Historical and genealogical memoirs of the House of Hamilton

INTRODUCTION. xi
reign of King David the First, settled upon the Water of Douglas, and
became the founder of the illustrious family of that name, — the heroic
and powerful Earls of which are now represented in the male line by the
Duke of Hamilton.
It is to the civil wars of the successors of Henry the First that we are
to ascribe the different settlements of the Anglo-Normans in Scotland.
These men, of various races and lineage, were chiefly drawn thither by
the encouragement and munificence of our Kings, particularly of Malcolm
Canmore, Edgar,* William the Lyon, David the First, + and the Second
and Third Alexanders, — thus transferring their fortunes, their fame, and
their valour to a country, of which their posterity were afterwards to be-
come the most strenuous defenders ; and, before the middle of the thir,
teenth century, they had acquired from the aborigines a great proportion
* " The first person of the English race who appears conspicuous as a colonist,
during the reign of Edgar, was Thorlongus, who obtained from him a grant of Eden-
ham, which was then a waste, and which he improved with his own money and his
people. Here he settled a village and built a church, that he soon conveyed to the
monks of Durham. This is an accurate representation of the genuine mode by
which the English colonization of Scotland was begun and completed. A baron ob-
tained from the King a grant of lands, which he settled with his followers ; built a
castle and a church, a mill and a brewhouse, — and thereby formed a hamlet, which,
in the practice of the age, was called the Ton, or Tun, of the Baron." — Caled. i. 501.
f " It was the reign of David the First which was so propitious to the settlement of
Scotland by English families, as he introduced so many favourable institutions. He
was educated at the court of Henry the First. He married an English countess, who
had many vassals ; and, when he came to the throne in 1124, he was followed suc-
cessively by a thousand Anglo-Normans, to whom he distributed lands, which, like
Thorlongus, they settled with their followers. David is said, indeed, to have founded
monasteries, built castles, erected towns, and promoted trade, which all tended to
colonize North Britain with foreigners. Even now may be traced, in the chartu-
laries, the many Norman-English families who settled in North Britain under the
reign of that excellent prince." — Caled. i. 502.