WILLIAM I., surnamed THE LION, King of Scotland; born in 1143, a grandson of David I., and brother of Malcolm IV., whom he succeeded in 1165. Whence he derived his designa tion is one of the mysteries of history. His predecessors had long contested with the Kings of England the sovereignty of Northumberland and other districts of what is now the N. of England. Under Malcolm these claims were virtually abandoned and the king of Scots received, as a sort of equivalent for 'them the earldom of Huntingdon and other valuable estates. William had still, however, a hankering after the North umbrian districts. He attended Henry of England in his continental wars, and is supposed, when doing so, to have pressed for a portion at least of the old disputed districts. In his disappoint ment he invaded them after the example of his ancestors. On July 13, 1174, he fell, near Alnwick Castle, into the hands of an English party. For security he
was conveyed to Normandy, and there he consented, as the price of his liber ation, to perform that homage for his kingdom which the English kings so long in vain attempted to exact from the government of Scotland. The treaty of Falaise, as the transaction was termed, from the place where it was adjusted, was revoked in the year 1189 by Richard I. of England in consideration of a pay ment of 10,000 marks, which he wanted for his celebrated expedition to Palestine. William had several disputes with the Church, but he was one of the early benefactors of the regular ecclesiastics and founded in 1178 the great abbey of Arbroath, which he dedicated to Thomas Becket, slain eight years earlier. William died in Stirling in 1214.