Celtic Scotland

by W. F. Skene

But while the king of the Scots thus at length obtained possession of a part at least of Bernicia, and his rule could now be legitimately exercised as far at least as the river Tweed, the question still remained open as to the relation in which it was to place him towards the king of England. All the rights that the Earls of Northumbria could give him to the district of Lothian he had obtained by treaty; but, as part of Northumbria, it belonged to the kingdom of the Angles, and was under the dominion of its kings, and their right, as overlords, could obviously not be thus transferred. Cnut the Dane had, the year before the battle of Carham, become king of all England, but he had enough to occupy his attention during the first few years of his reign, and it was not till the year 1031 that he could take any active steps to vindicate his right as king of England. In that year, we are told by the Saxon Chronicle, ‘King Cnut went to Rome, and as soon as he came home, he went to Scotland, and the Scots king, Malcolm, submitted to him and became his man; but held that only a little while; and two other kings, Maelbaethe and Jehmarc.’ The actual kingdom of Alban, now called Scotia, extended only from the Firth of Forth to the river Spey, and the provinces beyond them, though viewed by the kings of the Scots as dependencies upon their kingdom, were not yet considered as forming an integral part of it; those lying to the north and west of the kingdom proper frequently passing under the rule of the Norwegians. It is to these outlying provinces we must look for the two kings who are said to have separately submitted along with Malcolm. It is to this period that a description of Britain belongs in which these provinces are separately distinguished. The part which refers to Scotland is thus described:—‘From the Tweed to the great river Forth are Loonia and Galweya.’ From thence to Norwegia and Dacia—that is, to the districts occupied by Norwegians and Danes—are ‘all Albania, which is now called Scotia, and Moravia;’ and the districts and islands here included under the terms Norwegia and Dacia are ‘Kathenessia, Orkaneya, Enchegal, and Man, and Ordas, and Gurth, and the other Western Islands around them.’[^[566]] Loonia is Lothian, recently annexed to the Scottish kingdom, and the name Galweya was afterwards extended so as to include the whole country from the Solway to the Clyde. Albania is here distinguished from the provinces south of the Firths, on the one hand, and from Moravia, north of the Spey, on the other, and we are told that it is now called Scotia. Moravia, in its extended sense, was the province of Moray and Ross. North and west of these provinces was the territory occupied by the Norwegians and Danes. On the mainland it consisted of Kathenessia or Caithness, and Airergaidhel, here probably meant by Enchegal. Ordas and Gurth are probably intended for Lewis and Skye, the old forms of which names were Lodus and Sgithidh, and which are usually mentioned separately from the other islands.

THE
KINGDOM
OF
SCOTIA
W. & A. K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London.

Moravia is here not included among the Norwegian and Danish possessions. On the death of Sigurd, the Norwegian earl of Orkney, it had become freed from the Norwegian rule, and its rulers appear to have considered themselves so far independent as to claim the Celtic title of Ri or king. Findlaec, the son of Ruadhri, who appears in the sagas under the name of Finleikr Jarl, and whose slaughter by the sons of his brother Maelbrigdi in 1020 is recorded by Tighernac as Mormaer of Moreb, is termed in the Ulster Annals ‘Ri Albain;’ and Tighernac, in recording the death of his successor Malcolm, the son of his brother Maelbrigdi, and one of those who slew him, in 1029, terms him ‘Ri Albain.’[^[567]] There can therefore be little doubt that the king Maelbaethe, who submitted to King Cnut, was Macbeth, the son of Findlaec, who appears under the same title which had been borne by his cousin and his father.[^[568]] The native rulers of Airergaidhel or Argathelia appear also to have borne the Celtic title of Ri, and it is probable that Jehmarc represents in a corrupted form the name of the ruler of this district.[^[569]] These kings would probably have little scruple in rendering their submission to King Cnut the Dane, from their having so recently been under Norwegian rule.

