William the Lion (c.1142–1214): King of Scots, Captive of Alnwick

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

William's reign is far better recorded than those of his predecessors. G. W. S. Barrow's edition of his acts lists hundreds of charters, and the English royal clerk Roger of Howden, who visited Scotland and had informants at Melrose, gives a detailed narrative to about 1200. The Melrose Chronicle and Jordan Fantosme's verse chronicle of the 1173–74 war add more. The weak points are the north and west, where the order of events in the Orkneyinga Saga and the chronicles is confused, and the years after 1200, when a lost St Andrews chronicle survives only in extracts by Wyntoun and Bower. The official texts of the Treaties of Falaise and Norham do not survive and are known from chronicle copies.

A prince of Northumbria

established William was the second son of Henry, earl of Northumberland and earl of Huntingdon, the only son of David I to survive to adulthood, and of Ada de Warenne, a member of a great Anglo-Norman family. The People of Medieval Scotland database gives 1143 as his year of birth; other works give about 1142. Oram puts his age at about twenty-two when he became king in 1165.

established When Earl Henry died in 1152, David I made his eldest grandson, Malcolm, heir to the kingdom and gave William the earldom of Northumberland. In July 1157, at Chester, the sixteen-year-old Malcolm IV surrendered David's conquests in northern England to Henry II. Malcolm received the earldom of Huntingdon; William received only trivial compensation, land worth ten pounds a year in western Northumberland, later the upland lordship of Tynedale. Oram stresses that William was never reconciled to this loss.

An angry young king

established Malcolm IV died at Jedburgh on 9 December 1165, unmarried and childless. William succeeded without challenge and was inaugurated at Scone on Christmas Eve. Within months he pressed Henry II for Northumberland and Cumberland. He followed Henry to Normandy in 1166, appeared at Genest in Brittany during Henry's campaign against Duke Conan, his brother-in-law, and returned with nothing.

established An anonymous letter to Thomas Becket describes Henry at Caen, in a fit of rage when one of his knights spoke well of William, throwing off his clothes and sitting "as if he was in a midden-heap", chewing straw. Oram notes that the writer wished to blacken Henry, but takes the letter as evidence that relations had soured within months of William's accession.

shared In 1168 William sent envoys to Louis VII of France. What they discussed is unknown. The embassy is sometimes called the beginning of the "Auld Alliance", but nothing came of it, and the term is a later one.

established At Windsor in April 1170 William raised Northumberland again and was again refused. His younger brother David was knighted by Henry. When Henry had his eldest son crowned as the Young King in 1170, William did homage to the younger Henry as earl of Huntingdon.

The war of 1173–74

established In 1173 the Young King, his brothers Richard and Geoffrey and their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, rose against Henry II with the support of Louis VII. The Young King promised William everything Malcolm IV had given up. When Henry II spurned the Scots' own proposals, William accepted. He invaded in August 1173, failed to take Wark and Carlisle, and harried the bishopric of Durham and north Yorkshire before Henry's justiciar, Richard de Lucy, drove him back into Lothian and burned Berwick. A truce followed.

established In 1174 William invaded again, while his brother David led the rebels in the Midlands. In the west he took Liddel, Brough and Appleby but not Carlisle. In Northumberland he took Warkworth and Harbottle, but Wark, Prudhoe and Alnwick held out. He dispersed most of his army to harry the countryside and stayed with a small force outside Alnwick.

established On 13 July 1174 a party of Henry II's loyal northern barons surprised William with only a small retinue and captured him. Contemporary accounts, including Jordan Fantosme's, name Ranulf de Glanvill among their leaders. The capture effectively ended the rebellion in England. William was brought to Henry at Northampton and then taken to Normandy, where he was held at Falaise.

established The day before his capture, Henry II had done public penance at the tomb of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Becket had been murdered by Henry's knights in December 1170 and was quickly hailed as a martyr. Many, including William himself, believed the saint had delivered the Scottish king into Henry's hands.

