I am not going to labour the point here but I seem to have maanged to get my head around some of the issues of the Caldwell family in the early days.

I think I will go off and come back with a reasoned article where I will rely on sources rather than my sometimes faulty memory.

In brief synopsis (this version is a memory trip):

Malcolm Canmore came to power in Scotland with the help of Earl Siward of Northumbria therby establishing a Northumbrian connection. When William The Conqueror wasted the Northern counties of England Malcolm provided support and a place of refuge for Siward's people including Cospatrick. Malcolm himself married Princess Margaret of England herself a refugee from the Norman Conquest. Although William had "conquered" England for a long time the north was only losely under his control - especially Cumbria which was virually Malcolm's fief. Malcolm also had designs on Northumbria to which he thought he had a natural right.

Malcolm had children by an earlier marriage and when he and his eldest son by Margaret were killed at Alnwick in a raid on England his son by the first marriage supported by his next eldest son by Margaret became king. There was a great reaction to the English influence at court and I suppose these were turbulent times. His three younger sons were by this time under the English influence and had perhaps been either ejected from or had fled Scotland.

Edgar came back into Scotland suported by an English army and overthrew Duncan. He reigned under English influence and being childless was succeeded by his younger brother Alexander who married Sybil the illegitimate daughter of Henry I the English king. There must have been an attempt at that time to bring the Scots line closer to the English cause.

The next son David had spent most of his younger life in England and had married Maud the widow of Simon Senliz the Earl of Huntingdon. This brought enormous lands in the English midlands into David's control. David's sister had married the English king who was therfore his brother in law.

Maud's parents were Judith (niece of William the Conqueror and Earl Waltheof who had by allaccounts been unjustly executed with Judith's connivance (she is supposed to have founded the monastery of Elstow at Bedford as penitence for her involvement in Waltheof's death) [Elstow is next-door to Caldwell Priory].

Earl Waltheof's father was Siward of Northumbria of whom we have already heard. The Earldom of Huntingdon also carried rights to land in Northumbria.

Consequently David came into the Earldom of Huntingdon with rights to Nurthumbria - an area in which the family already professed interest.

Alexander I had sons but Henry I insisted that David also take up the governance of Southern Scotland as Comes while Alexander continued to rule the North as King.

Alexander's sons died young and David became King as David I. He took many of his Norman followers to Scotland to introduce the Norman feudal sytem to which he had become accustomed having served as a judge for Henry in England.

Perhaps the English King thought he may have set up a subservient client in Scotland but form David's view he was not only the independent King of Scotland. He also had a recent right of Cumbria and significant claims to Northumberland. He was also was the Earl of Huntingdon and had claims right down to the English Midlands. Perhaps he thought he could unite all these territories together and partition the country between the Norman and the Scots. Don't forget his mother was of the old Saxon Royal House and through his wife he had strong claims to much of England and was in fact the official Earl of these territories. Possibly he had a better claim than the current Norman incumbent.

In any case the Battle of the Standard fixed all that. Although David lost the then current English king allowed him to remain as Earl of Northumberland and he kept Cumbria as a direct fief.

Connection securely established with the North of England into Scotland. Later another Henry of England used the minority of Malcolm, David's grandson as an excuse to claw back Northumbria and Cumbria and set off hundreds of years of troubles as the Scots kings tried unsuccesfully to claw back this northern region for centuries thereafter.

The Northumbrian influence into Scotland started with Earl Siward and would have been re-started when David married his grandaughter by this time it had an admixture of influence from the Earldom of Huntingdon. David's grandchildren become kings as Malcolm IV and William I and their younger brother was another Earl David of Huntingdon. Their mother was a Warrene and they were a thoroughly Norman family and continued David I's Normanisation of Scotland.

Tom