WILLIAM (1143-1214), king of Scotland, surnamed "the Lion," was the second son of Henry, earl of Huntingdon (d. 1152), a son of King David I., and became king of Scotland on the death of his brother, Malcolm IV., in Dec. 1165, being crowned at Scone during the same month. After his accession to the throne William spent some time at the court of the English king, Henry II.; then, quarrelling with Henry, he arranged in 1168 the first definite treaty of alliance between France and Scotland. and with Louis VII. of France assisted Henry's sons in their revolt against their father in 1173. In return for this aid the younger Henry granted to William the earldom of Northumber land, a possession which the latter had vainly sought from the English king, and which was possibly the cause of their first estrangement. However, when ravaging the country near Alnwick, William was taken prisoner in July 1174, and after a short cap tivity at Richmond was carried to Normandy, where he purchased his release by assenting in Dec. 1174 to the Treaty of Falaise. By this arrangement the king and his nobles, clerical and lay, undertook to do homage to Henry and his son ; this and other provisions placing both the church and state of Scotland thor oughly under the suzerainty of England. William's next quarrel was with Pope Alexander III., and arose out of a double choice for the vacant bishopric of St. Andrews. But in 1188 William secured a papal bull which declared that the Church of Scotland was directly subject only to the see of Rome, thus rejecting the claims to supremacy put forward by the English archbishop. This
step was followed by the temporal independence of Scotland, which was one result of the continual poverty of Richard I. In Dec. 1189, by the Treaty of Canterbury, Richard gave up all claim to suzerainty over Scotland in return for 1 o,000 marks, the Treaty of Falaise being thus definitely annulled.
In 1186 at Woodstock William married Ermengarde de Beau mont, a cousin of Henry II., and peace with England being assured three years later, he turned his arms with success against the turbulent chiefs in the north and west. Soon after John's accession in 1199 the Scottish king asked for the earldom of Northumberland, which John, like his predecessors, refused; but the threatened war did not take place, and in 1200 William did homage to the English king at Lincoln with the ambiguous phrase "saving his own rights." War again became imminent in 1209; but a peace was made at Norham, and about three years later another amicable arrangement was reached. William died at Stirling on Dec. 4, 1214, and was buried at Arbroath. He left one son, his successor Alexander II., and two daughters, Margaret and Isabella, who were sent to England after the treaty of 1209, and who both married English nobles, Margaret becoming the wife of Hubert de Burgh. He also left some illegitimate children.
See E. W. Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings (Edinburgh. 1862) ; Lord Hailes, Annals of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1819) ; A. Lang, History of Scotland, vol. i. (19oo) ; also SCOTLAND: History.