Of the direct male line of Kenneth MacAlpin, Malcolm the Second was the last and greatest king, his renown extending to the neighbouring countries, and procuring for him the title amongst the Irish annalists of the “Lord and Father of the West.” He enlarged and consolidated his ancestral dominions, advancing the frontier from the Pentland Hills to the Tweed, and effecting an object that his predecessors had vainly attempted—the transmission of the kingdom to his own immediate family. The means employed for this purpose, it is to be feared, were neither scrupulous nor just; but the annals of every country at this period prove but too clearly that it was an age in which neither the ties of relationship, nor indeed any other ties, were proof against the lust of ambition.
Scotland had now reached her permanent and lasting frontier towards the south, the dependent principality of Strath Clyde having apparently, during the course of this reign, been finally incorporated with the greater kingdom. When Donald, son of the Eogan who shared in the bloody fight of Brunanburgh, died on a pilgrimage in 975, he seems to have been succeeded by his son Malcolm, whose death is noticed by the Irish Tighernach under the date of 997.[122] The last king of Strath Clyde who has found a place in history is Eogan “the bald,” who fought by the side of the Scottish king at Carham,[123] probably a son of the British Malcolm whose family name he bears; and in the person of this Eogan the line of Aodh’s son Donald appears to have become extinct. The earliest authorities of the twelfth century give the title of “king of the Cumbrians,” meaning undoubtedly the northern Cumbria or Strath Clyde, to Malcolm’s grandson Duncan, and it is probable that upon the failure of the line of Scoto-British princes, the king of Scotland placed his grandson over the province, which from that time, losing the last semblance of independence, ceased to be ruled by a separate line of princes.[124]
To Malcolm the Second has sometimes been attributed the foundation of an Episcopal See at Mortlach, which was afterwards transferred to Aberdeen;[125] and though as far as relates to the establishment of a regular diocese this account must be rejected, Malcolm, in imitation of his father’s policy in the case of Brechin, may have “given Mortlach to the Lord;” or, in other words, he may have founded and endowed a Culdee monastery on this spot. As the erection of a religious establishment in those days necessarily implies the possession of the surrounding district, if the tradition is correct which connects Mortlach with the reign of Malcolm the Second, the plains of Lothian were not his only conquest; and, in the same manner as Kenneth acquired Angus, he must have annexed to the dominions of the Scottish crown some portion of the ancient kingdom which once aspired to be the leading principality amongst the Pictish provinces of the north.[126]
Certain other changes are attributed to this king, which, however they may have become warped and disguised by the feudal ideas of the authorities in whose pages they are found, when they are considered in connection with the actual historical events of the period, undoubtedly seem to point to Malcolm’s reign as the era of a certain advance towards the consolidation of the royal authority, such as is distinctly traceable at different epochs in many other countries. A twofold bond of union existed from a very early period amongst the communities into which the Celtic and Germanic people were divided, and the noble, prince, or king, was followed either from the “tie of blood,” as the actual head of the race, or from “the tie of service,” as the lord and master who repaid all who rendered such service according to the prevalent customs of the age; and as the former tie was at the root of the allodial, so out of the latter gradually arose the theory of the feudal system. Originally the tie of blood united freeman with freeman, whilst the tie of service connected the free with the unfree, but as inequality of rank grew up from various causes, the lesser freeman was glad to “take service” with the greater in return for his protection and support, thus forming the class known as Gasinds (or Gesiths) amongst the Germans, and amongst the Gael apparently in early times as Amasach—a word evidently akin to the old Celtic Ambact—who were either quartered temporarily upon the unfree tenantry of their patron as military retainers, or at a later period frequently exercised a delegated authority over the crown lands as Grafs, Gerefas, or Maors. As the royal power was increased by acquisitions at the expense of a neighbouring state, or as the head of one community acquired a permanent superiority over the rest, the importance and numbers of the royal Gasinds and Amasach increased proportionally, and very frequently, instead of the original usage, according to which the greater part of the newly acquired territory would have been portioned out more or less permanently amongst the conquerors, as Allod, Odal, or Duchas, land—untaxed freehold held by