David I (
c.1085–1153), king of Scots (1124–53). An outstanding monarch who ‘became a legend in his own lifetime’, he was the youngest son of
Malcolm Canmore and Queen (later St)
Margaret, and succeeded his brother
Alexander I. His early career brought him firmly within the English orbit: he was educated at Henry I's court and became earl of Huntingdon in 1113 through his marriage to
Matilda, a great-niece of William the Conqueror. But, once king, he asserted his independence as a sovereign ruler, and drew on his experience of the Anglo-Norman world to bring the Scots kingdom within the mainstream of European development, though recent studies also highlight how far he depended on the strengths and practices of his Celtic inheritance. The ‘Davidian revolution’ involved the settlement in Scotland of Anglo-Norman nobles, who established powerful local lordships defended with castles and supplied knights to the king's army. The monarchy was also strengthened by the restructuring of law and administration along Anglo-Norman lines, and by an extensive programme of church reform. Thus David created or revived several bishoprics and personally founded ten major monasteries, especially for Cistercian monks ( Melrose, Newbattle, Kinloss) and Augustinian canons ( Jedburgh, Holyrood, Cambuskenneth). He also developed the economic basis of the kingdom by founding burghs (notably Berwick, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen) and by introducing the first Scottish
coinage.
In all these respects, ‘Normanization’ followed a very different path from that taken in the rest of the ‘Celtic fringe’, where both Wales and Ireland experienced Anglo-Norman conquests. In Scotland, by contrast, David's predecessors had already established a sufficiently powerful and unitary monarchy to ensure that change operated on behalf of Scottish interests, not against them. Quintessentially, however, David was as much a conventional Celtic ruler as a new- style ‘feudal’ monarch. Though he acted decisively to crush the rebellion of the mormaer (provincial ruler) of Moray in 1130, he preferred to work with traditional power structures wherever practicable. He continued to use the ancient centres of royal authority; loyal native lords kept their lands and their prominence as members of the governing élite alongside the Anglo-Norman incomers (all the earls and most of the bishops were native Scots); the existing pattern of administrative offices coexisted with the sheriffs, justiciars, and other new officers; the taxation system remained based on the old levies of cain and conveth (‘tribute and hospitality’); and customary methods of military recruitment retained fundamental importance. So, while change was a leading motif, David's reign also exhibited considerable degrees of continuity; indeed, the key to his greatness as a state-builder was the ability to integrate old and new. His Scottish power base was confined largely to the Lowlands; but the reality of growing royal might was firmly demonstrated when he led vast armies (including 200 knights, but mainly comprising native troops from many parts of Scotland) in wars of territorial conquest against the embattled King Stephen, and from 1141 he ruled the ‘English’ north to the rivers Ribble and Tees as an integral part of an enlarged Scoto-Northumbrian realm. His successes as a war leader help to explain why his modernizing policies were not more strenuously challenged by Celtic lords outside the royal circle. Anglo-Norman adventurers flocked to his court in increasing numbers; and control of the rich silver-mines near Carlisle gave a major boost to the Scottish economy. But in 1152 David's only surviving son Henry predeceased him. When David himself died, he was therefore succeeded not by a mature and experienced heir, but by a boy-king, his grandson Malcolm IV; and in 1157, at Henry II's insistence, the Scots were obliged to withdraw from the north. Yet by 1153 the traditional kingdom of Scots was well on the way to becoming a self-confident, European-style state, and David's reign was arguably the most formative period in medieval Scottish history.
Keith J. Stringer