The Treaty of Falaise

established On 8 December 1174, with the advice of his nobles and prelates, William accepted terms at Falaise. He became Henry's liege man for Scotland and his other lands. His lay nobles were to give homage and fealty, and his clergy fealty, to Henry as their liege lord. The castles of Berwick, Jedburgh, Roxburgh, Edinburgh and Stirling were to be handed over, garrisoned by the English at Scottish expense, and the sons of leading earls were given as hostages. The terms were ratified at York in August 1175. One clause required the Scottish Church to give the English Church such subjection "as it should do".

shared Historians disagree on how heavy this was. Older accounts called it the feudal subjection of Scotland. A. A. M. Duncan pointed out that the treaty never calls Scotland a fief or says it is "held" of the English king. Oram describes it as a "light touch" settlement: Henry demanded no troops or money and heard no appeals from Scottish courts. But the magnates' oaths bound them more tightly to Henry than to William, and the treaty limited William's freedom to deal with his own subjects. The official copies were returned to the Scots in 1189 and probably destroyed; the text survives through Roger of Howden.

established Galloway took advantage of the capture. Fergus's sons, Uhtred and Gillebrigte, threw off Scottish lordship, killed or expelled colonists and offered Henry II their homage directly. Gillebrigte then killed Uhtred. At York in 1175 William's submission was made explicitly for Scotland and Galloway. In October 1176 Gillebrigte made his own peace with Henry at Feckenham and paid 1,000 merks, then drove out every man who held land in Galloway of William. William could do nothing without Henry's leave.

Arbroath and St Thomas

established In 1178 William founded the Tironensian abbey of Arbroath and dedicated it to St Thomas the Martyr. Oram argues that William was genuinely penitent and saw his capture as the saint's punishment. He endowed the abbey richly and paid for one of the largest monastic churches in his kingdom, larger than most Scottish cathedrals. He and his son sought relics of St Thomas for it. His decision to be buried at Arbroath rather than Dunfermline, the usual royal burial church, shows the strength of that devotion.

Rivals for the throne: the MacWilliams

established The main domestic challenge came from Donald MacWilliam, son of William son of Duncan II, who represented the senior line of Malcolm III. Howden records that in 1181, while William was with Henry II in Normandy and England, "certain powerful men" of Scotland invited Donald back and royal control of the north collapsed. William had already campaigned in Ross in 1179 with his brother David, building castles at Dunskeath on the Cromarty Firth and Redcastle on the Beauly Firth.

shared Oram argues that Donald had wide support north of the Forth and that William's authority west of the Spey had all but collapsed for some years. He points to the case of Gillecolm, marshal of the earl of Strathearn, who betrayed a castle called "Heryn", probably Auldearn, to the king's enemies. He thinks Harald Maddadsson, earl of Orkney and Caithness, was one of Donald's backers, though some historians doubt this.

shared The challenge was dynastic. Oram, following Dauvit Broun and others, rejects the older view of a "Celtic reaction" against Anglo-Norman change. The MacWilliams were a legitimate branch of the royal house whose ancestor, Duncan II, was later called a bastard to discredit them. William's family promoted that claim.

established In November 1186 one "Adam son of Donald", called "the king's outlaw", was captured at Coupar Angus Abbey by the earl of Atholl. One of his men was beheaded before the high altar and fifty-eight others burned in the abbot's lodging. Adam's identity is uncertain. In the summer of 1187 William led an army to Inverness. Despite reports of men in the host who "loved the king not at all", a force under Roland of Galloway surprised Donald at "Mam Garvia" in Ross, possibly near Garve, killed him and brought his head to the king.

established The next claimant, Donald's son Godred (or Guthred), landed in Ross in 1211 with Scottish and Irish support. William needed two expeditions and new castles to contain him, and turned to King John, who sent mercenaries. Godred was eventually betrayed by his own men and executed in 1212.

The St Andrews dispute and the Scottish Church

established In 1178 the canons of St Andrews elected John "the Scot" as bishop without consulting the king. William had his chaplain Hugh consecrated instead. A papal legate deposed Hugh and had John consecrated, and William drove John into exile. In 1181 papal legates excommunicated William and placed Scotland under interdict. The new pope, Lucius III, lifted the sentences in March 1182. Hugh kept St Andrews and John became bishop of Dunkeld. Oram calls the outcome a triumph for royal influence over elections: William's later bishops of St Andrews, Roger de Beaumont and William Malveisin, were both his choices.

established At the same time the Scottish Church escaped English control. In 1176 Pope Alexander III's bull Super anxietatibus told the Scottish bishops to obey no metropolitan but the pope until York proved its claim. In 1192 Celestine III's bull Cum universi made the Scottish Church, apart from Whithorn, a "special daughter" of Rome with no archbishop between it and the pope. A. D. M. Barrell has argued that the bull was first issued in 1189. There was still no archbishopric for St Andrews.

