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 SCOTLAND

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SCOTLAND

influence of his holy queen was the best and strongest element in his stormy life. Whilst he was engaged in strengthening his frontiers and fighting the enemies of his country, Margaret found time, amid family duties and pious exercises, to take in hand the reform of certain outstanding abuses in the Scottish Church. In such matters as the fast of Lent, the Easter com- munion, the observance of Sunday, and compliance with the Church's marriage laws, she succeeded, with the king's support, in bringing the Church of Scot- land into line with the rest of Cathohc Christendom. Malcolm and Margaret rebuilt the venerable monas- tery of lona, and founded churches in various parts of the kingdom; and during their reign the Christian faith was established in the islands lying off the north- ern and western coasts of Scotland, inhabited by Norsemen. Malcolm was killed in Northumber- land in 1093, whilst leading an army against William Rufus; and his saintly queen, already dangerously ill, followed him to the grave a few days later. In the same year as the king and queen died Fothad, the last of the native bishops of Alban, v/hose ex- tinction opened the way to the claim, long upheld, of the See of York to supremacy over the Scottish Church— a claim rendered more tenable by the strong Anglo-Norman influence which had taken the place of that of Ireland, and by the absence of any organized system of diocesan jurisdiction in the Scottish Church.

Edgar, one of Malcolm's younger sons, who suc- ceeded to his father's crown after prolonged conflict with other pretenders to it, calls himself in his extant charters "King of Scots", but he speaks of his sub- jects as Scots and English, surrounded himself with English advisers, acknowledged William of England as his feudal superior, and thus did much to strengthen the English influence in the northern kingdom. Dur- ing his ten years' reign no successor was appointed to Fothad in the primacy ; but at his death (when his brother Alexander succeeded him as king, the younger brother David obtaining dominion over Cumbria and Lothian, with the title of carl) Turgot became Bishop of St. Andrews, the first Norman to occupy the primatial see. Alexander's reign was signalized by the creation of two additional sees; the first being that of Moray, in the district beyond the Spey, where Scandinavian influence had long been dominant. The see was fixed first at Spynie and later at Elgin, where a noble cathedral was founded in the thir- teenth century. The other new see was that of Dunkeld, which had already been the seat of the primacy under Kenneth Mac Alpine, but had fallen under lay abbots. Here Alexander replaced the Culdee community by a bishop and chapter of secular canons. Elsewhere also he introduced regular re- ligious orders to take the place of the Culdees, founding monasteries of canons regular (Augustinians) at Scone and Loch Tay.

Even more than Alexander, his brother David, who succeeded him in 1124, and who had been edu- cated at the English Court (his sister Matilda having married Henry I), laboured to assimilate the social state and institutions of Scotland, both in civil and ecclesiastical matters, to Anglo-Norman ideas. His reign of thirty years, on the whole a peaceful one, is memorable in the extent of the changes wrought during it in Scotland, under every aspect of the life of the people. A modern historian has said that at no period of her history has Scotland ever stood relatively so high in the scale of nations as during the reign of this excellent monarch. Penetrated with the spirit of feudalism, and rec- ognizing the inadequacy of the Celtic institutions of the past to meet the growing needs of his people, David extended his reforms to every department of civil life; but it is with the energy and thorough- ness with which he set about the reorganization and

remodelling of the national church that his name will always be identified. While still Earl of Cumbria and Lothian he brought Benedictine monks from France to Selkirk, and Augustinian canons to Jedburgh, and procured the restoration of the ancient see of Glasgow, originally founded by St. Kentigern. Five other bishoprics he founded after his accession: Ross, in early days a Columban monastery, and afterwards served by Culdees, who were now suc- ceeded by secular canons; Aberdeen, where there had also been a church in very early times; Caithness, with the see at Dornoch, in Sutherland, where the former Culdee community was now replaced by a full chapter of ten canons, with dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, and archdeacon; Dunblane, and Brechin, founded shortly before the king's death, and both, like the rest, on the sites of ancient Celtic churches. The great abbeys of Dunfermline, Holy- rood, Jedburgh, Kelso, Kinloss, Melrose, and Dun- drennan were all established by him for Benedictines, Augustinians, or Cistercians, besides several priories and convents of nuns, and houses belonging to the military orders. To one venerable Celtic monastery, founded by St. Columba, that of Deer, we find David granting a charter towards the end of his reign; but his general policy was to suppress the ancient Culdee establishments, now moribund and almost extinct, and supersede them by his new religious foundations. Side by side with this came the complete diocesan reorganization of the Church, the erection of cathedral chapters and rural deaneries, and the reform of the Divine service on the model of that prevailing in the English Church, the use of the ancient Celtic ritual being almost universally discontinued in favour of that of Salisbury. Two church councils were held in David's reign, both presided over by cardinal legates from Rome; and in 1150 took place, at St. Andrews, the first diocesan synod recorded to have been held in Scotland. David died in 1153, leaving behind him the reputation of a saint as well as a great king — a reputation which has been endorsed, with singular unanimity, alike by ancient chroniclers and the most impartial of modern historians.

David's grandson and successor, Malcolm the Maiden, was crowned at Scone — the first occasion, as far a.s we know, of such a ceremony taking place in Scotland. His piety was attested by his many reli- gious foundations, including the famous Abbey of Paisley; but as a king he was weak, whereas England was at that time ruled by the strong and masterful Henry II, who succeeded in wresting from Scotland the three northern English counties which had been subject to David. Malcolm was succeeded in 1165 by his brother William the Lion, whose reign of close on fifty years was the longest in Scottish history. It was by no means a period of peace for the Scottish realm; for in 1173 William, in a vain effort to recover his lost English provinces, was taken prisoner, and only released on binding himself, to be the liegeman of the King of England, and to do him homage for his whole kingdom. During a great part of his reign he was also in conflict with his unruly Celtic subjects in Galloway and elsewhere, as well as with the Norse- men of Caithness. The Scottish Church, too, was harassed not only by the continual claims of York to jurisdiction over her, but by the English king's at- tempts to bring her into entire subjection to the Church of England. A great council at Northampton in 1176, attended by both monarchs, a papal legate, and the principal English and Scottish bishops, broke up without deciding this question; and a special legate sent by Pope Alexander III to England and Scotland shortly afterwards was not more successful.

It was not until twelve years later that, in response to a deputation specially sent to Rome by William to urge a settlement. Pope Clement III (in March, 1188) declared by Bull the Scottish Church, with its nine