Three years after this expedition Malcolm died. Tighernac records his death in 1034 as king of Alban and head of the nobility of the west of Europe;[^[570]] but we now obtain an additional source of information for this period of the history of very great value in the Chronicle of Marianus Scotus, who was born in the reign of this Malcolm, in the year 1028, and notices a few of the events in Scottish history which took place during his own lifetime. The first Scotch event noticed by him is the death of Malcolm, which he says took place on the twenty-fifth of November 1034, and he terms him ‘king of Scotia.’[^[571]] The kings of Alban occasionally appear as kings of the Scots, but this is the first instance in which the name of Scotia is applied as a territorial designation of their kingdom. Used by a contemporary writer, who was himself a native of Ireland, it is evident that the name of Scotia had now been transferred from Ireland, the proper Scotia of the previous centuries, and become adopted for the kingdom of the Scots in Britain in the reign of Malcolm, son of Kenneth, which ushers in the eleventh century, superseding the previous name of Alban.

With Malcolm the descendants of Kenneth mac Alpin, the founder of the Scottish dynasty, became extinct in the male line. Had any male descendant existed, there would have been great risk of the territories now composing the kingdom becoming again disunited. As Malcolm had no son, but at least two daughters who had male issue, Cumbria and Lothian would naturally have passed to the nearest heir in the female line; while a male collateral who could trace his descent from the founder of the family would, by the law of Tanistic succession, have had a preferable claim to the regions north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, forming the kingdom of Alban proper, and would probably have received the support of the Scottish part of its population at least; but the existence of any such male descendant cannot be traced, and the last male scion of the race appears to have been slain by King Malcolm in the year which preceded his own death, probably to make way for the quiet accession of Duncan, his grandson through his daughter, to the whole of the territories which he had united under his sway.[^[572]]

A.D. 1034-1040.
Duncan, son of Crinan and grandson of Malcolm, king of Scotia.

He attained his object, for Duncan appears at first to have succeeded him in the whole of his dominions without objection, but ere long to have provoked aggression both in the south and in the north. In the south, Eadulf Cudel, the earl who had ceded Lothian to the Scots, did not long survive the battle of Carham, and was succeeded in the Bernician earldom by Aldred, a son of Uchtred, on whose death his brother Eadulf succeeded him, and in the year 1038 invaded Cumbria and devastated the whole country.[^[573]] Duncan, however, was not equally successful in an invasion of the territories of Eadulf, for Simeon of Durham, in his history of that church, tells us that Duncan, king of the Scots, advanced with a countless multitude of troops and laid siege to Durham, and made strenuous but ineffective efforts to carry it, for a large proportion of his cavalry was slain by the besieged, and he was put to a disorderly flight, in which he lost all his foot-soldiers, whose heads were collected in the market-place, and hung up upon posts.[^[574]]

