The balance struck in the reigns of Edgar (1097-1107) and Alexander (1107-24) differed from each other. Edgar had learned from his mother the importance of the trappings of kingship and seems to have had a taste for the flamboyant gesture: his seal bore his effigy with the inscription Imago Edgari Scottorum Basilei, an affectation used by William the Conqueror but not by any King of Scots before or after. He owned an exotic beast - whether it was a camel or an elephant it is hard to say. His was the reign when the sealed writ or brieve, written in Latin, made its first appearance in Scotland; the chief propagandists of kingship were its clerks for each charter, addressed to the king's subjects 'Scots and English', bore the royal seal of an enthroned king with sword and sceptre in his hands - a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and Norman practice. This seems to have been the extent of foreign influence. Otherwise his ten-year reign appears to have been marked by masterly inactivity. The see of St Andrews, vacant since 1093, remained unfilled and no religious houses were founded except for a grant of lands to the monks of Durham which would intime produce a second Benedictine priory, at Coldingham. The fact that a reign which began with a coup backed by a foreign army and saw no risings and 'no tyranny, no harshness against his people' testifies to the success of a conservative policy. Stability, however, had its price: a peaceful frontier in the west was bought by a treaty with Magnus Bareleg, King of Norway, which ceded the Western Isles including lona.

The obituary notices for Alexander, by contrast, emphasised a king who was 'strong' or 'fierce' rather than just, and who worked laboriosissime - which suggests both effort and difficulty - to consolidate his position. Like Edgar, Alexander depended on an English king and probably paid homage to Henry I (1100-35), and the ties were strengthened further by his marriage to Henry's illegitimate daughter, Sybil. Yet this reign was marked by a certain nervousness, shown both by a castle-building programme and in Alexander's reluctance to grant his younger brother David the same jurisdiction in southern Scotland as he had himself enjoyed in the reign of Edgar. It was in his encouragement of monastic orders that Alexander's reign stood out. The bringing of Augustinian canons from Nostel in Yorkshire to found a priory at Scone c.1115 marked the beginning of the long connection between the Augustinian order and the royal house and the onset of a planned colonisation of the religious orders of western Christendom in Scotland. Further plans seem to have existed for foundations at St Andrews and Dunkeld -significantly both old royal centres - as well as at Inchcolm and Loch Tay. The bishopric of St Andrews was filled as early as 1107 and unsuccessful attempts were made to free it from the jurisdiction of York. As much as the new royal castles at Stirling, Alexander's ecclesiastical policy signalled a consolidation of his kingship in Scotia. The calculated balance of old and new, which would so indelibly mark the reign of his brother David after him, was already in operation before 1124.