Why David I of Scotland was a better King than Robert the Bruce
Robert the Bruce was a very successful king of Scotland and I personally am a big fan of his. However, I don’t think he was Scotland’s most successful monarch.
However, he was still unquestionably a great King of Scotland and deserves to be in the conversion for being in one of the best Scottish kings.
His achievements include:
- Uniting the Scots in common cause.
- Successful military defence of Scotland against England and successful raids into England.
- Captured the Isle of Mann.
- Gaining recognition from England and the Papacy of Scotland’s status as an independent Kingdom
However, his reign did lead to several big issues:
- Draining of royal revenues
- Failed foreign policy in Ireland
- Lack of a suitable heir
- Failure to deal with or accommodate ‘The Disinherited’ (Anglo-Scottish lords who sided against Robert during the great cause)
- Sent James Douglas on pilgrimage, robbing Scotland of an ideal Regent during the minority of Robert’s five year old heir.
This would led to the failed reign of his successor, David II.
Let’s look at the reign of Robert’s successor:
- David II became king at the age of five and had eight regents in 12 years.
- He was deposed by Edward III after a series of military defeats in 1332 – 1333. A settlement that didn’t last, but created instability.
- He led a failed invasion of England in 1346, becoming an English prisoner.
- David spend 8 years from 1333 – 1341 in exile in France and 11 years from 1346 – 1357 in captivity in England. His ransom bankrupted Scotland.
- He weak position in Scotland led to him offering to make Edward III his heir.
Robert, of course cannot be held responsible for all these failures, but a combination of a lack of addressing long-term issue and incompetent leadership sent Scotland into a real miserable age, which was defined by incompetent kings, boy kings and absentee kings, along with power hunger uncle-regents, kings being murdered by their subjects and failed attacks on England.
However, even if we are to ignore the negative consequences of Robert’s reign, and just focus on the positives, he is significantly outdone by another King of Scotland, David I.
David I (r. 1124 – 1153)
David, grew up at the Anglo-Norman court in England, he essentially grew up as a Norman Knight and was a protege of Henry I of England, and owed much of his early success to the English king, who was his brother-in-law, marrying David’s sister, Matilda in 1110. Before inheriting Scotland in 1124, he became Prince of the Cumbrians and Earl of Huntingdon. He spend most of his time in England or France and was often seen as Henry I’s right-hand man.
As King of Scots, he was a great success in every metric
He essentially took Scotland from the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages. Here’s a look at his achievements on a social-economic-political level
- He created the first Scottish towns/boroughs, such as Berwick, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Scone, Sterling and Roxborough.
- Introduced native minted coins into the Scottish economy, making a much more efficient economy and opening up Scottish trade to the continent.
- Began the tradition of Scottish Nobles having to give oath of loyalty to him in exchange for their lands, essentially introducing feudalism which centralised royal power.
- Set up Sheriffs and royal justices on the local level to ensure his law was standardised through out his realm and his interests represented.
- Pacified and subjugated Moray.
- Was a great religious patron, founding about 12 monasteries. Many were based upon Cistercian reforms, introducing foreign literate monks to Scotland, who were able to serve the crown as administrators.
- Introduced Cistercian labour reforms, making Southern Scotland into an vital exporter of Sheep Wool within European trading system.
- Defended the Scottish church against the English claim of ecclesiastical overlordship over Scotland
- He was considered a saint, until the 16th century.
- Brought several of the great Scottish noble families from England/Normandy to Scotland, including the Bruce, Stewart and Commyns families.
If that’s not enough, he was Scotland’s most successful Scottish warrior king in fighting against the English.
- In 1136, he led an invasion of England, taking the castles of Carlisle, Alnwick, Norham and Newcastle. This lead to the Treaty of Durham 1136, where David returned his captured castles to King Stephen, in exchange for gaining Carlisle and having his son, Henry, made Earl of Huntingdon and Lord of Doncaster, making Henry one of the wealthiest magnates in England.
- David invaded again in 1139 After one win and one loss in battle against the English, Stephen was pressured into agreeing to make David’s son, Earl of Northumberland, (coresponding to the modern counties of Northumberland, Westmorland, Cumberland and Northern Lancashire).
For both the governance and military side is his reign, he is often seen as a the founder of the Scottish state and the perfect king. It is an uphill task to compare Robert the Bruce to him.
This may lead us to ask, why is Robert the Bruce so much more well know and liked by the Scottish than David I?
I think there are a few reasons for this: firstly on a cultural level, Bruce’s reign resonates more with the Scottish independence campaign, along with the portrayal of him as a freedom fighter in recent popular movies Outlaw King (2018) Robert the Bruce (2019), as well as being the hero at the end of Braveheart (1995). Braveheart actually gives a more accurate portrayal to the dilemmas that most of the Scottish Nobility faced during the ‘Great Cause’ as many where Anglo-Scottish and were magnates in Scotland and England, who saw little benefit to the tearing apart of the two kingdoms.
The Bruce family for example, while they had Scottish titles as Lord of Annandale, they held several English titles, such as Lord of Ireby, Constable of Carlisle Castle and Sheriff of Cumberland. King Robert (the Bruce)’s father was also born in Essex and joined Edward I’s crusade in 1271. These ambiguities are discussed by Robert and his father in Braveheart.
There is also this mythology of Robert being a patriotic Scot, who dedicated himself and his life to the free people of Scotland in opposition to the tyrannical English. The same mythology doesn’t really exist for David, probably because England was not in any real way a threat to his rule in Scotland during his reign. Furthermore, when looking into these narratives of historical oppression from England which is a key part of the Scottish national story, David’s reign saw a reverse of this, he was the one dictating terms to the King of England and he was the one ruthlessly slaughtering the innocent English. This reverse of narratives doesn’t exactly fit within the wider Scottish national story, so it’s more difficult to place David as part of the wider Scottish historical narrative, than it is for Robert. It’s almost as if David is too successful as a king to be seen as part of the Scottish story and part of the common threats that have faced Scotland through out its existence from England.
Furthermore, for David I, he grew up in England, served an English king, served him well and became very wealth because of it. Much of his early success was also often thanks to Henry I’s support of him. He also brought several reforms from England into Scotland and effectively Normanised Scotland, thus is often seen as the destroyer of the Gaelic Scottish kingdom. Thus, it is more difficult for Scots to remove David from his Anglo-Norman identity that he so clearly identified with, than it was for someone like Robert who actually shared to some degree a similar heritage to David.
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