Aethelstan did not long survive the battle, but died in the year 940, and was succeeded by his brother Eadmund.
Five years after this great defeat, Constantin, worn out with age and disappointment, resigned the throne for the pilgrim’s staff, and committed the kingdom to Malcolm, the son of his predecessor Donald, who was entitled under the Tanistic law to succeed him.[[507]] The later chronicles say that he became abbot of the Culdees of St. Andrews, and served God in that capacity for five years; but that is importing later language and ideas into his time, though he appears to have retired to the monastery of St. Andrews. St. Berchan says—
Afterwards God did call him
To the Recles (monastery) on the brink of the waves,
In the house of the apostle (Andrew) he came to death.
Undefiled was the pilgrim.
He lived ten years after his retirement, and his death is recorded by the Ulster Annals in the year 952, and by the Pictish Chronicle in the tenth year of his successor.[[508]]
A.D. 942-954.
Malcolm, son of Donald, king of Alban.
Malcolm commenced his reign by making the first attempt to push the power of the kings of Alban beyond the Spey. So far as the northern boundary of the kingdom, their authority seems now to have been pretty well established; but he now invaded the province of Moreb or Moray beyond it with his army, and slew Cellach, probably its provincial king,[[509]] but with what permanent result we are not told. He was soon, however, to receive a much more important addition to his dominions in another direction. In the year 941, we are told by the Saxon Chronicle, the Northumbrians belied their fealty oaths, and chose Olaf of Ireland for their king. It is difficult to distinguish between the acts of the two Anlafs,—the son of Guthfrith and the son of Sitriuc,—in their appearances in Northumberland, and the chroniclers themselves seem to share in the difficulty; but following in the main the Saxon Chronicle, we may hold that this was Anlaf, son of Guthfrith or Godfrey, king of the Danes of Dublin; but a year after that, having laid waste and burnt the church of St. Balthere at Tyningham, he suddenly perished. Anlaf, the son of Sitriuc and son-in-law of Constantin, at length became king of Northumberland. In the year 943 he took Tamworth by storm, and great slaughter was made on either side; and the Danes had the victory, and led away great booty with them. King Eadmund then beset him in Leicester, and would have captured him had he not escaped out of the town by night. After that King Anlaf gained King Eadmund’s friendship, and was received by him at baptism, and he royally gifted him. And in the same year, after a good long interval, he received King Regnald at the bishop’s hand. This sudden friendship, however, only subsisted one year, for in 944 King Eadmund subdued all Northumberland into his power and expelled the two kings, Anlaf son of Sitriuc, and Regnald son of Guthfrith. During the whole of these attempts by the Danish kings of Dublin to maintain possession of Northumberland, and the repeated invasions from Dublin which followed every effort to expel them, they seem to have made their way through the territories of the Cumbrian Britons, and to have received the support of their kings, who, as descended from the brother of King Constantin, whose daughter Amlaiph, or Anlaf Cuaran, had married, were nearly connected with him. Eadmund seems therefore to have resolved to deprive them of this ready means of access to Northumberland and the support they obtained from it, by overrunning the British territories and making the king of Alban a guarantee for their fidelity.
A.D. 945.
Cumbria ceded to the Scots.