♂David of Scotland

David of Scotland^W (about 1080 – 24 May 1153) was King of Scotland from 1124, remembered as David I, who through his marriage was also Earl of Huntingdon in England and who founded the abbeys of Selkirk and Jedworth. He was the twenty-fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Henry of Scotland (about 1114 – 1152) and, probably, Henry’s descendant John Washburn (died 1547).

A youngest son

David was the sixth and youngest son of Malcolm III^W, King of Scotland, called Canmore, who died in 1093, and of St. Margaret^W, the only sister of Edgar Ætheling^W. In 1113 he married Maud of Huntingdon, the eldest daughter of Earl Waltheof and the widow of Simon de St. Liz, Earl of Huntingdon, and through her he became Earl of Huntingdon, and possibly of Northampton as well. The same year he founded an abbey at Selkirk, later moved to Kelso^W, and gave it land at Hardingstone and Northampton. A charter of his some years later was witnessed by “Maud his wife and their son Henry.” He founded a second abbey at Jedworth (Jedburgh^W) in 1118, and as Earl of Huntingdon he made grants to St. Andrew’s Priory at Northampton.

King and English earl

On 25 April 1124 David succeeded his brother, Alexander I^W, as King of Scotland, and he kept his English earldom. Because of that earldom, the King of Scots joined the English barons in 1127 in recognizing the right of the Empress Matilda^W to succeed her father on the English throne, and when Stephen^W seized the crown, David went to war against him. Peace was made about March 1136, when David resigned the earldom of Huntingdon in favor of his son Henry, who did homage to Stephen. War broke out again, and on 22 August 1138 David was defeated at the Battle of the Standard^W.

Last years

Maud died in 1130 or 1131 and was buried at Scone^W. Besides Henry, David had an elder son, Malcolm, who was strangled as an infant, and two daughters, Clarice and Hodierne, who died young and unmarried. Henry died on 12 June 1152, a year before his father. David died at Carlisle on 24 May 1153 and was buried at Dunfermline^W, and his grandson Malcolm, Henry’s son, succeeded him as king. For his virtue and piety David has often been counted among the saints, although the Bollandists found no proof of a cult.

Notes

Sources

David’s parentage, his birth about 1080, his marriage in 1113 and the earldom it brought him, the abbeys at Selkirk and Jedworth, the charter witnessed by Maud and Henry, his grants to St. Andrew’s, his succession on 25 April 1124, the recognition of 1127, the peace of 1136, the Battle of the Standard, Maud’s death and burial, his own death and burial, his other children and the note on his sainthood are given in the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, 1926, pp. 641–642 and notes, under Huntingdon), citing the Kelso Chartulary, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, William of Malmesbury, Fordun’s Scotichronicon, Wyntoun’s Cronykil and Orderic. His grandson Malcolm’s succession on 24 May 1153 is in the same volume under Huntingdon. The Complete Peerage gives him the titles King of Scots and Earl of Huntingdon in the same volume under Hereford (pp. 457–458) as well.

Jedworth

Jedworth is the old form of the name of Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders.

The descent through John Washburn

That the John whom the pedigrees give as a son of Joyce Botetourt’s great-granddaughter Joan Mitton was John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547, is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, not a record’s, so the descent through him is given here as probable.