English, Scots and Galwegians". The charters are, of course, addressed
to barons and land-owners, and their evidence refers to the English and
Anglo-Norman nobility. The Norman fascination, which had been turned to
such good account in England, in Italy, and in the Holy Land, had
completely vanquished such English prepossessions as David might have
inherited from his mother. Normans, like the Bruces and the Fitzalans
(afterwards the Stewarts), came to David's court and received from him
grants of land. The number of Norman signatures that attest his charters
show that his _entourage_ was mainly Norman. He was a very devout
Church-man (a "sair sanct for the Crown" as James VI called him), and
Norman prelate and Norman abbot helped to increase the total of Norman
influence. He transformed Scotland into a feudal country, gave grants of
land by feudal tenure, summoned a great council on the feudal principle,
and attempted to create such a monarchy as that of which Henry I was
laying the foundations. There can be little doubt that this strong
Norman influence helped to prepare the Scottish people for the French
alliance; but its more immediate effect was to bring about the existence
of an anti-national nobility. These great Norman names were to become
great in Scottish story; but it required a long process to make their
bearers, in any sense, Scotsmen. Most of them had come from England,
many of them held lands in England, and none of them could be expected
to feel any real difference between themselves and their English
fellows.

During the reign of Henry I, Anglo-Norman influences thus worked a great
change in Scotland. On Henry's death, David, as the uncle of the Empress
Matilda, immediately took up arms on her behalf. Stephen, with the
wisdom which characterized the beginning of his reign, came to terms
with him at Durham. David did not personally acknowledge the usurper,
but his son, Henry, did him homage for Huntingdon and some possessions