Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Henry of Scotland
HENRY of Scotland (1114?–1152), son of David I, king of Scots [q. v.], and his wife Matilda, countess of Northampton, was probably born about 1114. In a treaty between David and the English king Stephen which followed David's invasion of England in 1136, Stephen granted to Henry the earldoms of Carlisle, Doncaster, and Huntingdon. To the last of these Henry's mother, as eldest daughter of Earl Waltheof, had an hereditary claim, as also to the earldom of Northumberland; and Stephen was afterwards said to have at the same time promised that if ever he should decide to re-establish the Northumbrian earl- dom he would have the claims of Matilda and her son fairly tried in his court before bestowing it on any other claimant. His refusal of a demand made by David at the close of 1137 for Henry's immediate investiture as Earl of Northumberland was one of the grounds of David's great expedition into Yorkshire in 1138, which ended in the rout of the Scots at the battle of the Standard (22 Aug.). At the opening of the battle Henry commanded the men of Cumberland and Teviotdale, who formed the second division of the Scottish host; at its close he led the remnant of his father's bodyguard in a last desperate charge, and hardly escaped with his life to rejoin his father at Carlisle. Next spring Stephen and David made peace, and Northumberland was granted to Henry. He afterwards accompanied Stephen to the siege of Ludlow, where he was caught and nearly dragged off his horse by a grappling-iron, and only rescued by the strength and bravery of Stephen. During this sojourn in England he fell in love with and married Ada or Adelina, daughter of William de Warren, earl of Surrey (Ordericus Vitalis, ed. Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Scriptt. 918 B; Chron. Mailros, a. 1139). Next year, on another visit to the English court, his life was again in danger, this time from the jealousy of Earl Ranulf of Chester, who claimed his earldom of Carlisle. He died on 12 June 1152 (Chron. S. Crucis Edinb. p. 31, Bannatyne Club). English and Scottish writers with one accord raise a lamentation over his untimely death, and picture him as a model of all that is excellent in a knight, a prince, and a man. Two of his sons, Malcolm and William, became successively kings of Scots; from the third, David, earl of Huntingdon, the houses of Bruce and Balliol inherited in the female line their claims to the crown of Scotland.
[Henry of Huntingdon, ed. Arnold (Rolls Ser.); Richard and John of Hexham, ed. Raine (Surtees Soc.); Æthelred of Rievaux's Relatio de Bello Standardi, in Hist. Angl. Scriptt. Decem, ed. Twysden, and also, with Richard of Hexham, in Chron. of Stephen and Henry II, vol. iii. ed. Howlett (Rolls Ser.)]