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Chapter 6
Peace and Plenty? (1153–1286)
In This Chapter
Considering the very short reign of Malcolm IV
Looking at the very long reign of William I
Focusing on the middling reign of Alexander II
Studying the golden age of Alexander III
The century or more covered in this chapter has been regarded by some as a ‘golden age’ in which disentanglement from damaging wars with Scotland’s noisy neighbour brought a period of sustained prosperity. It also witnessed the shift from a kingship to a kingdom.
The four Scottish kings between David I and John Balliol extended royal authority much further than their predecessors, bringing rebellious parts of the north and west of the country under their control. Increasingly, from 1153 onward, charters issued by the monarch referred to ‘the kingdom of Scotland’ or ‘the kingdom of Scots’.
This period also witnessed the establishment of
primogeniture
(in which the eldest inherits the throne) as the basis on which new monarchs assumed the throne. Primogeniture also extended to females – the period ended with the infant granddaughter of Alexander III, Margaret, the Maid of Norway, inheriting the Scottish throne on Alexander’s death (see Chapter 7).
The Very Short Reign of Malcolm IV (1153–1165)
Malcolm was never intended to become king – that was his father, Henry’s, destiny – but unfortunately Henry died in June 1152. When David I died on 24 May 1153, Malcolm was crowned king at Scone three days later, before the late monarch was even buried. Malcolm was only 12 years old when he assumed the throne; he was nicknamed Virgo (The Maiden), owing to his age and lack of experience. And as with all minority monarchs, there were challenges from rivals from the outset of his reign.
Almost as soon as Malcolm was installed as king, three challengers emerged:
Somerled, Viking king of Argyll and tHis death had been prophesied the previoushe Hebrides
Henry II of England
Fergus, lord of Galloway
The first challenge came six months into his reign, from Somerled and his allies in the north. Somerled never posed a serious threat because he was fighting a war at the same time with Godred Olafsson, king of the Isles (the islands of the Firth of Clyde and the Isle of Man), which lasted until 1156.
A more difficult situation was young Malcolm’s relationship with King Henry II. At the outset of Malcolm’s reign, the Scots had possession of much of the north of England, and Malcolm granted Northumbria to his brother (and, later, king) William, while keeping Cumbria for himself. Within four years, Northumbria and Cumbria were back in the possession of the English king.
In return for losing these important territories, in 1157, Malcolm was given the earldom of Huntingdon for which he paid homage to Henry at Peveril Castle in Derbyshire. Malcolm also accompanied Henry to France, taking part in the siege of Toulouse in 1160.He was knighted for this, which didn’t go down very well in Scotland.
In capitulating to the English king, Malcolm was seen as weak by his earls. His perceived feebleness sparked off a rebellion on Malcolm’s return from France in 1160. Six of his earls, led by Ferchar, Mormaer of Strathearn, besieged Malcolm in his own castle in Perth. The course of events is obscure, but the revolt led to a punitive assault by the king on Fergus, Lord of Galloway. Fergus was replaced by his sons and ended his days as a monk in Holyrood Abbey. That left only one challenger to deal with – Somerled.
In 1164, Malcolm, although only 23 years old, was suffering from a bone disease. His frail condition provoked some of his enemies within the Scottish nobility to recruit Somerled to overthrow the king and replace him with William FitzWilliam, grandson of Duncan II of Scotland. To side-foot the opposition, Malcolm demanded that Somerled pay him homage and turn over his lands to the crown, although he could still run them as a tenant or vassal of the monarch.
Somerled refused Malcolm’s demand and instead assembled an army of 15,000 men, whom he transported in 160 ships to the shores of the Firth of Clyde to engage with the king’s army at Renfrew. It turned out to be a disaster for Somerled – his Gaelic and Norse warriors were no match for the knights and men-at-arms of the royal army led by Herbert, Bishop of Glasgow, and Baldwin of Biggar, Sheriff of Lanark. Somerled was wounded by a spear in the leg and then killed by an opponent’s sword along with his eldest son. With his death, the Celtic/Viking army disintegrated, and Somerled’s severed head was delivered by a priest to the good bishop Herbert.
After defeat at Renfrew and Somerled’s death, the Kingdom of the Isles was broken up and redistributed among various nobles. Shortly after the battle, Malcolm himself died, childless, at Jedburgh on 9 December 1165. Although his reign was short, it wasn’t uneventful, and neither was it short on religious and administrative achievements. Malcolm founded the Cistercian monastery at Coupar Angus and introduced the office of sheriff – an official who represented the monarch – in places such as Crail, Dunfermline, Edinburgh, Forfar, Lanark and Linlithgow.
Contemporary chroniclers drew attention to his piety, but few could forgive Malcolm for ceding the lands of the north of England to Henry II. They were much relieved when his brother, William, replaced him as king.
