Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/506

Rh 484 SCOTLAND [HISTORY. 1165-1215 son who predeceased him was succeeded by his brother William William the Lion (1165-1214). His reign, the longest of the Lion. an y Scottish monarch, though not so uniformly successful as that of his grandfather, was an important era in Scottish history. It is divided into nearly equal portions by the accession of Richard Cceur de Lion. The first consists of the war with Henry II., in which William was captured (1175), and this made him the subject of the English king for fourteen years. In the second he recovered his in- dependence, and, resuming the task of his predecessor, consolidated the Scottish kingdom in the north and west. William commenced his reign by taking part in the war with France as vassal of Henry II. for the fief of Hunting- don ; but, being disappointed of the promised restoration of the northern earldoms, he entered into negotiations with Louis VII. of France. This memorable event is the first authentic connexion between Scotland and France, and was afterwards antedated by a fiction to the time of Charle- magne. Dictated by the situation of the two countries, equally exposed to danger from the power of England under the Angevin or Plantagenet kings, the alliance between France and Scotland continued with few breaks until the close of the 16th century, and even in the 17th and 18th was relied upon by the last of the Stuarts. France proved a broken reed to the Scottish kings ; but the intercourse between the two countries brought the Scottish people, when war with England after the close of the 14th century shut them out from the advancing civilization of that country, into contact with the chivalrous manners of the court and the learning of the schools of France during the Warwith best period of French history. Nothing came of the alliance England. a t this time, and two years later William and his brother David, in whose favour he resigned the earldom of Hunting- don, attended the coronation (during his father's life) of the younger Henry at Windsor. That ill-judged step and the murder of Becket led to a domestic revolution, and William, tempted by the promise of the earldom of Northumberland, joined the young king against his father (1 173). He failed in the sieges of Wark and Carlisle, and next year was taken prisoner at Alnwick by Ranulph de Glanville and sent by Henry's order to Falaise in Normandy. To procure his release he made a treaty with Henry by which he became his vassal for Scotland and all his other territories. The Scottish Church then for the first and last time owned subjection to that of England. This treaty settles the disputed question of the Scottish homage. It was only by conquest and the captivity of its king that such terms could be obtained. To secure the observance of the treaty the four burghs of Scotland were to be placed in Henry's hands and hostages given till their delivery. The ambiguous terms of the clause as to the church enabled the Scottish bishops to refuse obedience to the see of York, and, Canterbury having advanced a rival claim, Henry, not displeased to see ecclesiastics quarrel, allowed the Scottish bishops to leave the council of Norham without acknowledg- ing it. The foundation of the abbey of Arbroath in memory of Becket, whom he had known at Henry's court, was almost the only endowment of William. At home he put down revolts in Galloway, Ross, and Caithness. A long dispute with successive popes as to the see of St Andrews afforded a signal example of the perseverance of William. He also procured a distinct acknowledgment of the independence of the Scottish Church and its immediate subjection to Rome alone, which Henry II., now approaching the calamitous end of his reign, could not prevent ; nor was he able to enforce payment of the Saladin tax from the Scottish bishops. Immediately after Henry's death Richard Coeur de Lion, moved by the necessity of money for the crusades, consented for a payment of 10,000 marks to the abrogation of the treaty of Falaise (1189) as having been extorted from William when a captive, and restored Scotland's ancient marches. The second part of William's reign was occupied with Internal internal affairs. Richard's absence and John's disputes affairs. with the pope and his own barons gave a relief from English war. The raising of the ransom tried the re- sources of Scotland, and was met by an aid from the clergy and barons. Risings by Harold, earl of Caithness, and his son Torphin (1197), and another by Guthred (1211), a descendant of the mormaer of Ross, were quelled. The birth of a son strengthened William's throne. He at one time contemplated an invasion of England, for which John's weakness afforded a good opportunity, but desisted, it is said, in consequence of a vision, perhaps remembering his own age and that of his heir. The proposed erection by John of a castle at Tweedmouth to overawe Berwick led to a rupture ; but, after protracted negotiations and threats, a treaty was made (1 209) by which William agreed to pay 15,000 marks. John was to procure suitable matches fcr his two daughters, and Tweedmouth was not to be rebuilt. The barons promised at a council in the following year to raise 10,000 and the burghs 6000 marks. This is the first mention of a contribution by the burghs to a feudal aid. William was their great benefactor, as Henry the Fowler in Germany and Richard in England : many of their charters date from his reign. Legislation continued in the form of assizes, which required the sanction of a great council. As in England, the necessity of raising money first gave rise to municipal rights and to facilities for some discussion of public affairs in what afterwards grew to be the parliament. This assembly was still the curia regis of the vassals of the king, and the Scottish parlia- ment never lost marks of its origin. William died at Stirling in 1214 in the seventy -second year of his age. The lion rampant, which he took for his seal, became his epithet, and represents his chivalrous and determined character. He set the example, which his son and grand- son followed, of cultivating friendly relations with the English sovereign, and his efforts to maintain the inde- pendence of Scotland were rewarded by internal peace. It was only in the outlying districts that risings had now to be feared. The number of shires where the king's sheriff, frequently (by a policy wise at the time, but afterwards dangerous) the chief baron of the district, administered justice at the head towns increases, and this, as well as the growth of trade, brought into prominence the burghs, each with a royal castle where the king in his frequent progresses held his court, and if needful summoned the great council of his realm. The chief burghs whose charters date from this reign are Perth, Aberdeen, Inver- ness, Dumfries, Lanark, Irvine, Ayr, Forfar, Dundee, Arbroath, Montrose, Inverurie, Kintore, Banff, Cullen, and Nairn. Their number and sites, spread over the whole country, mark a settled policy and the progress of the kingdom in the arts of peace. A new diocese Argyll was founded by separation from Dunkeld, to which John the Scot, then bishop, sent his chaplain as knowing Gaelic; and, though the Hebrides were still Norse, this was a step towards the complete organization of the church and to the extension of the kingdom which fol- lowed in the next two reigns, when the Isles also were added (1266) to Scotland. Alexander II. (1214-49), son of William, was crowned Alexan- at Scone in his seventeenth year, in time to take part in (ler ^ the great struggle in England for Magna Charta, which had reached its crisis. He sided with the English barons, who made an agreement by which Carlisle and the county of Northumberland were to be given to Alexander. In fulfilment of his part he besieged Norham, while the barons inserted in Magna Charta a clause by which John