the claims of York, and declared to be in direct dependance upon the see of Rome.[227] Towards the close of his reign Alexander lost his queen Sibylla, a natural daughter of the English king, of whom little is known, and--if the account of a contemporary writer is to be trusted--that little is not to her advantage, for her personal deficiencies were not redeemed by the presence of moral virtues. She died suddenly at Loch Tay, in the course of 1122, and within two years she was followed to the grave by her husband, [Sidenote: A. D. 1124] who expired on the 25th of April 1124, whilst still in the vigour of manhood.[228] It would be unreasonable to estimate the little that Alexander was enabled to accomplish by the standard of his younger brother’s success in following out a similar line of policy. Both brothers endeavoured to assimilate their dominions to the feudal monarchies of the age, and to introduce amongst their clergy the revised system of the Roman Church; but the elder had greater difficulties to contend against, with fewer advantages in his favour. The dismemberment of his kingdom by the separation of Scottish Cumbria must have materially diminished his power; and had not Alexander died without an heir, the impolitic bequest of Edgar might have been fraught with most disastrous consequences to Scotland. The principality of David must inevitably, in course of time, have become dependant upon one of the greater kingdoms by which it was surrounded; it could only have existed by skilfully promoting disunion between its more powerful neighbours; and it is more than probable that it would have eventually been annexed to the greater kingdom, and been held by his descendants as a fief of the English crown. The marked separation existing between the dominions of the two brothers during the lifetime of the elder, is best ascertained by a reference to the charters of the period. The dignitaries at the court of Alexander were exclusively, Gaelic Mormaors--Earls of Moray, Fife, Atholl, and Strathearn, and other native magnates of similar origin--the grandsons of the Northumbrian Cospatric, ancestor of the Earls of March and Dunbar; Edward the Constable, the son of Siward Beorn--in short, the nobility of ancient _Alban_ and the Lothians; whilst around Earl David gathered Moreville and Somerville, Lindsay and Umphraville, Bruce and Fitz-Alan, Norman names destined to surround the throne of his descendants, two of them to become royal, and all to shed a lustre upon the feudal chivalry of Scotland.[229]