Ambition to recover the northern English counties revealed itself in
the overtures of William the Lion,—Malcolm's brother and
successor,—for an alliance between Scotland and France. “The auld
Alliance” now dawned, with rich promise of good and evil. In hopes of
French aid, William invaded Northumberland, later laid siege to
Carlisle, and on July 13, 1174, was surprised in a morning mist and
captured at Alnwick. Scotland was now kingless; Galloway rebelled, and
William, taken a captive to Falaise in Normandy, surrendered absolutely
the independence of his country, which, for fifteen years, really was a
fief of England. When William was allowed to go home, it was to fight
the Celts of Galloway, and subdue the pretensions, in Moray, of the
MacWilliams, descendants of William, son of Duncan, son of Malcolm
Canmore.
During William's reign (1188) Pope Clement III. decided that the
Scottish Church was subject, not to York or Canterbury, but to Rome.
Seven years earlier, defending his own candidate for the see of St
Andrews against the chosen of the Pope, William had been
excommunicated, and his country and he had unconcernedly taken the
issue of an Interdict. The Pope was too far away, and William feared
him no more than Robert Bruce was to do.
By 1188, William refused to pay to Henry II. a “Saladin Tithe” for a
crusade, and in 1189 he bought from Richard I., who needed money for a
crusade, the abrogation of the Treaty of Falaise. He was still
disturbed by Celts in Galloway and the north, he still hankered after
Northumberland, but, after preparations for war, he paid a fine and
drifted into friendship with King John, who entertained his little
daughters royally, and knighted his son Alexander. William died on
December 4, 1214. He was buried at the Abbey of Arbroath, founded by
him in honour of St Thomas of Canterbury, who had worked a strange
posthumous miracle in Scotland. William was succeeded by his son,
Alexander II. (1214-1249).