The Very Long Reign of William I ‘the Lion’(1165–1214)
From the start, I need to put a few things straight about William:
He was never called ‘the Lion’ during his lifetime; that came later.
He was given the title not because of feats of bravery on the battlefield but because he put a lion on the royal flag of Scotland.
However, compared to his frail brother, from whom he inherited the throne in December 1165, William must have
seemed
like a lion. He was red-headed and red-blooded, a fiery, dynamic, headstrong character who became Scotland’s second-longest-ruling monarch, after James VI.
War and its consequences
From the moment he became king, William had one overriding ambition: to recover the earldom of Northumberland, which his brother had turned over to Henry II in 1157. His obsession prompted him to take part in the ‘great’ revolt against Henry II, led by his eldest sons and rebellious barons, supported by France and Flanders in 1173–1174. He made two attacks on Northumbria: the first attack floundered because of the Scottish army’s inability to take Newcastle; the second attack was larger and more serious, but it had terrible consequences for the Lion.
In the summer of 1174, William again invaded Northumbria, avoiding Newcastle, but besieging Prudhoe Castle. After three days, he gave up and moved on to Alnwick. William was never a great military tactician, and he made a mistake in splitting his army into three columns – one to lay waste to surrounding territories, one to carry on with the siege and one to protect the king. A group of 400 English knights, led by Ralf de Glanvil, the illegitimate son of Henry II, was apparently lost and stumbled upon the king’s encampment in the fog. William only had the protection of 60 or so fighting men, but nevertheless he charged the greater English force, allegedly shouting, ‘Now it appears who knows how to be a knight.’
It was quickly all over – the king’s horse was felled by a spear and William was taken prisoner, first to Newcastle, and then in chains to Northampton. Neither of these fortresses was considered secure enough to hold the Scottish king, so he was put on a ship to Henry II’s castle in Normandy, Falaise, where he was thrown into a dungeon. Meanwhile the avenging English army took the castles of Berwick, Edinburgh, Jedburgh, Roxburgh and Stirling, and as medieval armies were wont to do, they laid waste to the surrounding lands.
To win his release from prison, the Scottish king was forced to pay homage to Henry II and sign the Treaty of Falaise in December 1174. Under the terms of the treaty, William had to agree that
He held Scotland only with the permission of the English king.
Scottish soldiers were to evacuate castles and garrisons and be replaced by English soldiers.
The expenses of the English garrisons were to be met by the Scots – paying for their own subjugation.
The Scottish Church would be placed under the authority of the Archbishop of York.
The Treaty of Falaise lasted for 15 years. And if all this was not humiliating enough, in 1175 William declared fealty to the king and future kings of England at York. Later, in 1186, the English king chose a bride for William, Ermengarde de Beaumont, granddaughter of Henry I. As her dowry, she received Edinburgh Castle. This only served to reinforce William’s subservience to the English king.
Fortunately, Henry died on 11 July 1189 and was replaced by Richard I, the
Coeur de Lion
(Heart of the Lion, or Lionheart), who was in need of cash to finance his participation in the Third Crusade to the Holy Land. For the sum of 10,000 silver merks, he was prepared to release William from the Treaty of Falaise through the Quitclaim of Canterbury and return to him all the castles in Scotland still held by the English crown. It was an offer the Scots could not refuse. The money was paid, and the English left.
Scotland had avoided becoming a northern province of England, but the price it paid was a heavy one. The country was nearly bankrupt from 15 years of high taxation, which was compounded by the cost of repurchasing the castles from the English. Many people were unhappy, and unhappy people tend to get angry.
Challenges to royal authority
The embarrassing capture of William at Alnwick in 1174 was the signal for the first revolt of his reign in Galloway, which lasted until 1186 and prompted the building of the castle at Dumfries. In 1179, the king and his brother David led a royal army north to deal with expansionist threats posed by the Norse earls of Orkney and Caithness into Ross-shire. More expeditions would be necessary in 1197 and 1202.
A more serious threat was posed in 1181 by Donald Meic Uilleim, a direct descendant of Duncan II, who took control of Ross-shire and only relinquished his control when he died in 1187. But it took another ten years before the boundaries of William’s kingdom could be established north of that county. Even then, there were further rebellions in Ross-shire in 1211 and again shortly after William’s death in 1214.
It was clear that royal authority had to be extended, and William threw himself into this task with enthusiasm. New royal burghs were created, such as Ayr, Dumfries and Perth, and the office of high sheriff was expanded over the non-Highland part of Scotland. There was also a formidable programme of castle building in order to shore up royal power in Ayrshire, Berwickshire and Dumfries-shire in the south, and in Moray and Ross-shire in the north. New sources of support were found by advancing families like the Bruce and Stewart families, whose rise made them the aggressive agents of royal authority in the southwest and north of Scotland.