“Cum maximam prædam ex Anglia, more solito, ultra flumen These, de Clefeland, Richemond, et alibi sæpius adduceret, castrumque de Aylnwick, sive Murealden, quod idem est, obsideret, obsessosque sibi rebellantes oppido affligeret, hi, qui inclusi fuerant, ab omni humano excludebantur auxilio.”
The besieged, having no other chance, take to treachery. One man offers himself to go on the desperate venture; he makes his way to the Scottish camp, and asks for the King;
“Quærentibus causam inquisitionis dixit, se castrum regi traditurum, et in argumentum fidei claves ejusdem in hasta sua coram omnibus portavit oblaturus. Quo audito rex, doli nescius, incaute a tentorio inermis exiliens et minus provide, occurrit proditori; at ille, quæsita opportunitate, inermem regem armatus transfixit, et, latibula silvæ vicinæ festinanter ingressus, eorum manus evasit.”
Then follows the death of the King’s son Eadward;
“Turbato igitur exercitu, dolor dolorem accumulat: nam Eadwardus regis primogenitus a Northumbris lethaliter vulneratur.”
He dies three days later “apud Eardwardisle foresta de Jedwood,” and was buried at Dunfermline “juxta patrem.”
It is really impossible that this can be a genuine bit of Turgot. There is nothing anywhere else about a siege of Alnwick, and Mr. Hinde pertinently raises the question whether there was anything at Alnwick to besiege. At any rate, it is strange that the defenders of Alnwick, or anybody else whom Malcolm might come across in Northumberland, should be called “rebellantes” against him. There is a very mythical sound about the alleged form of Malcolm’s death. In the Tapestry (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 240) keys are handed to a victorious besieger on the point of a spear; but it is from the walls of the besieged place, and they are received in the like sort. They surely would not be presented in this way in the King’s own camp. And, if Malcolm was killed in this way, how came Eadward to be mortally wounded? Mr. Hinde adds;
“The ridiculous tale of the person who pierced the king’s eye, receiving from that exploit the designation of ‘Piercy, quod Anglice sonat perforare oculum,’ is interpolated in some MSS. of Fordun. This story must necessarily have been invented after the Percy family became the possessors of Alnwick, and so gave point, if not probability, to the fiction.”
I suspect that Malcolm was killed in some ambush or in some other way unlike open battle. Then sympathy for Margaret called up—except at Durham and other parts more nearly concerned—sympathy for Malcolm. Then the Chronicler, in this state of mind, used the harsh word “beswikene,” and so a tale of actual treachery grew up. The version in Fordun gives us the story in the form of a detailed legend; in Orderic the tale itself is still vague; but the events which went before are so altered as to make any attack on Malcolm treacherous. In that version, he is going home from the King’s court in the King’s peace. In the true version, he is invading England, perhaps on just grounds in his own eyes, certainly on grounds which made his invasion by no means wonderful. Still resistance to him was a rightful operation of war, unless there was any actual treachery in the form which the attack took. That such there was we have no direct evidence; but there must have been something or other to account for the tone of so many writers. Florence is colourless; so is Henry of Huntingdon.
The Hyde writer, as usual, takes a line of his own. He speaks (301) of “quidam Robertus Northamhumbrorum comes, vir dives et potens, qui regem Scotorum Malcolmum, patrem Matildis reginæ, bellando cum toto pene exercitu interfecit.” It is not unlikely that the fact that Malcolm was not only the husband of the sainted Margaret, but also the father of the popular Queen Eadgyth-Matilda, won for him a measure of sympathy after his death which he had not enjoyed while he was alive. Indeed we get this relation distinctly set forth by the Continuator of William of Jumièges (viii. 8), who after recording the life-long imprisonment of Robert of Mowbray, adds, “Dictum est a pluribus, hanc talionem sibi redditam fuisse, quia regem Scotiæ, patrem videlicet nobilissimæ Mathildis postea reginæ Anglorum, dolose peremerat.”