POLITICAL HISTORY 



territories the union of which in the hands of Roger the Poitevin laid the 

 basis of a new county of Lancaster, were again separated. 



Under cover of his niece's claim to the English throne David of Scotland 

 secured a strong hold upon the north of England. His first invasion in 

 January, 1136, ended in Stephen's retrocession of Carlisle and its district and 

 a promise to consider the claims of David's son Henry to the earldom of 

 Northumbria in right of his mother, a daughter of Earl Waltheof." It was 

 nominally to Henry that Carlisle was given, no doubt because it was held to 

 be one of the lands for which the young prince was required to do homage 

 to Stephen at York, but his father took over the government." When 

 hostilities were resumed two years later William son of Duncan, David's 

 nephew, pushed southwards with a flying force as far as Upper Ribblesdale, 

 ravaging the possessions of Furness Abbey in Craven and routing a small 

 English force of four squadrons which made a stand near Clitheroe." The 

 Yorkshire barons repelled a further inroad at the Battle of the Standard, but 

 in 1 1 39 Stephen bought peace by investing Henry with the earldom of 

 Northumbria.''' It is to this grant, probably, that we ought to look for an 

 explanation of the fact that not long afterwards the Scots king is found in 

 possession of the territory between the Ribble and the district of Carlisle 

 which had belonged to the earldom of Northumbria before the Conquest. 

 The register of Shrewsbury Abbey contains two charters of David addressed 

 to his officers of ' the Honour of Lancaster,' confirming Roger of Poitou's 

 Amounderness grants to the abbey." 



That Stephen intended to include in his grant these western lands, which 

 no Norman earl of Northumberland had held and much of which was his 

 own private property, may well be doubted. David, however, may have laid 

 hands upon them, interpreting the grant to suit himself or obtaining a new 

 one from the Empress Maud. As for the date of his occupation there is 

 some reason to believe that one of the two charters referred to above belongs 

 to 1 141, the year in which he joined the empress in the south ; the other 

 may be earlier.™ With one exception these are the only recorded acts of 

 David's rule within the bounds of Lancashire. The exception in question is 

 his appointment of Wimund, bishop of Man, to the governorship of a district 

 which included Furness. Wimund, of whose extraordinary career William 

 of Newburgh has left a graphic account,*^ began life as a monk of Furness, 



" Sym. Dun. Hist. Regum (cont. by John of Hexham) (Rolls Ser.), ii, 287 ; Chron. ofStefh. Sec. (Rolls 

 Ser), iii, 145—6. 



" Lawrie, Jnct. Scot. Chart. 94, 96. David himself would not do homage in view of the oath he had 

 taken to the succession of the empress ; Chron. ofSteph. &c. iv, 129. 



" Sym. Dun. op. cit. ii, 291. A later insertion in the MS. gives Friday, 10 June, as the date. Ramsay 

 (foundations of Engl, ii, 366) thinks that if this be correct the Scottish column cannot have been thrown off, as 

 the chronicler represents, from David's army before Norham, which yielded about 8 May, but must have come 

 by the western route, by which at any rate it returned; Chron. Steph. &c. iii, 156. The raiders, largely 

 Galloway Picts, with only six men-at-arms, were very proud of their victory over hricati ; ibid. 1 90. For 

 William Fitz Duncan see Lawrie, op. cit. 271. His ravaging Craven suggests that he had not yet married 

 Alice de Romilly, the heiress of this district and of Copeland ; cf. Sym. Dun. ii, 156. 



" Ibid, ii, 199, 300 ; Chron. ofSteph. &c. iii, 176. 



"Lawrie, op. cit. 105-6; Lanes. Pipe R. 274-5. The 'Honour of Lancaster' is here used in a 

 restricted sense. See below. For David's rule in Copeland cf. Lawrie, 150. 



'^ Tait, Mediaeval Manchester, 166-9. The former cannot be later than 1143. To the evidence 

 adduced in the above work we may add that Jordan, David's chancellor, who witnesses the charter, was 

 replaced by Edward as early as 1144 ; Lawrie, op. cit. 136. 



" Chron. o/Steph. &c. i, 73. 



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