DAVID I. (often called ST. DAvm), king of Scotland, was the youngest of the six sons of king Malcolm Ceanmohr, by his second wife, the Anglo-Saxon princess, St. Margaret (q.v.). He was b. about the year 1080. During the fierce struggle for the Scottish crown, which foilowed the death of his father in 1093, the youthful D. seems to have found refuge in England, along with his sister, Eadgyth or Matilda, -who, in 1100, married Henry I., king of England. The residence of D. at the court of this accomplished monarch would appear to have been prolonged for several years, and the assertion of a contemporary English annalist may well be credited, that " it freed him from the rust of Scottish barbarity." In 1170, his elder brother, Alexander, the throne, and D. became prince of Cumbria, a territory which comprised what are now the shires of Cumberland, Dum fries, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Peebles, Lanark, Dumbarton, Renfrew. and Ayr, and was held of the English king by the heir of the king of the Scots. Along with this great principality, he seems to have held lands in Lothian; and by his marriage in 1110 with Matilda, widow of the earl of Northampton, he acquired possession of that earldom, together with a claim to the rest of the vast domains of her father, Waltheof, earl of Huntingdon, of Northampton, and of Northumberland. The first act of D., as prince of Cumbria, was to restore the fallen bishopric of Glasgow, which he committed to the charge of his old preceptor, John. His next act was to bring a colony of Benedictine monks from the newly-founded monastery of Tirou, in France, and to plant them beside his forest castle of Selkirk. This was in 1113; and even thus early, as his chart ers show, he had gathered round him the Brutes, the Lindsays. the Morvilles, the Um fravilles, the Percies, the Hiddels, and other Anglo-Norman knights, throur11 whose help he was to effect such 'a momentous change in SeoVand.
In 1124, he succeeded to the Scottish throne, on the death of his brother, king Alex ander 1. That prince had had to fight for his crown against the heirs of the old Celtic dynasties, supported by the wild tribes of the north and west. They renewed the struggle with his successor, first in 1130, when they advanced almost to the gates of Brechin; and again, about twenty years later, when they appear to have been encoun tered on the plains of Murray. On both occasions, the Anglo Norman chivalry with which D. had garrisoned the southern provinces, gave him decisive, but far from easy victories. He was less fortunate in his wars beyond the Tweed In 1127. he had sworn, along- with the other great barons of England, to maintain the right of his niece, Matilda, as heir of the English crown, should her father, Henry I., die without male issue of his own body. The event thus contemplated came to pass in 1135, and when Stephen mounted the English throne, D. took arms in behalf of Matilda, and subdued almost all the country to the s. of Durham. Peace was restored by the grant of the earldom of Hunt ingdon, and the promise of the earldom of Northumberland, to D.'s son Henry, then in his 20th year. But the war was soon resumed; and in 1138, the king of Scots, deserted by Bruce and others of his Anglo-Norman vassals, was signally defeated in " the battle of the Standard," near Northallerton. The next year, a second peace was concluded between the two kings, when the promised earldom of Northumberland was bestowed on D.'s son Henry. In 1141, the Scottish king marched into England for the third time
to assert the rights of Matilda. He was a third time defeated, and only regained his own country with difficulty.
The rest of his reign was devoted to the accomplishment of the great revolution which had been begun by his father, king Mnlcolin, and his mother, St. Margaret, and con tinued by his brothers, king Edgar and king Alexander—the establishment in Scotland of the Civilization which obtained in England. By building castles, he secured the peace and safety of the country; by erecting burghs, he promoted its trade, shipping, and manufactures, and laid the foundations of its freedom; by endowing bishoprics and monasteries, he provided homes for the only men of learning and enlightenment known in his time. His descendant, king James L. standing by his tomb in Dunfermline, is said to have complained that "he was sue sore sanet for the crown'," but the remark, if it was ever made, would only show that the sloth and ignorance of the clergy in the 15th c. had blotted out the remembrance of the great services which they rendered to man kind in the 12th c., when they were the schoolmasters, the statesmen, the lawyers, the physicians, the bankers, the engineers, the artists, the builders, the glaziers. the agricul turists, and the gardeners of the age. One who was a hard judge of monarchs—the great scholar, Buchanan—said with much more truth, "that if men were to set them selves to draw the image of a good king, they would fall short of what David showed himself throughout the whole course of his life." King D. died at Carlisle on the 24th May, 1153. His son Henry had died in the pre. vious June. and he was succeeded by his grandson, Malcolm, then in his twelfth year. The oldest Scottish painting now known to exist—an Illuminated charter to the monks of Kelso, written in 1159—preserves rude miniatures of the young king and his saintly grandfather. It is engraved in facsimile in the Liber S. Marie de Calchou., presented to the Bannatyne club by the duke of Roxburgh° in 1846. Some pleasing traits of king D.'s personal character—which seems to have been in many ways truly admirable—are preserved in the Eulogium Daridis Regis Scotorum, by his friend St. Allred, abbot of Rievaux, printed in Pinkerton's Vitts Antique Sanctorum Scotia (Loud. 1789). Other instructive materials for the king's life are supplied by the same writer in his tract De Bello Standardi, printed (together with other contemporary accounts of the battle) in Twysden's Historie Anglican Scriptores Deana (Load. 1652); and by Joceline of Fumes in his Vita S. Waltheri (abbot of Melrose, and D.'s stepson), printed by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanetorum, and in a less perfect state in Fordun's Scotichronicon. The remains of D.'s legislation, including the interesting code of the Izges Burgorum, have been care fully collected in the first volume of The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland (Edin. 1844).
King D. is often called St. David. Ile was never formally canonized, or placed in the roll of saints of the Roman Catholic church; but his name was inserted in the calendar prefixed to king Charles Prayer-book for Scotland, printed at Edinburgh in 1637.