| He comes into view as a personage of importance in the reign of David I. From the connection maintained by his assumed descendants for at least two centuries with Tynedale, it is possible that his family first settled there, and that he attached himself to the fortunes of David while the latter was yet Prince of Cumbria, perhaps through the Scoto-Saxon Earls of Dunbar. He witnessed a charter by King David to the Church of St. Cuthbert c. 1127, and the well-known foundation-charter of the Abbey of Holyroodhouse in 1128, also a charter by David to the Priory of Coldingham in 1139. He was one of those who, c. 1141, perambulated the lands of Clerkington, given by the King and Earl Henry his son to the Church of Haddington, and he also witnessed a charter by Robert, Bishop of St. Andrews, to Herbert, Bishop of Glasgow, the King and Prince being consenters, between 1147 and 1152. He is assumed to have acquired the manor of Dalkeith by grant of King David.3 |