avid I (1084-1153), king of Scotland, was the youngest son of Malcolm Canmore and St. Margaret, sister of Edgar the Atheling. He became a prince of Cumbria in 1107, and further increased his power by his marriage with Matilda, Countess of Northampton (1110), becoming thereby an English baron. Having succeeded to the Scottish throne in 1124, he consolidated his realm, and, by the help of Norman knights, created the feudal kingdom of Scotland. The general aim of his domestic policy was to strengthen the Saxon and Norman elements, on whose support he relied. David took up arms on behalf of his neice Matilda in 1135, when Stephen mounted the English throne, and penetrated into England as far as Durham, where peace was made. He undertook a second invasion in 1138 and met with a disastrous defeat at Northallerton, in the Battle of the Standard, and again unsuccessfully invaded England in 1140. Consult Skene’s Celtic Scotland and P. Hume Brown’s History of Scotland. [World Wide Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1935]

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