David I / Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim (1085-1153)

David was the youngest surviving son of Malcolm III and his second wife, Margaret of Wessex.

In 1093 King Máel Coluim and David's brother Edward were killed at the river Aln during an invasion of Northumberland. According to later medieval tradition, the three brothers were in Edinburgh when they were besieged by their uncle, Donald III.

It is likely that Donald had travelled down to Edinburgh to prevent Margaret initiating a claim to the throne on behalf of one of her surviving sons, and it is probable that Donald had been crowned king at Scone already. It is not certain what happened next, but an insertion in the Chronicle of Melrose states that Donald forced his three nephews into exile, though Donald was allied to another, Edmund. John of Fordun wrote, centuries later, that an escort into England was arranged for them by their maternal uncle Edgar Ætheling.

William Rufus, King of the English, opposed Donald's accession to Scotland. He sent David's half-brother Duncan into Scotland with an army at his disposal. Duncan became Duncan II but was killed within the year, and so in 1097 William sent Edgar, David's brother, into Scotland. The latter was more successful, and was crowned King by the end of 1097.

During the power struggle of 1093–97, David was in England. From 1097 until 1103 David's presence cannot be accounted for in detail, but he appears to have been in Scotland for some part of the 1090s. When William Rufus was killed and Henry Beauclerc seized power as Henry I, Henry married David's sister, Matilda. From that point onwards David was an important figure at the English court. Despite his Gaelic background by the end of his stay in England David had become a fully fledged Normanised prince. William of Malmesbury wrote that it was in this period that David "rubbed off all tarnish of Scottish barbarity through being polished by intercourse and friendship with us".

David's brother, King Edgar, had visited William Rufus in May 1099 and bequeathed to David extensive territory to the south of the river Forth. On January 8, 1107, Edgar died. It has been assumed that David took control of his inheritance, the southern lands bequeathed by Edgar, soon after the latter's death. David, moreover, gained the title Prince of the Cumbrians, as attested in David's charters from this era. Although this was a large slice of Scotland south of the river Forth, the region of Galloway-proper was entirely outside David's control.

King Henry's backing was enough to force King Alexander to recognise his younger brother's claims. This probably occurred without bloodshed, but through threat of force nonetheless.

David may perhaps have had varying degrees of overlordship in parts of Dumfriesshire, Ayrshire, Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire. In the lands between Galloway and the Principality of Cumbria, David eventually set up large-scale marcher lordships, such as Annandale for Robert de Brus, Cunningham for Hugh de Morville, and possibly Strathgryfe for Walter fitz Alan.

In the later part of 1113, King Henry gave David the hand of Maud of Huntingdon, daughter and heiress of Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland. The marriage brought with it the "Honour of Huntingdon", a lordship scattered through the shires of Northampton, Huntingdon, and Bedford; within a few years, Matilda de Senlis bore to him a son, whom David named Henry after his patron.

The new territories David gained control of were a valuable supplement to his income and manpower, increasing his status as one of the most powerful magnates in the Kingdom of the English. Moreover, Matilda's father Waltheof had been Earl of Northumberland, a defunct lordship which had covered the far north of England and included Cumberland and Westmorland, Northumberland-proper, as well as overlordship of the bishopric of Durham. After King Henry's death David would revive the claim to this earldom for his son Henry.

David's activities and whereabouts after 1114 are not always easy to trace. He spent much of his time outside his principality, in England and in Normandy. Despite the death of his sister, Henry I's wife, on May 1, 1118, David still possessed the favour of King Henry when, in 1124, his brother Alexander died, leaving Scotland without a king.

David's claim to be heir to the Scottish kingdom was doubtful. David was the youngest of eight sons of the fifth from last king. Two more recent kings had produced sons. William fitz Duncan, son of Duncan II, and Malcolm, son of Alexander, both preceded David in terms of the slowly emerging principles of primogeniture. However, unlike David, neither had the support of Henry. So when Alexander died in 1124, the aristocracy of Scotland could either accept David as King, or face war with both David and Henry I.

Alexander's son Malcolm chose war. Orderic Vitalis reported that he "affected to snatch the kingdom from [David], and fought against him two sufficiently fierce battles; but David, who was loftier in understanding and in power and wealth, conquered him and his followers". Malcolm escaped unharmed into areas of Scotland not yet under David's control, and in those areas gained shelter and aid. In spring of the same year David was crowned King of Scots at Scone.

