35. CONFLICT AND CONSOLIDATION IN SCOTLAND (TWELFTH CENTURY)
INTRODUCTION
The royal dynasty descended from Malcolm III Canmore survived to rule in Scotland until 1290, when the principal line died out with the demise of PRINCESS MARGARET, “Maid of Norway.” KING WILLIAM I “THE LION” (r. 1165–1214) was the grandson of King David I; he succeeded to the throne after the death of his brother Malcolm IV. King William was determined to consolidate royal power throughout Scotland and to extend his influence into northern England: he hoped to annex Northumberland. Although he was able to gain control of some English territory by helping to fund King Richard I’s crusade, the native leaders of western Scotland resisted his encroachments, and there were two rebellions, in 1179 and 1181, against him. The second rebellion was led by Donald MacWilliam, a descendent of King Duncan II (son of Malcolm III and his first wife—or concubine—Ingibiorg Finnsdottir, who ruled briefly in 1094), who was also known, like his ancestor, as Donald Ban (Donald the Fair). King William put down such rebellions brutally—a technique of rule that did not always mete criticism in the chronicle sources.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
Scotland was an ethnically diverse portion of Britain with a highly decentralized political structure. The earls, especially those on the outer fringes of the kingdom, had virtual sovereign authority in their regions and it is unclear how effectively the kings of Scotland could interfere or intervene in them. Nevertheless, the kings from the eleventh century maintained an agenda to consolidate royal rule throughout Scotland, by either fortuitous marriages, diplomacy, or warfare. They were also, for much of the time between the Norman Conquest and the fourteenth century, considered to be subject to the overlordship of the king of England, although English kings varied in their demands of homage and fealty.
Document 1: The Revolt of Donald MacWilliam
Also in this year William king of Scotland, together with his brother David earl of Huntingdon and a great army, advanced into Ross against MacWilliam, whose real name was Donald Ban. There he fortified two castles, Dunskeath and Etherdouer. Having fortified these, he returned to the southern parts of his realm. But seven years after that, since Donald Ban continued in his customary wickedness, the king advanced into Moray with a large army, a very strong force, against this same adversary Donald Ban. Donald [boasted] that he was of royal descent, the son of William, the son of Duncan the Bastard, who was the son of the great king Malcolm, the husband of St. Margaret. Relying on the treachery of some disloyal subjects, he had first of all by insolent usurpation forcibly removed from his king the whole earldom of Ross. He subsequently held the whole of Moray for a considerable time, and by employing fire and slaughter had seized the greater part of the kingdom, moving all about all of it, and aspiring to have it under his control.
While the king with his army was staying in the town of Inverness, and had been harrying Donald Ban and his supporters with daily raids for booty and plunder, it chanced one day that when he had sent out his men as usual, up to two thousand strong, to reconnoiter and take booty across the moors and the countryside, some of those who were serving with the king’s army suddenly and unexpectedly came upon MacWilliam as he was resting with his [exhausted] troops on a moor near Moray called “Mam Garvia.” When MacWilliam saw that the king’s troops were few in comparison with his own, he hurriedly joined battle with them, and charged the royal forces. They bravely resisted all his efforts, and because they trusted in their righteousness of their cause, continued to resist courageously. With God’s help they cut down MacWilliam and five hundred of his men, and put the rest to flight, on Friday 31 July, thus repaying him with a just reward for his evil deeds. They sent his head to the king to be displayed to the whole army.
Source: Bower, Walter. A History Book for Scots. Edited by D. E. R. Watt. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1998. P. 111.
AFTERMATH
King William I’s reign was very long—indeed, long enough to span the rebellions against King Henry II in England, as well as the reigns of Richard I and John, before the baronial rebellion of 1215. His longevity made it possible for him to stretch royal authority farther into the northern and western reaches of Scotland than any of his predecessors, but it was still only a partial victory. The native earls—those, at least, whose marriages did not connect them to the king or to his Anglo-Norman-based court—remained significantly independent and the northern isles remained in the nominal control of Scandinavian kings. However, William I took significant steps to associate the kings of Scotland more closely with their English royal neighbor, especially through marriage. His son ALEXANDER II was married to Joan of England, daughter of King John and ISABELLE OF ANGOULÊME; Alexander’s son by his second wife, Marie de Coucy, King ALEXANDER III, married Margaret of England, daughter of King Henry III and ELEANOR OF PROVENCE. These royal connections helped stabilize relations between the two kingdoms in profitable ways in the thirteenth century. They were to be destabilized by the dynastic conflict that followed the death of Alexander III’s designated heir, his granddaughter Margaret of Norway.
ASK YOURSELF
Why would there be regionally based rebellions in Scotland against the king?
How would sending Donald MacWilliam’s head to the king be considered a politically astute act?
In what way was the church in Scotland involved in this conflict, according to the chronicler?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
Compare the description of these battles in Scotland to those in England, as presented in the readings above.
Consider the level of violence directed at elites in the battles between the competing Scots armies. Battles by the late eleventh century often included the ransoming of elites rather than their deaths. Why is this not happening in Scotland?
Would William I be considered a strong king or a weak king on the basis of this excerpt? Consider the political implications of his victory over Donald MacWilliam.
Further Information
Oram, Richard. Domination and Lordship: Scotland, 1070–1230. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011.
Owen, D. D. R. William the Lion, 1143–1214: Kingship and Culture. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1997.
Stevenson, J. H. “The Law of the Throne: Tanistry and the Introduction of the Law of Primogeniture: A Note on the Succession of the Kings of Scotland from Kenneth MacAlpin to Robert Bruce.” The Scottish Historical Review 25, no. 97 (1927): 1–12.