David I as Prince of the Cumbrians

David's early career can be understood as part of Henry's frontier policy, which included marriage of two daughters to the kings of Scotland and Galloway, consolidation of royal control in the north-west coast of England and the quelling of the Montgomeries, marcher lords on the Welsh borders who had been allied to Muirchertach Ua Briain, High King of Ireland (1101–19).

As an added benefit, from Henry's viewpoint, she might also provide some protection against further Scottish incursions like those that had plagued the northern English provinces with regularity under Malcolm III.

[10] Furthermore, this organization of power based upon personal relationships peculiar to the feudal system ensured that, after he became king of Scotland in 1124, the only thing that kept David from pursuing a policy of vigorous expansion was his friendship with Henry.

[14] However, much of the evidence indicates that David had to wait until 1113 to get the support he needed to take control of these lands because of King Alexander's opposition; it cannot be demonstrated that he possessed his inheritance until his foundation of Selkirk Abbey late in the year 1113.

[15] David's exact whereabouts between May 1108 and December 1113 are not explicitly attested in any sources, but according to the arguments of Richard Oram, all of this time was spent both in England and in Normandy.

By the end of his time in the Kingdom of the English David had acquired lands in Yorkshire and in Normandy, receiving Hallamshire and the northern section of the Cotentin Peninsula from King Henry.

Among other things, the knight asserted:"Oh King, when thou didst demand from thy brother Alexander the part of the kingdom which the same brother [Edgar] had bequeathed at his death didst obtain without bloodshed all that thou wouldst, through fear of us"[17] It was in this way, through a bloodless threat of force, that David gained his first territorial foothold within the area of modern Scotland.

[21] David may perhaps have had some varying degrees of overlordship in parts of Dumfriesshire, Ayrshire, Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire; these lands were thought of as part of a [Greater] "Galloway", settled by Gall Gaidel, Gaelic-speakers of mixed Gaelic and Norse descent, and in the early days of David's lordship would have rendered no more than occasional payments of cain, the tribute paid to an overlord in Scotland.

[23] In part, David made use of the "English" income secured for him by his marriage to Matilda de Senlis in order to finance the construction of the first true towns in Scotland, and these in turn allowed the establishment of several more.

Several years later, perhaps in 1116, David visited Tiron itself, probably to acquire more monks; in 1128 he transferred Selkirk Abbey to Kelso, nearer Roxburgh, at this point his chief residence.

In the later part of the year, King Henry gave David the hand of Matilda de Senlis, daughter of Waltheof, earl of Northumberland.

The new territories David gained control of were very much a boost, a valuable supplement to his income and manpower, increasing his status as one of the most powerful magnates in the Kingdom of the English.

Moreover, Matilda's father Waltheof had been Earl of Northumberland, a defunct lordship which had covered the far north of England and included Cumberland and Westmorland, Northumberland-proper, as well as overlordship of the bishopric of Durham.

He was, for instance, at St Albans on 28 December 1115, and was still in England in 1116 when he witnessed a charter of his sister Queen Matilda (Edith, or Maud) at Westminster Abbey.