Outside his Cumbrian principality and the southern fringe of Scotland-proper, David exercised little power in the 1120s, and in the words of Richard Oram, was "king of Scots in little more than name". He was probably in that part of Scotland he did rule for most of the time between late 1127 and 1130. However, he was at the court of Henry in 1126 and in early 1127, and returned to Henry's court in 1130, serving as a judge at Woodstock for the treason trial of Geoffrey de Clinton. It was in this year that David's wife, Matilda of Huntingdon, died. Possibly as a result of this, and while David was still in southern England, Scotland-proper rose up in arms against him.

The instigator was his nephew Malcolm, who now had the support of Óengus of Moray. King Óengus was David's most powerful vassal, a man who, as grandson of King Lulach of Scotland, even had his own claim to the kingdom. The rebel Scots had advanced into Angus, where they were met by David's Mercian constable, Edward; a battle took place at Stracathro near Brechin where Óengus died though Malcolm escaped to cause a period of civil war.

It appears that David asked for and obtained extensive military aid from his patron, King Henry. A large fleet and a large army of Norman knights, including Walter l'Espec, were sent by Henry to Carlisle in order to assist David's attempt to root out his Scottish enemies. The fleet seems to have been used in the Irish Sea, the Firth of Clyde and the entire Argyll coast, where Malcolm was probably at large among supporters. In 1134 Malcolm was captured and imprisoned in Roxburgh Castle.

In this period David appointed his nephew William fitz Duncan to succeed Óengus, perhaps in compensation for the exclusion from the succession to the Scottish throne caused by the coming of age of David's son Henry. David also founded Urquhart Priory, possibly as a "victory monastery", and assigned to it a percentage of his cain (tribute) from Argyll.

During this period too, a marriage was arranged between the son of Matad, Mormaer of Atholl, and the daughter of Haakon Paulsson, Earl of Orkney. The marriage temporarily secured the northern frontier of the Kingdom, and held out the prospect that a son of one of David's mormaers could gain Orkney and Caithness for the Kingdom of Scotland. Thus, by the time the man who made all this possible for David, Henry I, died on December 1, 1135, David had more of Scotland under his control than ever before.

While fighting King Stephen and attempting to dominate northern England in the years following 1136, David was continuing his drive for control of the far north of Scotland. In 1139, his cousin, the five year old Harald Maddadsson, was given the title of "Earl" and half the lands of the earldom of Orkney, in addition to Scottish Caithness. Throughout the 1140s Caithness and Sutherland were brought back under the Scottish zone of control. Sometime before 1146 David appointed a native Scot called Aindréas to be the first Bishop of Caithness, a bishopric which was based at Halkirk, near Thurso, in an area which was ethnically Scandinavian.

David's hostility to Stephen can be interpreted as an effort to uphold the intended inheritance of Henry I, the succession of his daughter Matilda. David carried out his wars in her name, joined her when she arrived in England, and later knighted her son, the future Henry II. However, David was an independence-loving king trying to build a "Scoto-Northumbrian" realm by seizing the most northerly parts of the English kingdom. In this perspective, David's support for Matilda was used as a pretext for land-grabbing. David's maternal descent from the House of Wessex and his son Henry's maternal descent from the Saxon Earls of Northumberland further encouraged such a project which only came to an end after Henry II ordered David's child successor Malcolm IV to hand over the most important of David's gains.

Perhaps the greatest blow to David's plans came on July 12, 1152 when Henry, Earl of Northumberland, David's only son and successor, died. He had probably been suffering from some kind of illness for a long time. David had under a year to live, and he may have known that he was not going to be alive much longer. David quickly arranged for his grandson Malcolm to be made his successor, and for his younger grandson William to be made Earl of Northumberland. Donnchad I, Mormaer of Fife, the senior magnate in Scotland, was appointed as rector, or regent, and took the 11 year-old Malcolm around Scotland on a tour to meet and gain the homage of his future Gaelic subjects. David's health began to fail seriously in the Spring of 1153, and on May 24, 1153, David died.

He was succeeded by his grandson, Malcolm.