[258] J. Hexham 1143–45. Fordun, l. 5, c. 43, confounding William Comyn the Chancellor, with William the Treasurer, Archbishop of York, relates his supposed death by poison, with a rather ambiguous comment of his own, “Hic Willelmus Comyn Archiepiscopus Eboracensis, ad missam suam in ecclesiâ Sancti Petri a ministris altaris pecuniis corruptis, venenis potionatus est; qui licet venenum videret in calice nihilominus illud fide fervens sumpsit, et non diu post supervixit, Deo Gratias!”
[259] J. Hexham 1150. Hen. Hunt., l. 8, p. 226. R. Hoveden 1148, p. 280.
[260] It is singular how Wimund has been confounded, by nearly every historian down to the present day, with Malcolm MacHeth. Newbridge, who relates his adventures at length, l. 1, c. 23, 24, and who had often seen him in his blindness and captivity at Biland, merely says that he was born at some obscure spot in England, and pretended to be “a son of the Earl of Moray.” Ailred (quoted in Fordun, l. 5, c. 51) also alludes to him as an impostor, “Cum misisset ei Deus inimicum quemdam pseudo-episcopum qui se filium Comitis Moraviensis mentiebatur,” and again (Dominus regem) “monachi cujusdem mendaciis flagellavit.” But in l. 8, c. 2, Fordun treats MacHeth himself as an impostor, “erat enim iste Malcolmus filius MacHeth, sed mentiendo dicebat se filium Angusii Comitis Moraviæ.” Here begins the confusion; but it can be clearly shown that Wimund and MacHeth were totally different persons. Malcolm MacHeth, “the heir of his father’s hatred,” was captured in 1134 and confined in Roxburgh Castle until 1157, when he was liberated by Malcolm the Fourth and attested one of the Dunfermlyn Charters (Ailred, p. 344. Chron. Mel. 1134. Chron. St. Crucis 1157. Reg. Dunf. No. 40). Wimund could not have gone to Rushen, at the very earliest, before the year of its foundation, 1134; he was a monk before that date, and could not have been made bishop until after the imprisonment of MacHeth. From an entry in Wendover under 1151, “Eodem anno Johannes ..... factus est secundus antistes Monæ insulæ ..... Primus autem ibi fuerat episcopus Wimundus ..... sed propter ejus importunitatem privatus fuit oculis et expulsus,” it may be gathered that the career of Wimund was brought to a close at least six years before the liberation of MacHeth, and the Bishop of Man, who probably enacted his singular vagaries about 1150, may have personated the son, the brother, the nephew, of the real claimant of the earldom—or even that very claimant—but it is impossible to identify him with the solitary captive in Roxburgh Castle without attributing to one, or both, ubiquity.
[261] J. Hexham 1152. In the words of Newbridge (l. 1, c. 22), “aquilonalis regio, quæ in potestatem Domini regis Scottorum usque ad fluvium Tesam cesserat, per ejusdem Regis industriam in pace agebat.” Wynton, therefore, was justified in saying (bk. 7, c. 6, l. 241), “In swylk dissentyowne De kyng Dawy wan till his crown All fra the Wattyr of Tese of brede North on till the Wattyr of Twede, And fra the Wattyr of Esk the Est, Til of Stanemoor the Rere-Cors West.” The Esk was the river flowing into the sea at Whitby, and Stanemoor is on the borders of Yorkshire, Durham, and Westmoreland. As late as 1258 a bishop of Glasgow claimed jurisdiction as far as “the Rere-Cross,” and singularly enough he was an Englishman (Chron. Lanerc. 1258). Camden (Brit., p. 987) mentions the Brandreth Stone in Westmoreland as a meer-stone between Scots and English; but it probably was only a boundary of the lands held by the Scottish kings near Penrith. Alice de Rumeli was the daughter of William Meschines and Cecilia de Rumeli, who founded the Priory of Emmesey, which Alice removed to Bolton. Vide Bolton Priory Charters, Dugd Monas, vol. 6, p. 203. William of Egremont lost his life through his greyhound pulling him over “the Strides.”
[262] Chron. St. Crucis 1152. J. Hex. 1153. Newbridge, l. 1, c. 23. Ailred (Twysden), p. 368. Fordun, l. 5, c. 43. St. Bernard Vit. Mal., quoted by Hailes, vol. i. p. 103, note.
[263] Malcolm was born in 1141, William in 1142, and David in 1143. Fordun, in l. 5, c. 43, places David before William, but in l. 6, c. 1, David is rightly called the younger son. Wynton has been wrongly accused by Lord Hailes of countenancing this mistake, for he says nothing of the kind. “Sownys thre on hyr he had, Malcolme, Wyllame, and Dawy,” are his words; and though he subsequently calls William “the yhowngare brodyr,” it is only with reference to Malcolm. bk. 7, c. 6, l. 144–5, 353–65.
[264] J. Hex. 1153. Jorval, quoted in Lytt. Hist., vol. ii. p. 243.
[265] Fordun, 1. 5, c. 55, sec. 9. From c. 45 to c. 60 he is quoting Ailred, the friend and contemporary of David and his son Henry, and the principal authority to whom I am indebted for most of the features of the private character of the king.
[266] Act. Parl. Scot. As. Dav., 24, 30. Fordun, as above.
[267] Fordun, as above. Malm. Gest. Reg., l. 4, sec. 400. As. Dav., 26–29. Strictly speaking most of the agricultural laws are in the assize of William, and the statutes of Alexander the Second; but many of the laws of these kings are to be regarded as simply the enforcement of principles of policy laid down by David and his brother Alexander.