fluences made any serious modification of ancient custom. The peaceful
Edgar had surrounded himself with English favourites, and had granted
Saxon charters to Saxon landholders in the Lothians. His brother,
Alexander, made the first efforts to abolish the old Celtic tenure. In
1114, he gave a charter to the monastery of Scone, and not only did the
charter contemplate the direct holding of land from the king, but the
signatories or witnesses described themselves as Earls, not as Mormaers.
The monastery was founded to commemorate the suppression of a revolt of
the Celts of Moray, and the earls who witnessed the charter bore Celtic
names. This policy of taking advantage of rebellions to introduce
English civilization became a characteristic method of the kings of
Scotland. Alexander's successor, David I, set himself definitely to
carry on the work which his brother had begun. He found his opportunity
in the rising of Malcolm MacHeth, Earl of Moray. To this rising we have
already referred in the Introduction. It was the greatest effort made
against the innovations of the anti-national sons of Malcolm Canmore,
and its leader, Malcolm MacHeth, was the representative of a rival line
of kings. David had to obtain the assistance, not only of the
Anglo-Normans by whom he himself was surrounded, but also of some of the
barons of Northumberland and Yorkshire, with whom he had a connection as
Earl of Huntingdon, for the descendant of the Celtic kings of Scotland
was himself an English baron. We have seen that David captured MacHeth
and forfeited the lands of Moray, which he regranted, on feudal terms,
to Anglo-Normans or to native Scots who supported the king's new policy.
The war with England interrupted David's work, as a long struggle with
the Church had prevented his brother, Alexander, from giving full scope
to the principles that both had learned in the English Court; but, by
the end of David's reign, the lines of future development had been quite
clearly laid down. The Celtic Church had almost disappeared. The bishops
of St. Andrews, Dunkeld, Moray, Glasgow, Ross, Caithness, Aberdeen,
Dunblane, Brechin, and Galloway were great royal officers, who
inculcated upon the people the necessity of adopting the new political
and ecclesiastical system. The Culdee monasteries were dying out; north
of the Forth, Scone had been founded by Alexander I as a pioneer of the
new civilization, and, after the defeat of Malcolm MacHeth and the
sett