Galloway and Henry II's last years

established Gillebrigte of Galloway died on 1 January 1185. His nephew Roland, son of Uhtred, who had married the daughter of William's constable, at once invaded his lands. William almost certainly connived. Henry II was furious. In 1186 he detained William at Oxford, came to Carlisle and forced Roland to submit, reserving the claim of Gillebrigte's son Duncan to his own court. In March 1185 Henry restored the earldom of Huntingdon to William, who granted it to David.

established William had hoped to marry Henry's granddaughter Matilda of Saxony, but Henry blocked the match. Instead Henry arranged his marriage to Ermengarde, daughter of Richard, vicomte of Beaumont. They married at Woodstock on 5 September 1186 in a ceremony led by Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, and Edinburgh Castle was returned to William as part of her dowry.

shared In 1188 Henry II asked the Scots to contribute to the Saladin Tithe for a crusade. William offered 4,000 merks for the return of Berwick and Roxburgh, but his assembled nobles and prelates refused to pay the tax. Duncan read this as an assertion of Scottish independence. Oram suggests William may have sheltered behind his barons' refusal so that he could not be accused of disloyalty to his lord.

The Quitclaim of Canterbury

established Henry II died on 6 July 1189. His son Richard I, eager to leave on crusade, met William at Canterbury in early December. William did homage for his English lands, and for 10,000 merks of silver Richard returned Berwick and Roxburgh and released William from everything Henry had extorted. The document, known as the Quitclaim of Canterbury, is dated 5 December 1189. Oram calls it "a stunning reversal of fifteen years of humiliation and subjection". The English garrisons left early in 1190.

established William then worked to win Northumberland by diplomacy. In 1191 and 1193 he married two illegitimate daughters to the Northumbrian barons Robert de Ros of Wark and Eustace de Vescy of Alnwick. He refused to support Richard's brother John during Richard's captivity and contributed 2,000 merks to Richard's ransom. In April 1194 he asked Richard for the northern counties and offered 15,000 merks for Northumberland; Richard would sell the lands but not the castles, and William refused.

established When William fell seriously ill in 1195, he proposed that his daughter Margaret should marry Otto of Brunswick, Richard's nephew, and inherit the kingdom. The Scottish magnates objected that female succession was not their custom while a male heir, Earl David, was alive. A later plan to exchange Lothian for Northumberland and Cumberland through the same marriage collapsed when Ermengarde became pregnant. The child was a daughter. Their son Alexander was born at Haddington on 24 August 1198, and in October 1201 the magnates swore fealty to him.

The north: Moray, Ross and Caithness

established From the mid-1190s William's chief northern opponent was Harald Maddadsson, earl of Orkney and Caithness, and his son Thorfinnr, whose mother was a daughter of Malcolm MacHeth, earl of Ross. In 1196 William was at Elgin with an army after Thorfinnr seized Moray. In 1197 he marched to Thurso, where Harald submitted. When Harald failed to hand over Thorfinnr, William imprisoned him until his men surrendered the son.

established In 1199 William granted Caithness to Ranald son of Somerled, a kinsman of the Orkney earls, in return for payment. Harald drove out Ranald's men and in about 1201 seized Bishop John of Caithness at Scrabster, blinded him and slit his tongue. William's revenge fell on Thorfinnr, a hostage since 1197, who was blinded and castrated and died in prison. A winter campaign and the threat of a fleet brought Harald to terms, and in spring 1202 he was restored as earl at Perth under Scottish lordship.

shared Oram's judgement is that, for all its cost, this long conflict forced the crown to carry its authority by force of arms to the far north, and that after 1202 there was no chance of Caithness slipping from Scottish control. William also strengthened his hold on the west. A royal castle at Ayr was built in 1197, and Roland of Galloway's admission to the Morville lordship of Cunningham in 1196 placed William's chief western agent on the Clyde coast.

