[3] His brother's steward, constable, and chancellor remained in office, and William confirmed Malcolm IV's last bequest to Dunfermline Abbey.

[citation needed] He was an effective monarch whose reign was marred by his ill-fated attempts to regain control of his paternal inheritance of Northumbria from the Anglo-Normans.

[5] In 1174, at the Battle of Alnwick, during a raid in support of the revolt, William recklessly charged the English troops himself, shouting, "Now we shall see which of us are good knights!"

He was unhorsed and captured by Henry's troops led by Ranulf de Glanvill and taken in chains to Newcastle, then Northampton, and then transferred to Caen then Falaise in Normandy.

As ransom and to regain his kingdom, William had to acknowledge Henry as his feudal superior and agree to pay for the cost of the English army's occupation of Scotland by taxing the Scots.

A hostile interchange followed; then after the death of Alexander in 1181 his successor, Pope Lucius III, consented to a compromise by which Hugh got the bishopric and John became bishop of Dunkeld.

In 1188 William secured a papal bull which declared that the Church of Scotland was directly subject only to Rome, thus rejecting the claims to supremacy put forward by the English archbishop.

Then the English king Richard the Lionheart, needing money to take part in the Third Crusade, agreed to terminate it in return for 10,000 silver marks (£6,500), on 5 December 1189.

His authority was recognized in Galloway which, hitherto, had been practically independent; he put an end to a formidable insurrection in Moray and Inverness; and a series of campaigns brought the far north, Caithness and Sutherland, under the power of the crown.

In August 1209 King John decided to flex the English muscles by marching a large army to Norham (near Berwick), in order to exploit the flagging leadership of the ageing Scottish monarch.

He threw himself into government with energy and diligently followed the lines laid down by his grandfather, David I. Anglo-French settlements and feudalization were extended, new burghs were founded (for example Perth in 1210),[22] criminal law was clarified, the responsibilities of justices and sheriffs were widened, and trade grew.

This (with the substitution of a "double tressure fleury counter-fleury" border instead of an orle) went on to become the Royal Banner of Scotland, still used today but quartered with those of England and of Ireland.