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Stirling Local History Society

4th December 1214 The death of King William (the Lion) in Stirling Castle

The 800th anniversary of the death of King William is significant not least because it brought to a close the longest active reign (49 years) of any Scottish monarch before the Union of the Crowns (for unlike James VI he knew no minority). Born in c. 1143 on the royal estate at Huntingdon, William was the second son of Prince Henry of Scotland, and grandson of David I. With the untimely death of Henry in 1152, William inherited his father’s title of Earl of Northumbria. The following year David I also died and William’s older brother Malcolm (IV) became king at the age of 12. In 1157 Henry II of England reneged on a promise he had previously made to David I and deprived the teenaged Malcolm and William of their claims on Cumbria and Northumbria but allowed Malcolm to keep the earldom of Huntingdon.  Although granted the lordship of Tynedale, retrieving the earldom of Northumbria in full was to become an obsession for William.

He became king on Christmas Eve 1165, after the death of Malcolm from illness. William soon began negotiations with Henry II for Northumbria, but to no avail. An offer of loyalty and support at the time of the Great Revolt in 1173-4 in exchange for the earldom was also refused.  As a result William joined the rebel alliance on the promise (from Henry the Young King) of gaining Northumbria, but was captured at Alnwick in 1174. William was forced into the humiliating public signing of the Treaty of Falaise in order to secure his release. The Treaty made Scotland recognise the overlordship of the English Crown and Church; accept the surrender of the castles of Berwick, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Edinburgh and Stirling (including payment of heavy taxes for the maintenance of their Plantagenet garrisons); and hand over 21 prominent hostages to ensure compliance. Huntingdon and Tynedale were also lost. A contemporary observer noted that with this Treaty a ‘heavy yoke of domination and servitude’ had been laid upon the Scottish kingdom (Barrow 1971: 7).

Still it could have been worse, William remained king and in actual fact Stirling and Jedburgh were left in Scottish hands. William thereafter concentrated on internal affairs such as pacifying rebellions in Galloway, Moray, and Caithness, founding burghs and increasing trade, and on matters of law and administration (which contributed to his historical reputation as the ‘Lion of justice’). The surviving Acts of William indicate that from 1175 onwards Stirling, Perth and Forfar were his most frequented centres of government, with Stirling Castle housing the treasury (Barrow 1971: 28). Despite the ‘heavy yoke’ William and Henry II developed an amicable relationship. In 1184 Huntingdon was returned and in 1186, Edinburgh Castle (as part of William’s wedding dowry). Scotland regained complete freedom following the death of Henry II in 1189 when his successor, Richard I (the Lionheart), annulled the Treaty of Falaise. However this came at the costly price of ten thousand merks, which added to Richard’s crusading funds. Although Richard was mostly preoccupied by the Third Crusade, good relations between the two kings were maintained. William hoped this might lead to an agreement over Northumbria, but none was reached before Richard’s death in 1199. His ambitions were finally extinguished when King John invaded Scotland in 1209 and forced the aging and now ailing king to accept the Treaty of Norham. The Treaty financially crippled Scotland, causing internal troubles and a rebellion in the north which was finally crushed in 1212.

Late in the summer of 1214, William travelled from East Lothian to Moray to make peace with the Earl of Caithness when the severe illness which had been plaguing him resurfaced. By short journeys, the king, physically weak, was brought gradually to Stirling. Writing in the 1440’s Walter Bower speculated that Stirling was chosen by William ‘because of the allevation he might obtain from the healthier air or some sort of affection’ (Watt (ed) 1994; Vol.4: 473). Both may indeed have been factors, William had previously spent significant time recuperating in Stirling in 1212. Here he issued his two final charters, one on the 8th of September and the last on the 25th of November. He died peacefully at around 3am (according to Bower) on Thursday the 4th of December 1214, aged 71. Six days later he was buried at Arbroath Abbey, which he had founded in 1178.

From a Stirling perspective William deserves to be remembered for the creation of what we call today the King’s Park. This is imprecisely dated but occurred within the first decade of his reign (1165-1175). William was deeply absorbed in Anglo-Norman chivalric culture and travelled to France (with Malcolm) on Henry II’s campaigns in 1159, and again (as king) in 1166. Both occasions allowed the young William to witness military action, but also to be involved in elite aristocratic sports such as hunting and tourneying (which was banned in England at the time).  William returned to Scotland in late 1166 with ‘an enhanced chivalric reputation’ (Owen 1997: 35). It is therefore reasonable to imagine that he was inspired by these experiences on the Continent and wasted little time in creating his Park at Stirling, the first of its kind in Scotland, for holding hunts and tournament jousts.  Although the Park has altered considerably over the centuries in size, form, and function it has been a constant and distinctive feature of Stirling since its conception. It provided additional prestige to the royal castle and court in the medieval period and remains an invaluable and treasured space today. It is Stirling’s debt to William and in essence his memorial.

References

Barrow G.W.S (ed), with the collaboration of W. W. Scott 1971 The Acts of William I, King of Scots 1165-1124, at the University Press, Edinburgh.

 Owen D. D. R. 1997 William the Lion, Kingship and Culture 1143-1214, Tuckwell Press Ltd, East Linton.

Watt D. E. R. (ed) 1994 Scotichronicon by Walter Bower, Vol. 4, Aberdeen University Press.

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