render to the predecessors of the English king,” he received from the hands of Richard a charter annulling all the concessions extorted by Henry at the time of his capture; and after fifteen years of feudal subjection, the consequences of the disastrous accident at Alnwick were at length repaired, and the independence of Scotland re-established.[450]