Considered to be one of the greatest of Scotland's medieval kings, David Ithe youngest son of King Malcolm III and St. Margaretwas never expected to succeed to the throne. During the reigns of his elder brothers, David carved out a career for himself as an Anglo-Norman nobleman at the court of his brother-in-law, Henry I of England. With Henry's backing and the support of his elder sister, Queen Matilda, David secured a good marriage and a rich inheritance, with estates spread from Normandy to northern England, as well as a principality of his own in southern Scotland. On succeeding to the...

In The Lordship of the Isles, twelve specialists offer new insights on the rise and fall of the MacDonalds of Islay and the greatest Gaelic lordship of later medieval Scotland. Portrayed most often as either the independently-minded last great patrons of Scottish Gaelic culture or as dangerous rivals to the Stewart kings for mastery of Scotland, this collection navigates through such opposed perspectives to re-examine the politics, culture, society and connections of Highland and Hebridean Scotland from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. It delivers a compelling account of a land and...