24" 



SCOTLAND (HISTORY) 



the erection and endowment of parishes, provided 

 for the maintenance of the clergy by means ,.i 

 tithes, ainl, displacing tin 1 "1-1 'chic monastic 

 Ixxliea, introduced the Benedictine and Angus 

 tinian orders. 



David, though devoting hU energies to tin- im- 

 provement of In- subjects in the manner lii.-li has 

 been mentioned. <liil not forget duties of a I. 

 agreeable kind. II.- knew that a Sco'ti-h king 

 really held In- crown by the tenure of tiie sword, 



and none of hi- lieree :m MI- wa.- a more intrepid 



warrior than the accomplished ami saintly David. 

 Mi- -kill and courage were -!mwn. though without 

 succetw, at the Battle of the Siandaid. As the 

 representative (Inoiigh hi- mother of the ancient 

 kin_'- of England, he luul many friend- in that 

 country ; ami had the Scottish army lieen sue. 

 fill the 'history of the two kingdoms might in -mm- 

 respecte have l>een dill'crenl. A- il was, lie con- 

 tented himself with maintaining the cause of his 

 sister's child, the Empress Matilda, against King 

 Stephen. 



David's grandson and successor. Malcolm IV. 

 (ll.~>3-65), and his brother, William the Lion 

 ( HOT) I'2U) pursued the policy of their grandfather 

 with equal resolution, though sometimes with less 

 success. They were emliarrassed by their connec- 

 tion with the' Kngli-h King Henry' II., who took 

 advantage of his aui>crior |xiwer and ability to 

 impose unwise and unjust restraints on the inde- 

 pendence of the Scottish sovereigns and their king- 

 dom a policy which laid the foundation of the 

 unhappy national strife of after years. This \\a- 

 averted for a time by the concessions of Richard I. 

 in 1189. 'For more than a century,' says Lord 

 llaili-. 'there was no national quarrel, no national 

 war between the two kingdoms a blessed period.' 

 That period wit- well employed by the next two 

 kings, Alexander II. and Alexander III., the son 

 and grand-oil of William the Lion, to consolidate 

 the institution- of their kingdom, and extend and 

 eoiilirm what had been licgun hv David. Alex- 

 ander HI. was one of the ablest and best of the 

 Scottish kings. By a treaty with the king of 

 Norway he added to his kingdom Man and the 

 other islands of the Western Sea, held by the Nor 

 wegians. His sudden death in 1-Jsii was one of the 

 greatest calamities with which Scotland could have 

 been afflicted. It closed a period of prosperity a 

 course of improvement which the kingdom did 

 not again enjoy for fully 400 years. 



On the death of the infant granddaughter and 

 heiies- of Alexander III. ill 1!WO the succession to 

 thecrown wosdi-puted. The question Ix-tween the 

 two chief claimant-, Italiol and liruce (q.v.), wan 

 not free from doubt according to the custom- of the 

 time; ami Edward I. (q. v. )of Kngland, to whom the 

 decision was n-fcncd, :t|i|H-ai-N at lirst to have acted 

 with good faith. lint tlii- gn-at king, who hud 

 already sultdued Wales, was now l>ent on uniting 

 the British Island- under one sceptre; and in t he 

 iiumuil of (hat ohject he sacrificed humanity, 

 Mommr. and justice. The results were most deplor- 

 able. The national spirit of the Scots was finally 

 roused, and after a long si niggle under Wallace 



Bruce, in KIM they -i-cured their indcpcndcm i 



the field of Hannockhurn (q.v.). The hat lie of 

 freedom was won; hut it was at the expense of 

 tranquillity and civilisation. The Inirder counties 

 were continually \v>i-ted by the English; the central 



provinces were (he see f frequent warfare among 



the chief noble* ; and the highland districts became 

 more and more the seat of barliarism. the Celtic 

 tribe* re-acqiiiringsomcthingof thcirold ascendency. 

 just an they did in Ireland in the tronhled times 

 which followed the invasion of Kdward Mruce. The 

 strong arm of King liobcit might have repressed 

 these disorders had his life been longer spared after 



tin treaty of Northampton ; hut his death in 1329 

 ami the accession of an infant son again jiliinged 

 the country into all the miseries of foreign and 



civil war. Wl that son, David II., grew up to 



manhood he proved in every respect unworthy of 

 his great father. The reigns of this prince and 

 his successors Uolx'it II. and Hobert' 111., the two 

 lir-t princes of the House of Stewart, may lie re- 

 garded as the most wretched period of Bcottilh 

 history. In the year 1411 the kingdom would have 

 liecome alwolutely barbarous if the invasion of the 

 Lord of the Isles had not been repulsed at Hat law 

 (q.v.) by the skill of the Earl of Mar and the 

 bravery of the lowland knights and buige . -. 



A happier time began to dawn with tin- reh-n.se 

 of James I. in 1424 from his English eapii\ itv. The 

 events of the following period are U-ttei known, 

 and a brief notice of the most important will be 

 sufficient. Reference may l>e made for details to 

 the accounts of the particular kings. The vigor- 

 ous rule of James I. nod restored a tranquillity to 

 which his kingdom had long been unaccustomed ; 

 but strife and discord were again brought hack on 

 his assassination. One of the most calamitous 

 features of the time was a long series of minor 

 Hies, .lames himself had succeeded to the crown 

 when a child and a captive ; James II., James III., 

 James IV., James V., Mary, and .lames VI. all 

 succeeded while under age, and all except James 

 IV. when little more than infants. The courage 

 and ability shown by almost all the Stewart princes 

 were insufficient to repair the mischiefs done by 

 others in the beginning of their reigns, and to abate 

 the great curse of the country the unlimited power 

 and constant feuds of the nobles. The last addi- 

 tion to the Scottish kingdom was made in the reign 

 of James III., when the islands of Orkney and 

 Shetland were made over to him as the dowry of his 

 queen, Margaret of Denmark. The marriage in 

 1603 of James IV. with Margaret of Kngland was 

 far more important in its ultimate results, and 

 brought almnt in the reign of his great -grandson 

 that peaceful union with England which the death 

 of the Mnid of Norway had prevented in the 13th 

 century. Many good laws were enacted during 

 the reigns of the Jameses ; hut the wisdom of the 

 Scottish legislature was more shown in framing 

 them than the vigour of the government in enforc- 

 ing them. Among the most Important improve- 

 ments of the period was the establishment of 

 universities the first of which, that of St Andrews, 

 was founded during the minority of .lame- I. and 

 the institution of the College of Justice in the 

 reign of Jann-s V. 



During the reign of the fifth .lames religious 

 discord added another element to the evils with 

 which Scotland was afflicted. The practical cor- 

 ruptions of the church were greater than they vert 

 almost in any other country in Knrope. ami one of 

 the consequences was that the principles of the 

 liet'oimation were pushed further than clsewheie. 

 The first great ecclesiastical struggle had hardly 

 ceased, by the overthrow of the Roman Catholic 

 system, when the strife began anew in t he Reformed 

 Communion in the shape of a contest between 

 Kpiscopacy and Presbyterianism, the former being 

 supported by the sovereign, the latter by the 

 common people, the nobles throwing their weight 

 into either scale as it suited their policy at the 

 time. James VI. struggled hard to i-stablish an 

 absolute supremacy, both in church and state, in 

 opposition to a powerful party, which admitted no 

 royal authority whatever in the former and very 

 little in the latter. After his accession to the 

 Knglish crown he was apparently successful in 

 carrying out his designs, but during the reign of his 

 son, Charles I., the contest again broke out with 

 increased bitterness. The nobility, whose rapacity 