The aggression, however, which he provoked in the north brought a formidable competitor into the field, and was destined to terminate more fatally for him. The details of this war are preserved to us in the Orkneyinga Saga; and though its authority is not unexceptionable, and the events it records are not to be found elsewhere, the narrative still carries with it an air of truth, and it fills a blank in the meagre records of the time which supplies in a great measure a clue to their real character. In this narrative the king who succeeded Malcolm appears under the strange designation of Karl or Kali Hundason,[^[575]] that is, either the Churl, or Kali the son of the hound; and from the appellation here given to Duncan’s father, we learn that the Hundi Jarl or the Hound Earl, who fought with Sigurd the Stout, earl of Orkney, could have been no other than Crinan, the warlike lay abbot of Dunkeld. On Sigurd’s death the islands of Orkney fell to his three sons, Sumarlidi, Einar, and Brusi, among whom they were divided; while Thorfinn, his son by the daughter of King Malcolm, received from his grandfather Caithness and Sutherland, with an earl’s title. The last of the three brothers among whom the Orkneys were divided died, however, a few years before the death of King Malcolm;[^[576]] and when his grandson Duncan succeeded him, Thorfinn had been for some years in possession of the entire earldom of Orkney. Duncan seems to have considered that Thorfinn having become earl of Orkney, he might resume possession of Caithness, or at least demand tribute from it. Thorfinn, on the other hand, considered that it was his inheritance from King Malcolm through his mother, and that he had obtained it before Duncan inherited the kingdom. Thus, says the Saga, they became open enemies and made war on each other. Duncan took the initiative, and bestowed Caithness with the title of earl upon a relation of his own, Moddan, said to be his sister’s son, who proceeded immediately to the north and collected forces in Sutherland. Earl Thorfinn on his part raised the men of Caithness, and on being joined by Thorkell Fostri with an army from the Orkneys, Moddan retired before his superior forces. Thorfinn then subdued the districts both of Sutherland and Ross, and after plundering in the district south of them, returned to Caithness and remained at Dungallsbae or Duncansby, with five war-ships and their crews, the rest of the army returning to Orkney. Moddan then sought the king, whom he found at Berwick, then probably on his return from his unsuccessful invasion of Northumbria, and told him the result of his expedition. Duncan organised a more formidable attack. He sent Moddan by land with a considerable force to make his way to Caithness, and he himself sailed from Berwick with a naval force, consisting of eleven warships and a numerous army. His intention was by landing on the north of Caithness to place Earl Thorfinn between the two armies, but the latter anticipated his plan by sailing out in his own ships and attacking Duncan’s fleet in the Pentland Firth. Though the latter fleet was superior in numbers, the Scots could not stand against the fierce onslaught of the Norwegians, and after an obstinate conflict gave way before them, and fled south into the Moray Firth, where Duncan landed and proceeded south to collect a new army. Thorfinn remained in the north till he was again joined by Thorkell Fostri with the Orkneymen, and then went south into the Moray Firth in pursuit of Duncan, and began to plunder the districts on its southern shore. In the meantime, Moddan, who had no one to oppose him, appears to have occupied Caithness with his army, and took up his quarters at Thurso, where he remained waiting for reinforcements, which he expected to receive from Ireland. Thorfinn, hearing this, again anticipated him. He remained himself in Scotland, and continued plundering the country, while he sent Thorkell north with a portion of the army. The people of Caithness were in his interest, and thus Thorkell succeeded in surprising Moddan in Thurso, where he came by night, set fire to the house in which Moddan was, and slew him. His men then surrendered, and Thorkell went from thence to the Moray Firth to rejoin Thorfinn with all the men he could collect in Caithness, Sutherland, and Boss, and found him in Myrhaevi or Moray. King Duncan now collected as large an army as he could assemble from the rest of Scotland; or, as the Saga expresses it, ‘as well from the south as the west and east of Scotland, and all the way south from Satiri or Kintyre, and the forces for which Earl Moddan had sent, also came to him from Ireland.[^[577]] He sent far and near to chieftains for men, and brought all this army against Earl Thorfinn.’ Earl Thorfinn appears to have been stationed at Torfness or Burghead, where the Borg was which his ancestor Sigurd had built to enable the Norwegians to maintain their footing in Moray, and here the great battle took place which was to decide this contest. Thorfinn first attacked the Irish division, who were immediately routed, and never regained their position. King Duncan then brought his standard forward against Earl Thorfinn, and the fiercest struggle took place between the Scots and the Norwegians; ‘but,’ says the Saga, ‘it ended in the flight of the king, and some say he was slain.’ Earl Thorfinn then drove the fugitives before him through Scotland, and laid the land under him wherever he went, and all the way south to Fife.[^[578]]

Such is the account given us by the Saga of this war. Marianus supplements it by telling us that in the year 1040 Donnchad, king of Scotia, was slain in autumn, on the 14th of August, by his general, Macbethad, son of Finnlaech, who succeeded him in the kingdom.[^[579]] Macbeth was at this time the Ri or Mormaer of the district of Myrhaevi or Moray, which finally became the seat of war, and when Duncan sent far and wide to the chieftains for aid, he probably came to his assistance with the men of Moray, and filled the place which Moddan had formerly occupied as commander of his army; but the tie which united the mormaers of Moray with the kings of the Scots was still a very slender one. They had as often been subject to the Norwegian earls as they had been to the Scottish kings; and when Duncan sustained this crushing defeat, and he saw that Thorfinn would now be able to maintain possession of his hereditary territories, the interests of the Mormaer of Moray seem to have prevailed over those of the commander of the king’s army, and he was guilty of the treacherous act of slaying the unfortunate Duncan, and attaching his fortunes to those of Thorfinn.