Alexander may have attempted to enforce, by resolute will, the changes and alterations which were only carried out by David through an union of consummate tact and policy; and it may have been to this part of the king’s conduct that Ailred alludes when he describes him as “endeavouring to compass things beyond his power;” for he was evidently of a disposition to frame his policy, rather according to the dictates of his own will, than to his ability to carry it out. He achieved enough, however, to entitle him to be remembered as the first king who essayed to place Scotland on a footing with the feudal states of Western Europe; for Edgar left his kingdom much as he found it--his very bequest of Cumbria, as an absolute property, was totally at variance with the policy of either Saxon or Norman--and the innovations of Margaret were confined to the court and the clergy.[230] The laws and customs of the Gaelic people remained undisturbed in her days, and her ideas of ecclesiastical reform were widely different from those of Hildebrand, of whose system the church of her native country, at the time she quitted it, was ignorant. But the grant of the _Cursus Apri_ made by Alexander to St. Andrews--a grant which must be regarded, not so much in the light of an original donation, as of a restoration to the church of the lands which had been alienated to the royal family in their capacity of _Cowarbs_, or hereditary abbots of the old monastic establishment--was, unquestionably, the earliest step towards remodelling the Scottish church, though the king’s intentions were frustrated by his dissensions with Turgot and Eadmer, and he died before the consecration of Robert, Prior of Scone, the last bishop whom he appointed. He was the first king also to introduce beyond the Forth the custom of confirming grants by charter, in place of the outward forms and ceremonies by which, in an earlier state of society, such gifts were invariably accompanied; though upon the occasion of his restitution of the _Cursus Apri_ all the ancient formalities were observed. The great feudal office of Constable is also first traceable in this reign, and to the same king may be attributed the earliest introduction of the sheriffdom--for the _Vicecomes_ is to be met with in some of his charters. Alexander may therefore be said to have laid the first stone of the social edifice which David raised from the foundation; though many a year was fated to elapse, and more than one generation was destined to pass away, before the system inaugurated by the sons of Malcolm Ceanmore, was effectually established throughout the whole extent of their dominions. CHAPTER VIII. _David the First_ 1124–1153.