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The House Of Dunkeld |
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William 'the Lyon'
1165-1214
William I, King of Scots, the second son of Prince Henry and Ada de Warenne was born around 1142\3 and succeeded his brother Malcolm IV in 1165. William was crowned on 24 December. 1165. He was a strongly built man with red hair. He obtained the epithet 'the Lyon' through his adoption of a red lion rampant as his standard, which later was to become the royal standard of the Houses of Dunkeld and Stewart and was known in Gaelic as Uilliam Garbh.
William allied Scotland with England's traditional enemy, the King of France. While the then King of England, Henry II's attention was engaged elsewhere, he seized the opportunity to invade. The Scots were defeated at Alnwick and their king was unhorsed and taken prisoner by Ranulf Glanville. He taken in chains to Newcastle, from where he was moved to Northampton and then onto Normandy. William was subsequently forced to sign the Treaty of Falaise in 1174, placing Scotland under feudal subjection to England.
The King took an English wife in 1186, Ermengarde, grand daughter of Henry I and daughter of Richard, Viscount of Beaumont-le-Maine, the couple, who were married at Woodstock Palace, Oxfordshire, produced four children, the future Alexander II and three daughters, all of which were married into the English aristocracy, Margaret, the eldest of these, born in 1193 married Hubert de Burgh, 1st Earl of Kent, the second daughter, who was born in 1195, to Roger Bigod, the 4th Earl of Norfolk. The youngest daughter, Marjorie, born in 1200, was married to Gilbert Marshall, 4th Earl of Pembroke.
William was at last able to free Scotland from the humiliating situation she had been placed in 1189, when King Richard 'the Lionheart', eager to acquire money for his intended crusade to the Holy Land, agreed to return the castles and renounce his overlordship for 15,000 marks.
William died, old and senile on 12th December, 1214 at Stirling Castle. He was buried at Arbroath Abbey and was succeeded by his son, Alexander II.