DAVID, ST (Dewi, Sant), the national and tutelar saint of Wales, whose annual festival, known as “St David’s Day,” falls on the 1st of March. Few historical facts are known regarding the saint’s life and actions, and the dates both of his birth and death are purely conjectural, although there is reason to suppose he was born about the year 500 and died at a great age towards the close of the 6th century. According to his various biographers he was the son of Sandde, a prince of the line of Cunedda, his mother being Non, who ranks as a Cymric saint. He seems to have taken a prominent part in the celebrated synod of Llanddewi-Brefi (see [Cardiganshire]), and to have presided at the so-called “Synod of Victory,” held some years later at Caerleon-on-Usk. At some date unknown, St David, as penescoli or primate of South Wales, moved the seat of ecclesiastical government from Caerleon to the remote headland of Mynyw, or Menevia, which has ever since, under the name of St David’s (Ty-Dewi), remained the cathedral city of the western see. St David founded numerous churches throughout all parts of South Wales, of which fifty-three still recall his name, but apparently he never penetrated farther north than the region of Powys, although he seems to have visited Cornwall. With the passing of time the saint’s fame increased, and his shrine at St David’s became a notable place of pilgrimage, so that by the time of the Norman conquest his importance and sanctity were fully recognized, and at Henry I.’s request he was formally canonized by Pope Calixtus II. about 1120.
Of the many biographies of St David, the earliest known is that of Rhyddmarch, or Ricemarchus (c. 1090), one of the last British bishops of St David’s, from whose work Giraldus Cambrensis (q.v.) chiefly compiled his extravagant life of the saint.
DAVID I. (1084-1153), king of Scotland, the youngest son of Malcolm Canmore and (Saint) Margaret, sister of Edgar Ætheling, was born in 1084. He married in 1113 Matilda, daughter and heiress of Waltheof, earl of Northumbria, and thus became possessed of the earldom of Huntingdon. On the death of Edgar, king of Scotland, in 1107, the territories of the Scottish crown were divided in accordance with the terms of his will between his two brothers, Alexander and David. Alexander, together with the crown, received Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde, David the southern district with the title of earl of Cumbria. The death of Alexander I. in 1124 gave David possession of the whole. In 1127, in the character of an English baron, he swore fealty to Matilda as heiress to her father Henry I., and when the usurper Stephen ousted her in 1135 David vindicated her cause in arms and invaded England. But Stephen marched north with a great army, whereupon David made peace. The peace, however, was not kept. After threatening an invasion in 1137, David marched into England in 1138, but sustained a crushing defeat on Cutton Moor in the engagement known as the battle of the Standard. He returned to Carlisle, and soon afterwards concluded peace. In 1141 he joined Matilda in London and accompanied her to Winchester, but after a narrow escape from capture he returned to Scotland. Henceforth he remained in his own kingdom and devoted himself to its political and ecclesiastical reorganization. A devoted son of the church, he founded five bishoprics and many monasteries. In secular politics he energetically forwarded the process of feudalization which had been initiated by his immediate predecessors. He died at Carlisle on the 24th of May 1153.
DAVID II. (1324-1371), king of Scotland, son of King Robert the Bruce by his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh (d. 1327), was born at Dunfermline on the 5th of March 1324. In accordance with the terms of the treaty of Northampton he was married in July 1328 to Joanna (d. 1362), daughter of the English king, Edward II., and became king of Scotland on his father’s death in June 1329, being crowned at Scone in November 1331. Owing to the victory of Edward III. of England and his protégé, Edward Baliol, at Halidon Hill in July 1333, David and his queen were sent for safety into France, reaching Boulogne in May 1334, and being received very graciously by the French king, Philip VI. Little is known about the life of the Scottish king in France, except that Château Gaillard was given to him for a residence, and that he was present at the bloodless meeting of the English and French armies at Vironfosse in October 1339. Meanwhile his representatives had obtained the upper hand in Scotland, and David was thus enabled to return to his kingdom in June 1341, when he took the reins of government into his own hands. In 1346 he invaded England in the interests of France, but was defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Neville’s Cross in October of this year, and remained in England for eleven years, living principally in London and at Odiham in Hampshire. His imprisonment was not a rigorous one, and negotiations for his release were soon begun. Eventually, in October 1357, after several interruptions, a treaty was signed at Berwick by which the Scottish estates undertook to pay 100,000 marks as a ransom for their king. David, who had probably recognized Edward III. as his feudal superior, returned at once to Scotland; but owing to the poverty of the kingdom it was found impossible to raise the ransom. A few instalments were paid, but the king sought to get rid of the liability by offering to make Edward III., or one of his sons, his successor in Scotland. In 1364 the Scottish parliament indignantly rejected a proposal to make Lionel, duke of Clarence, the next king; but David treated secretly with Edward III. over this matter, after he had suppressed a rising of some of his unruly nobles. The king died in Edinburgh Castle on the 22nd of February 1371. His second wife was Margaret, widow of Sir John Logie, whom he divorced in 1369; but he left no children, and was succeeded by his nephew, Robert II. David was a weak and incapable ruler, without a spark of his father’s patriotic spirit.
See Andrew of Wyntoun, The orygynale cronykil of Scotland, edited by D. Laing (Edinburgh, 1872-1879); John of Fordun, Chronica gentis Scotorum, edited by W. F. Skene (Edinburgh, 1871-1872); J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, vol. ii. (Edinburgh, 1905); and A. Lang, History of Scotland, vol. i. (Edinburgh, 1900).