right of blood—as it was more advantageous to the sovereign to reserve as much as possible for the use of the crown, the older proprietary were retained as a tributary class, remaining undisturbed under the authority of the Gasinds and Amasach, who, acting as royal deputies, collected the king’s rents and led his dependants to battle, reserving for their “service” a certain portion of the royal dues, almost invariably a third. Such was the original tenure of the Graphiones of the early Frank kings, of the Ealdormen and Eorls, amongst the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Danes, and of the royal Jarls established by Harald Harfagar and other kings throughout the north; in short, it was, in early times, the universal tenure of the royal official, before “knight service” and the feud gradually superseded nearly every other tenure amongst the nobility.[127]
In Scotland, the royal official placed over the crown or fiscal lands appears to have been originally known as the Maor (the type of the royal Maer amongst the Cymri), and latterly under the Teutonic appellation of Thane, either a corrupted form of the Gaelic Ti’ern, or a title like Earl, arising from the prevalence of Anglo-Saxon law and technical phraseology after the introduction of feudalism; for the feudalism introduced by David and his successors, though Anglo-Norman, was very much based upon the Anglo-Saxon, or what was much the same, the Lothian law and customs. The epithet of Thanage was applied as well to the office as to the district over which it was exercised, of which the old Scottish name may have been Triocha-ced or Cantred, a name long equivalent amongst the Irish to a barony.[128] The offices of Maer and Cynghellwr (or judge), amongst the Welsh, could never be conferred upon the head of a clan (or Pencenedyl), the same maxim of policy very probably being equally in force in Scotland, for it is in strict accordance with the immemorial Celtic principle “divide et impera;” though it may be equally referable to the invariable hostility of early royalty to Allodial or Duchas tenure from its independence of the sovereign authority. The original Thanage then would appear to have been a district held of the Crown, differing but little except in tenure, from a tract of land held by Duchas right; the holder, Maor or Thane, being accountable for the collection of the royal dues, and for the appearance of the royal tenantry at the yearly “hosting,” and answering to the hereditary Toshach or captain of a clan—for the king stood in the place of the Cen-cinneth, or chief—whilst the official who acted as judge, and was subsequently known as the Deempster (the Welsh Cynghellwr) represented the hereditary Brehon of the tribe, the place of the lesser Duchasach or Brugaidhs being generally supplied in course of time by the kinsmen of the Thane, planted on the Thanage to hold under the head of their race as Ogtierns, Mesne lords, or Vavassours.[129] The theory of “a Toshach over every Triocha-ced, and a Brugaidh over every Baile,” was equally familiar to the Irish Gael, and as the tie uniting the officials with the population of the whole Thanage was “service,” not “blood,” the Thane was often known amongst his followers as their Toshach or captain, rather than their Cen-cinneth or chief by right of blood.[130]
When lands were strictly retained in the crown, the Royal Thane or Maor was answerable directly to the king, but there was a still greater official amongst the Scots, untraceable apparently in his peculiar Scottish characteristics amongst the kindred Welsh and Irish, known under the title of the Mormaor or Lord High Steward. One example of the peculiar tenure of the Mormaor was still existing in the thirteenth century in the Earl of Fife; for when the second Alexander and his “Parliament” levied fines upon all who had failed in their attendance on the occasion of his expedition against “Donald MacNiel of the Isles,” the earls and their “serjeants” were strictly prohibited from entering the lands of any “tenant in capite”—holding directly of the king—to exact the penalty imposed, excepting only the Earl of Fife, who exercised this privilege throughout his district, not as the Earl, but as the Royal Maor of the county of Fife, “to claim his rights,” or, in other words, to secure his allotted portion of the mulct.[131] The ancient Scottish Mormaor, then, was evidently a Maor placed over a province instead of a thanage—an earldom or country instead of a barony—a type of Harfager’s royal Jarl, who often exercised as a royal deputy that authority which he had originally claimed as the independent lord of the district over which he presided. This change was rendered very popular amongst the aristocracy of the north, from the great increase of wealth they derived through retaining a third of the tribute exacted in the king’s name from the classes hitherto untaxed; and similar considerations may have exercised an influence in facilitating the conversion of the semi-independent Gaelic Oirrigh into a dependent, but probably far wealthier, Mormaor.
