[110] As Kenneth was the contemporary of the Anglo-Saxon Edgar, it is not to be supposed that he has escaped the claims of the Norman writers, and accordingly, at a time when he was harrying Cumberland, he figures in their pages as an attendant at the court of Edgar at Chester, forming one of a a crew of eight “underkings,” who in token of humble submission rowed the king’s barge in a triumphal procession on the Dee. During another visit to the English court at Lincoln, a crafty suggestion of the Scottish king about the difficulty and trouble of defending Lothian, is rewarded by the gift of the province as a feudal fief, to be held by various acts of homage, amongst others on condition of carrying the crown on all state occasions, whilst manors are provided to cover the expenses of the royal vassal on his progresses towards the southern court! It is curious to remark the tone of increasing feudalism pervading the fabrications of each succeeding century. The composers of the fictions about Kenneth and Edgar, which are only to be found in the later chroniclers connected with St. Albans, have been even more than usually imaginative, and their transparent fabrications remain as a warning to the impartial historian to look with mistrust upon all claims connected with such a tissue of anachronism and fable. V. Appendix L, pt. 1.
[111] Rathinveramon, “the fort at the mouth of the Almond” where it joins the Tay, is named as the place of his death in Innes, Ap. 5, the same locality as the “caput amnis Awyne” of Wynton, v. also Tigh. 997. It is said to have been the site of the ancient Bertha, and was swept away by the great flood at the close of the reign of William the Lion.
[112] Innes, Ap. 5. Wynton, b. 6, c. 10. An. Ult. 1004.
[113] Sim. Dun. de obs. Dun. (Twysden, p. 79). An. Ult. 1006. Through the error of some transcriber probably, these events are placed by Simeon in the year 969, when neither Malcolm nor Ethelred were reigning, nor was Ealdun bishop of Durham. The real date must have been in 1006, as the Ulster annals mention that in 1005 the Scots were defeated by the Saxons “with great slaughter of their nobles.” Fordun (l. 4, c. 43) has either mistaken this battle for the later one at Carham, or has unblushingly claimed it as a victory. Before the time of Canute the difference in titles of Eorl and Ealdorman, marked the different people over whom the possessor of the title was placed in authority. Oslac is addressed as Eorl, Ælfhere and Æthelwine as Ealdormen, in the Laws of Edgar, Sup. 15.
[114] Sim. Dun., as above; V. Appendix M.
[115] Olaf Tryggvessonar Saga in Col. de Reb. Alb., p. 330, and Antiq. Celt.-Scand., p. 119. The battle must have been fought after 1005, the date of Malcolm’s accession, and before 1009, the year of Thorfin’s birth. The latter was five when his father was killed at Clontarf, bearing the fatal banner himself, for it seems to have acquired an evil reputation, and Hrafn the Red, on Sigurd committing it to his charge after the death of its first bearer, refused to lift it, adding somewhat unceremoniously, “Bear thine own devil thyself.”—(Story of Burnt Njal, c. 156.)
[116] Heimsk. Saga 7, c. 99, with the Sagas already quoted; vide also the account of the battle of Clontarf in the Irish Annals.
[117] Chron. Sax. 1016. Sim. Dun. Twysden, p. 81.
[118] Innes, Ap. 4. Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun., l. 3, c. 5, 6—Do. De obs. Dun. p. 81, de Gestis 1018. On comparing the passages of Simeon it is impossible to doubt that the cession of Lothian by Eadulf Cudel was the result of the battle of Carham, though there is an evident reluctance in the English chronicler to allude to the defeat and its consequences. The men of the Lothians, according to Wallingford, retained their laws and customs unaltered, and though the authority is questionable, the fact is probably true, for Lothian law became eventually the basis of Scottish law. Conquest indeed in these times did not alter the laws and customs of the conquered, unless where they come into contact and into opposition with those of the conquerors, and the men of the Lothians remained under the Scottish kings in much the same position as the men of Kent under the kings of Mercia and Wessex, probably exchanging the condition of a harassed for that of a favoured frontier province.
[119] Chron. Sax. 1031. MS. Cot. Tib. B. iv. is the authority. Two later MSS. add the names of two other kings, Mælbeth and Jehmarc. Macbeth became Mormaor of Moray in the following year through the death of his kinsman Gilcomgain. These two kings reappear in the Heimskringla (Saga 7, vol. 2, p. 196. V. also Lodb. Quida, p. 101), as “Nordan of Skotlandi of Fifi.” If Fifi is here put for Fiord Riki, it is probably a mistake, for “the Firth kingdom” might mean Moray as well as Fife, and the name in this instance would be more appropriate to the former.