David, though devoting his energies to the improvement oftis subjects in the manner which has been mentioned, did not forget duties of a less agreeable kind. lie knew that a Scottish king really held his crown by the tenure of the sword, and none of his fierce ancestors was a more intrepid warrior than the accomplished and saintly David. His skill and courage were shown, though without success, at the battle of the Standard. As the representative through his mother of the ancient kings of England, he liad many friends in that country; and had the Scottish army been successful, the history of the two kingdoms might in some respects have been different. As it was, he contented him self with maintaining the cause of his sister's child, the empress Matilda, against king Steplen.
David's grandson and successor, Malcolm IV., reigned for twelve years, and the nekt king was William the lion, Malcolm's brother, who ruled front 1105 to 1214. _These princes pursued the policy of their grandfather with equal resolution. though sometimes with less success. 'I hey were embarrassed by their connection with the English king Henry II., who took advantage of his superior power and ability to impose unwise and unjust restraints on the independence of the Scottish sovereigns and their king,dom—a policy which the of the unhappy national strife of after-Wars. This was averted for a time by the concessions of Richtird I. in 1189. " For more than a century," says lord Hailes. "there was no national quarrel, no national war between the two king doms—a blessed period." Thnt period was well employed by the next two kings, Alexander II. and Alexander III., the son and grandson of William the lion, to con• solldate the institutions of their kingdom, and extend and confirm what had been begun by David. Alexander III. was one of the ablest and best of the Scottish kings. By a treaty with the king of Norway, he :Hided to his kingdom Man and the other islands of the western sea. held by the Norwegians, His sudden death, in 1280, 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 nearly 500 years. The history of this interesting period has yet to be written. The only Modern account of any value is that in the accurate but meager annals of lord Hailes. Tytler begins his history with the reign of Alexander HI.; and Robertson, iu his narra
tive of two reigns—which in popular language is called the history, of Scotland. just as lord Mae:inlay's similiar work is called • the history of England—speaks of what took place during the whole time from the union with the Picts to the death of Alexander III.. as " events which may be slightly touched, hut merit no particular or laborious inquiry." On the death of the infant granddaughter and heiress of Alexander III., in 1290, the succession to the crown was disputed. The question between the two chief claimants, Baliol and Bruce (q.v.), was not free from doubt according to the customs of the time; and Edward I. of England, to whom the decision was referred, appears at first to have acted with good faith. But this great king, who had already subdued Wales, was now bent on the British Islands under one scepter; and in the pursuit of that object he sacrificed honor, and justice. The results were most deplorable. The national spirit of the Scots was finally roused, and after a long struggle under i 'Wallace and Bruce they secured their independence on the field of Bannockburn (q.v.). The battle of freedom was won; but it was at the expense of tranquillity and civilization. The border counties were continually wasted by the English; the central provinces were the scene of frequent warfare among the chief nobles; and the highland districts became more and more the seat of barbarism, the Celtic tribes re-acquiring something of their old ascendency, just as they did in Ireland in the troubled times which followed the invasion of Edward Bruce. The strong arm of king Hobert might have repressed these disorders, had his life been longer spared after the treaty of Northampton; but his death, and the accession of an infant EMI, again plunged the country into all the miseries of foreign and civil war. When that son, David 11., grew up to manhood, he proved in every respect unworthy of his great father. His reign, and that of his successors Robert 11. and Robert Ill., the two first princes of the house of Stewart, were the most wretched period of Scottish history. In the year 1411, half of the kingdom would have become absolutely barbarous, if the invas;on of the lord of the Isles kingdom not been repulsed at Harlaw (q.v.), by the skill of the earl of Mar. and the bravery of the lowland knights and burgesses.