page_title: History of Medieval Cumbria
section_title: William II
hierarchical_section_title: History of Medieval Cumbria / High medieval Cumbria, 1066–1272 / Norman Cumbria: William I, William 'Rufus', Henry I, and David I, 1066–1153 / William II
caption_attribution_description: English: Carlisle Castle
context_page_description: The history of medieval Cumbria has several points of interest. The region's status as a borderland coping with 400 years of warfare is one. The attitude of the English central government, at once uninterested and deeply interested, is another. As a border region, of geopolitical importance, Cumbria changed hands between the Angles, Norse, Strathclyde Brythons, Picts, Normans, Scots and English; and the emergence of the modern county is also worthy of study.
context_section_description: William II of England (William "Rufus") recognised that the state of affairs, as left to him by William I in 1087, was only a holding solution to the problems of the unsatisfactory position of the Normans above the Humber in the East and above the Ribble to the West. Rufus granted Ivo Taillebois estates in southern Westmorland and southern Cumberland - later to become the baronies of Kendal, Burton in Lonsdale and Copeland. It is possible that these lands, the extent of which are open to dispute, were granted to Ivo later, in 1092, at the same time as Roger the Poitevin was granted Furness and Cartmel, thus defining the extent of the future county of Westmorland and the division of Lancashire north and south of the sands. This, together with the complementary strengthening of Norman control east of the Pennines, may have provoked Malcolm III's 1091 invasion of Northumbria.
  
  The unsatisfactory end, as far as Rufus was concerned, to the invasion of Scotland that followed Malcolm's raid, led him to try another approach: in 1092, he took over Cumberland by expelling the local lord, Dolfin, (who may or may not have been related to Earl Cospatrick). Then, he built the castle at Carlisle and garrisoned it with his own men, and sent peasants, possibly from Ivo Taillebois' Lincolnshire lands, to cultivate the land there. The takeover of the Carlisle area was probably to do with gaining territory and providing a strongpoint to defend his north-west frontier. Kapelle suggests that the takeover of Cumberland and the building at Carlisle may have been designed to humiliate King Malcolm or to provoke him into battle. The result was the last invasion by Malcolm and his own, plus his son's, death at the Battle of Alnwick (1093). The subsequent contest for the succession to the Scottish throne (between Donald II of Scotland and Edgar, King of Scotland) allowed Rufus to maintain his hold on the Cumberland and Carlisle areas until his death in 1100.
caption: Carlisle Castle – begun by William Rufus in 1092; rebuilt in stone under Henry I, 1122–35, and David I of Scotland, 1136–1153
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