[283]. This marriage is unknown in Scottish history, and rests on the authority of the Sagas alone. Duncan is said by the Scottish historians to have been a bastard, while the Sagas make him the legitimate offspring of Malcolm and Ingibiorg, who must by this time have been old enough to be Malcolm’s mother. She was married to Earl Thorfinn before Kálf Arnason was banished by King Magnus (chap. xiv.), which was some time between 1036 and 1041. Earl Thorfinn died in 1064, seven years after King Malcolm was crowned at Scone, in 1057. Malcolm’s marriage with the Princess Margaret of England took place in 1067, or less than three years after Ingibiorg became a widow. Munch supposes that Ingibiorg must have died in childbed with Duncan, and suggests that the fact that Duncan claimed the crown before Edgar, the son of Malcolm by Margaret, may be taken as showing that he must have been the offspring of a previous marriage. Macpherson (Wyntoun, vol. ii. p. 472), while accepting the statement of the Saga, accounts for Duncan being called a bastard from the circumstance that Malcolm’s marriage with Ingibiorg was within the degrees of propinquity forbidden by the canon law.
[284]. This William Odling (the Noble) is William of Egremont (the boy of Egremont), son of William Fitz Duncan, and consequently grandson of Duncan. The reference here to him as the person whom all the Scots wished to have for their king is explained by the fact that, on the death of David I., by the old Celtic law of succession, he became in the eyes of the Celtic population the rightful heir to the throne; and his claims were supported by no fewer than seven Earls, among whom were those of Strathern, Ross, and Orkney. The insurrection was speedily put down, but the claim was subsequently revived by Donald Bane Macwilliam, who, on the same principle, obtained the support of the northern chiefs. (See Skene’s Highlanders of Scotland for a full account of the conflict between the feudal and the Celtic systems of succession.)
[285]. This is a mistake. Morkere was present at the battle of Hastings, and he and Waltheof went afterwards to Normandy with William the Conqueror.
[286]. Fordun (v. chap. i.) records the landing of Macduff “at Ravynsore in England.” Camden mentions a place on Holderness, at the mouth of the Humber, formerly called Ravensere. It no longer exists, having been destroyed by the encroachments of the sea.
[287]. Now called the Mainland of Orkney.
[288]. The reference here must be supposed to be to the murder of St. Magnus.
[289]. “Hugh the Stout” was Hugh, Earl of Chester; and “Hugh the Bold,” Hugh of Montgomery, Earl of Salop. According to Odericus Vitalis, King Magnus came into the Menai Straits with only six ships, carrying a red shield on the mast as a sign of peace and commercial intercourse. The Welsh King Griffith was at that time engaged in war with the Norman Earls above mentioned, who had invaded his territories, and advanced as far as the Straits, when the arrival of King Magnus gave an unexpected turn to the course of events, in the death of the Earl of Montgomery, as here narrated.
[290]. Hálogaland, the most northern part of Norway.
[291]. The Saga writer (says Munch) has been here misled by the Scottish denomination of the reigning monarch, Edgar MacMalcolm. Malcolm Canmore died in 1093, the year of King Magnus’s first expedition to the west. The second expedition, which was in 1098, was the one in which he fought with the two Norman Earls in Anglesea Sound. The events of the two expeditions are here mixed up together, and the references to Malcolm Canmore do not synchronise with either. It is possible that the offer of the islands (as here mentioned) may have come to King Magnus from Donald Bane, the brother of King Malcolm, to secure the support of King Magnus in his attempt to retain the throne against Edgar, although the incident of the drawing of the boat across the isthmus may have taken place in the reign of Edgar. The “Fagrskinna” (p. 156) adds that King Malcolm of Scotland, sent his daughter out to the Orkneys to be married to Magnus’s son Sigurd, he being then nine and she five years of age, and that he left her in the Orkneys when he went to Norway. The author has confounded Malcolm with Mýrkiartan.
[292]. Pennant mentions (1772) that not long previously it was customary for vessels of nine or ten tons to be drawn across the isthmus by horses, in order to avoid the dangerous and circuitous passage round the Mull.