The Pozver which Enabled and Suggested the Production 313 



As long as the earldoms of Cumberland and Northumberland were 

 appanages of his royal house, Hexham occupied a most important po- 

 sition on the frontiers of his territory. It was of the utmost conse- 

 quence to him to have a monastery like that which lay between his 

 two towns of Carlisle and Newcastle, thoroughly devoted to his inter- 

 ests. David certainly succeeded in securing and retaining the good 

 opinion of the canons of Hexham. When Priors Richard and John 

 describe the cruelties of the Scots in the invasion of 1138, the blame 

 is laid not on the leader, but on his followers. Of David they always 

 speak with reverence and affection.^ 



The canons of Hexham had good cause to speak of David %\'ith affection. 

 They were really more under his control than under that of Stephen, 

 and they would hear with wondering deUght of the monasteries which 

 their patron was erecting in the North, and of the dioceses which ho 

 created or remodelled.^ 



InCarhsle they [the canons of Hexham] had one or two plots of ground 

 with a house or two upon them of the gift of David king of Scotland 

 and Henry his son. . . . Passing by the archbishops of York and 

 their numerous gifts, we find among the donors many of the great 

 potentates and barons of Northumberland. First and foremost is 

 David king of Scotland, with his son and grandson prince Henry and 

 William the Lion.^ 



In 1149, Henry Fitz-Empress, later Henry II., arrived at Carlisle, 

 and was knighted, promising, if ever he became king, to confirm to 

 David and his heirs the lands between Tweed and Tyne. . . . Thanks 

 to the troubles of Stephen's reign, David was now master of England, 

 as far south as the Tees, with a promise of continuance, if Henry Fitz- 

 Empress succeeded to the English throne.^ 



The whole of the north of England beyond the Tees had now [ca. 

 1150 ?] for several years been under the influence, if not under the 

 direct authority, of the Scottish king, and the comparative prosperity 

 of this part of the kingdom, contrasting strongly with the anarchy 



that possession to Thomas II. (A. D. 1109-1113). See Raine, Priory of 

 Hexham 1. 220, App. p. viii, and Pref. pp. xlvii, Ivi.' Elsewhere they say 

 (2. 11), defining the ancient Strathclyde, that it ' would include about two- 

 thirds only of Westmoreland on the east ; although probably including 

 also the district east of Wetherall in Cumberland up to the present county 

 boundaries of Northumberland and Durham.' 



1 Raine 1. Ixxi ; cf. p. Ixix. 



2 Ihid. 1. 168, note av. 



3 Hid. 2. XV. 



* Lang, History of Scotland 1. 107-8. 



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