King John and the Treaty of Norham

established When Richard died in April 1199, William demanded the northern counties from John and threatened invasion. According to Howden, he abandoned the plan after a vision of St Margaret at Dunfermline warned him not to invade. French support collapsed when Arthur of Brittany made peace with John, and in November 1200 William did homage to John at Lincoln. His claim to the northern counties was deferred and never settled.

established Relations broke down in the spring of 1209. Oram dismisses the often-cited quarrel over a new English castle at Tweedmouth as "a red herring" and gives more weight to rumours that William was negotiating a marriage for one of his daughters with Philip II of France. John marched north with an army. In the summer of 1209 at Norham, William agreed to pay a large sum, put at 15,000 merks in the later Treaty of York and between 9,000 and 15,000 in the chronicles, and to hand over his daughters Margaret and Isabella for John to marry, Margaret to John's son Henry. Leading Scots gave hostages and the prince Alexander did homage to John for the Scottish king's English lands. The daughters were handed over at Carlisle on 16 August.

established In 1212, facing Godred MacWilliam, William made a further treaty with John at Durham on 2 February, with Queen Ermengarde mediating. John was given the right to arrange Alexander's marriage within six years, and each king promised to support the succession of the other's heir. John knighted Alexander in March 1212 and sent mercenaries north. Oram argues that, contrary to the traditional picture of bitter resentment, good relations held into 1213.

Last years and death

established In his last years William was often ill, and Ermengarde and Alexander took on more of the work of government. In August 1214, near seventy, he travelled to Moray to make a new settlement with Jón, earl of Orkney, whose daughter came south as a hostage. The journey exhausted him. He reached Stirling on 8 September and could go no further. He died there on 4 December 1214 with his wife, son and many nobles present. Alexander was inaugurated at Scone the next day. William was buried at Arbroath on 10 December.

established His legitimate children were Margaret, later countess of Kent; Isabella, later countess of Norfolk; Alexander II; and Marjorie, later countess of Pembroke. He also had several illegitimate children, including Isabella, Ada, Margaret and Robert of London.

"The Lion"

shared William was not called "the Lion" in his lifetime. Some Gaelic sources name him Uilleam Garbh, "William the Rough". The Latin chronicler John of Fordun, in the later fourteenth century, praised him as a "lion of justice", and the byname grew from that kind of later praise.

traditional It is often said that William adopted the red lion rampant on a gold field as the royal arms of Scotland, and that this gave him his byname. No trace of a lion can be made out on William's surviving seal. The first clear lion rampant appears on the seal of his son Alexander II. William may have used a lion, but it cannot be proved from his own records.

Reputation

shared Older histories portrayed William as a rash and unlucky king, obsessed with Northumberland and humbled twice by English kings. Oram accepts that his persistence over Northumberland was remarkable, and that his 1195 succession scheme put personal grievance above the kingdom's interest, but he stresses his achievements: the recovery of independence in 1189, the defence of royal control over the Church, the defeat of the MacWilliams and the extension of royal power into Ross, Caithness and the west. Barrow, editing his acts, and D. D. R. Owen, in William the Lion, 1143–1214: Kingship and Culture (1997), also present him as a more capable ruler than the old picture allowed.

• William reigned for forty-nine years, longer than any Scottish king before James VI.
• He was captured outside Alnwick the day after Henry II did penance at Becket's tomb.
• Arbroath Abbey, which he founded for St Thomas Becket, later gave its name to the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320.
• Edinburgh Castle was returned to him as part of his wife's dowry in 1186.
• He paid 10,000 merks in 1189 to free Scotland from the Treaty of Falaise.
• In 1195 he proposed that his daughter should inherit the throne, and his nobles refused.
• His son and heir was not born until William was in his mid-fifties.

• Myth: William was known as "the Lion" in his lifetime. The byname is later; some Gaelic sources call him "the Rough".
• Myth: William created the lion rampant. No lion can be seen on his seal. The earliest clear example is on his son Alexander II's seal.
• Myth: the Treaty of Falaise made Scotland an English fief. The treaty never uses that term. It made William Henry's liege man and gave Henry great influence, but Henry took no troops, money or appeals from Scotland.
• Myth: the MacWilliam risings were a "Celtic revolt" against Norman ways. They were bids for the throne by a legitimate branch of the royal house.
• Myth: the 1168 embassy to France began the Auld Alliance. Nothing is known of the talks and no alliance resulted.
• Disputed: the quarrel over Tweedmouth in 1209. Often given as the cause of the crisis with John; Oram regards it as a red herring and points to rumours of a French marriage.
• Disputed: the date of the Quitclaim. The homage at Canterbury is dated 2 December 1189 by some accounts and the charter 5 December.
• Disputed: the sum paid at Norham. Chronicles give figures between 9,000 and 15,000 merks.