The existence of the royal Maor and Mormaor—officials in direct dependence on the king, and resembling the royal Jarls and Lendermen amongst the Northmen, or the king’s Ealdorman and Gerefa amongst the Anglo-Saxons—implies a greater consolidation and compactness in the Scottish monarchy than was ever attained amongst the kindred Celts of Ireland or Wales; and it is to the policy pursued during the reigns of Malcolm and his father Kenneth that this result is probably to be attributed. The Maor, indeed, was an official familiar to the Gaelic people long before the era of Kenneth and Malcolm, and he probably played an important part in the conquered provinces annexed by the elder Angus and his successors; but the Mormaor—the head of a province ruling as a royal deputy instead of an independent prince—points to a revolution in the tenure of land resembling the changes introduced by Harfager, when he cancelled “Odal right” wherever he could extend his authority, and levied land-tax by means of his Jarls and Lendermen; and it was a revolution of this description that may possibly have been carried out in the course of Malcolm’s reign and that of his father. Scotland, according to Fordun, was portioned out in ancient times into Thanages, or Fee-farms paying rent, held of course of the crown—for any other theory was incompatible with the ideas of the feudal era—until Malcolm, remitting the rents, gave away the whole kingdom, only reserving to himself the Moot Hill of Scone, when in return for the royal prodigality his people confirmed their sovereign’s right to wardship, relief, and other feudal privileges. Lurking under this singular statement there are probably some grains of truth, thoroughly misunderstood by the chronicler; and as in the partition of Scotland into Thanages a tradition may be recognized of its ancient division into Triocha-ceds and Bailes, or Baronies and Townlands—institutions of a character inseparable from the very existence of a settled community—so the reduction of the kingdom of Scotland as it then existed to a more direct dependence upon the royal authority, entailing land-tax, merchet, and other Celtic mulcts, in quarters hitherto exempt from such exactions, seems to be shadowed out under the feudal grant of the whole kingdom and the feudal return made by the gratitude of the Scottish people. Like Wales and Ireland, the whole kingdom was probably divided in theory into Triocha-ceds, Cantreds, or Thanages, the tribe lands held by chieftains as untaxed Duchas, the crown-lands by Maors or Thanes answerable for the rents and dues; and if Malcolm, by cancelling “Duchas right” as far as it lay in his power, assimilated the tenure of the whole kingdom to that of the royal Maor, or, in other words, taxed the hitherto untaxed Duchasach, he only brought about the same change which Harfager had already effected in Norway, and which the ministers of the Frank kings were continually aiming at five or six centuries before his era. As the Thanage was evidently regarded in feudal times as the ancient Scottish tenure throughout the whole kingdom, some such change must have been introduced upon the older state of society before the establishment of the feudal system, and both tradition and history seem to point to the second Malcolm as the sovereign who first carried out successfully a revolution so important for the aggrandizement of the royal authority.[132]
An apocryphal collection of laws, relating principally to the regulation of the court, has been also ascribed to the same king; and though the laws are unquestionably fabrications, it is not impossible that they were framed in a feudal era to represent the regulations which Malcolm was traditionally supposed to have enacted. The promulgation of a code of laws necessarily involves the acquiescence of all who submit to be bound by them in the supremacy of the lawgiver; and when a king is said to have established or re-enacted such a code, it may be regarded as an indirect proof of a certain stability in the authority thus centred in the royal person. When “the Gael” assembled at Forteviot to ratify with their king, Donald, the laws of his ancestor Aodh the Fair, and when they gathered round the Moot Hill of Scone, to confirm perhaps with Constantine the privileges conferred by Cyric on the See of St. Andrews, the superiority of the dynasty, whose representative presided in these assemblies, was evidently acknowledged by all who attended at their summons. The establishment of a court, the enhancement of the dignity of personal attendance on the sovereign, and the regulation of the duties and privileges attached to such service, point again to a further advance of the royal power, and to a certain increase in the kingly dignity attendant upon a fixed court and residence; marking as it were an approach to the gradual conversion of a migratory king quartering himself during his yearly progresses upon the provincial aristocracy, and upon the stewards of the royal manors, into a stationary monarch, summoning his dependent nobility to attend upon their sovereign’s person in his own court and palace. The laws of Howel Dha, relating entirely to the duties and privileges of “the Court of Aberfraw,” and the similar arrangements of the Norwegian Olaf, probably have reference to the commencement or the progress of a revolution of this description; and if the apocryphal regulations of the Scottish court may be regarded as the feudal embodiment of a true tradition, Malcolm may be looked upon as the originator of that change through which the Scottish king, ceasing gradually to migrate from one province to another, enhanced the dignity of personal attendance upon the sovereign, and assembled his nobility in his own “palace” of Scone.