Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/340

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clergy of Scotland. The raising of the ten thousand merks treated as the ransom of William was effected by aid of the prelates and barons in an assembly at Edinburgh in 1190, which is one of the steps in the history of the rise of the Scottish parliament.

In his controversy with the pope and in taking advantage of the necessity of Richard Cœur de Lion, William had shown himself an able diplomatist. He did so also in that favourite subject for mediæval diplomacy—royal matrimony. In 1184 William had made proposals of marriage with his cousin Matildis, daughter of Otho, the duke of Saxony, and granddaughter of Henry II. Henry agreed, but the pope, Lucius II, refused the necessary dispensation. Two years later Henry offered him the hand of his cousin Ermengarde, daughter of the Viscount of Beaumont, and, the offer having been accepted, their marriage was celebrated with great pomp at Woodstock in September 1186. Besides her personal dowry of 100l. a year and the services of forty knights, the castle of Edinburgh was restored to Scotland as an inducement to the marriage. By this English connection and the renunciation of the Scottish homage by Richard Cœur de Lion peace between England and Scotland was secured for a century.

Already in the later years of Henry II William had begun to use the opportunity which more amicable relations with England gave him to subdue his rebellious outlying provinces, and to extend the settled boundaries of the Scottish kingdom. In Galloway the death on 1 Jan. 1185 of Gilbert, who had maintained practical independence both of England and Scotland, led to a disputed succession, and Gilbert's nephew Roland, the son of Uchtred, whom Gilbert had murdered, acquired the lordship. Roland had married a daughter of Richard de Morville [q. v.], constable of Scotland, and was favoured by William. Henry II required William to bring Roland to the English court, where in 1186 he took the oath of fealty, and gave his sons as hostages that he would abide the decision of that court as to the claim of his cousin Duncan, the son of Gilbert, to the lordship of Galloway. The claim does not seem to have been pressed, and on Henry's death in 1189 William gave the earldom of Carrick, then part of Galloway, to Duncan on his ceding the lordship of the remainder to Roland, thus securing two vassals and dividing the rebellious province.

In 1187 William turned his attention to the north, where six years before Donald Bane, commonly called MacWilliam, who based his claims on his descent from Malcolm Canmore [q. v.], had raised a formidable rebellion and was supported by many northern nobles in Moravia, the modern shires of Inverness, Elgin, and Banff. He had seized Ross and wasted Moray. In the summer of 1187 William advanced with a large force to Inverness. He wisely included in it the Galwegians under their chief Roland, thus bringing the Celts of the south to oppose the Celts of the north. In the battle of 31 July at the Muir of Mamgarvy on the Upper Spey, probably in Badenoch, MacWilliam was defeated and slain. His death put an end to the revolt, and no general highland rising took place during William's reign until towards its close Guthred, a son of MacWilliam, made a raid from Ireland in the winter of 1211. He was defeated in the following spring by the Earl of Atholl and William Comyn, earl of Buchan, who had been given the command of four thousand men detached from William's own force. He returned in the spring of 1212, and was finally betrayed by his followers and slain by the Earl of Buchan in June of that year.

So completely were the Moray highlands subdued that William was able to advance further north and make Caithness, which then included Sutherland, subject to the Scottish crown. Earl Harald, son of Maddad, earl of Atholl, and grandnephew of Malcolm Canmore, had become sole earl of Orkney, including the Shetlands and Caithness, in 1158, by the death of his co-earl Earl Rognwald. He held the islands under the king of Norway and Caithness under the king of Scotland, but his vassalage to either was constantly disputed and almost nominal. After losing the Shetlands owing to his participation in a dispute about the Norwegian throne, he in 1196 invaded Moray. William went with a great force against him and recovered Moray. Harald took to his ships, and William destroyed his castle at Thurso. The wind drove Harald back to Caithness; he threw himself on the mercy of William, who allowed him to retain half of Caithness on condition of his giving his son Thorfin as a hostage; he conferred the other half on Harald Ungi, a rival claimant to both earldoms. Eventually, on Earl Harald's refusing the conditions imposed by the Scots king, William sold Caithness to Reginald, son of Somerled, king of Man. Reginald overran Caithness, but was defeated by Harald. In 1202 William again invaded Caithness, and Harald was forced to sue for peace, which was granted on condition of his paying every fourth penny of his dues to the Scottish king, amounting to a tribute of two thousand