him. William, knowing that he was not able to oppose them, retired to Alnwick, to which place he immediately laid siege; but he acted in so careless a manner, that his enemies, having dressed a party of their soldiers in Scottish habits, took him prisoner, and carried him, with his feet tied under the belly of a horse, to Richmond Castle, in Yorkshire. He was then taken in chains to Henry, at Northampton, who ordered him to be transported to the castle of Falaise, in Normandy, where he was shut up with other state prisoners. Soon after this, a reconciliation took place between the king of England and his sons, and the prisoners on both sides were set at liberty, except William, who bore his confinement with great impatience. Henry took advantage of this, to make him pay homage for the whole kingdom of Scotland, and acknowledge that he held it only as a dependency on the crown of England; and, for security, he was obliged to deliver up all the principal forts in Scotland to Henry; and at the same time he agreed to pay the English soldiers who were put into the forts. The king's brother, David, with twenty barons, who were present at the signing of this degrading convention, were given up to Henry as hostages of William's good faith; after which he was set at liberty, and returned to Scotland. The affairs of Scotland were now in the greatest confusion: the

people of Galloway, at the head of whom were two noblemen, or chiefs, called Othred and Gilbert, had taken the opportunity of asserting their independence of the crown of Scotland; and, having expelled all the Scottish officers from the country, they destroyed all the forts, which William had built there, and put all foreigners to death. In the mean time, the two chiefs quarrelled, and Gilbert, having murdered Othred, applied to the king of England for protection, offering to put himself and his people under his command, and to pay him 2000 marks of silver yearly, with five hundred cows, and as many pigs, by way of tribute. Henry, however, not wishing to disoblige the king of Scotland, refused to have any thing to do with him: on which, William ordered his general, Gilchrist, to march against Gilbert; which he did with so much success, that the latter was entirely defeated, and the county of Galloway again brought under the dominion of Scotland. Very soon after this victory, Gilchrist fell under the displeasure of William, whose sister Matilda he had married. Becoming jealous of her, he had put her to death, at the village of Maynes, near Dundee; and the king was so much incensed at the affront thus put upon himself, that he summoned Gilchrist to take his trial for the murder. The general, however, would not appear; and his estates were forfeited, his castles demol

ished, and himself was banished. He took refuge in England; but as it had been agreed in the convention between the two kings, that neither of them should protect the rebellious subjects of the other, Gilchrist was forced to return to Scotland with his two sons. There they were exposed to all the miseries of poverty, and in constant fear of being discovered, so that they were obliged to skulk from place to place. William, on his return from an expedition against an usurper, whom he had defeated, happened to observe three strangers, who, though disguised like peasants, appeared by their noble mien to be above the common rank; and he was confirmed in this idea, by seeing them turn out of the high-road, and endeavour to avoid notice. He ordered them to be seized, and brought before him; when the oldest, who was Gilchrist himself, fell on his knees, and gave such a history of his misfortunes, as drew tears from the eyes of all present; upon which the king restored him to all his former honours, and gave him back all his estates. The Scots continued in subjection to the English, till Richard Coeur de Lion came to the throne; and he, being a man of romantic valour, undertook a croisade to the Holy Land, against the Turks, with very great zeal. To secure the quiet of his kingdom during his absence, he determined to make the king of

Scotland his friend; and nothing appeared to him so likely to effect this purpose as releasing him -and his subjects from their subjection, which even the English considered as very unjust. Yet, he determined not to lose so good an opportunity of supplying himself with a sum of money, which he much wanted for his expensive and dangerous undertaking. He therefore made William pay him 10,000 marks of silver for this release; after which he entered into a written agreement, which is still in being, wherein he acknowledged that “all the acts of submission from William to the crown of England, had been extorted from him by unprecedented wrongs and duresse." This transaction took place in the year 1189. The generosity of Richard Coeur de Lion to William met with a grateful return; for, when Richard was imprisoned by the emperor of Germany, on his return through that country from the Holy Land, the king of Scotland sent an army to assist the regency against Richard's rebellious brother John, who had wickedly usurped the throne of England. For this, Richard owned himself greatly indebted; and the two monarchs continued in friendship as long as Richard lived. Some differences happened with John, when he became king of England, but they were all settled to the satisfaction of both parties; and William remained a faithful ally of

the English monarch till his death, which happened in the year 1214, after a reign of fortynine years.

CHAPTER IX.

ALEXANDER III.

Began to reign, 1249. Died, 1285. Aged 44.

ALEXANDER the Second succeeded his father, William, at the age of sixteen, and was engaged in constant warfare with John, king of England. On the death of John, however, he entered upon terms of friendship with Henry the Third, whose sister, the princess Joan, he married. As long as she lived, the English and Scots were very good friends; but in the year 1239, queen Joan died without children, and Alexander soon after married a young and beautiful French lady, who brought him a son, named Alexander; and from that time many differences arose between the two courts, though no hostilities were commenced on either side during the life of Alexander, who died in the year 1249, in the 35th year of his reign. Immediately after the death of his father, Alexander the Third ascended the throne; and is the first of the