High King of Ireland. When Edgar died, Alexander took the kingship, while his youngest brother David became Prince of "Cumbria" and ruler of Lothian. Norman Kings: David I to Alexander III The period between the accession of David I and the death of Alexander III was marked by dependence upon, and relatively good relations with, the Kings of the English. It was also a period of historical expansion for the Scottish kingdom, and witnessed the successful imposition of royal authority across most of the modern country. The period was one of a great deal of historical change, and much of the modern historiographical literature is devoted to this change (especially G.W.S. Barrow), part of a more general phenomenon which has been called the "Europeanisation of Europe". More recent works though, while acknowledging that a great deal of change did take place, emphasise that this period was in fact also one of great continuity (e.g. Cynthia Neville, Richard Oram, Dauvit Broun, and others). Indeed, the period is subject to many misconceptions. For instance, English did not spread all over the Lowlands (see language section), and neither did English names; and, moreover even by 1300, most native lordships remained in native Gaelic hands, with only a minority passing to men of French or Anglo-French origin; furthermore, the Normanisation and imposition of royal authority in Scotland was not a peaceful process, but in fact cumulatively more violent than the Norman Conquest of England; additionally, the Scottish kings were not independent monarchs, but vassals to the King of the English, although not "legally" for Scotland north of the Forth. The important changes which did occur include the extensive establishment of burghs (see section), in many respects Scotland's first urban institutions; the feudalisation, or more accurately, the Francization of aristocratic martial, social and inheritance customs; the de-Scotticisation of ecclesiastical institutions; the imposition of royal authority over most of modern Scotland; and the drastic drift at the top level from traditional Gaelic culture, so that after David I, the Kingship of the Scots resembled more closely the kingship of the French and English, than it did the lordship of any large-scale Gaelic kingdom in Ireland. After David I, and especially in the reign of William I, Scotland's kings became ambivalent about, if not hostile towards, the culture of most of their subjects. As Walter of Coventry tells us: The ambivalence of the kings was matched to