During the first three years of the reign of William the Conqueror, he had little real power or authority beyond the Humber, and it was not till the end of the year 1069, when he invaded Northumbria, and laid the country entirely waste with fire and sword, that he may be said to have actually conquered the country. Previous to that expedition he exercised a merely nominal authority, through earls of his own appointment, who no sooner attempted to exercise their functions within the earldom than they were ere long slain.
It was in Northumbria that the cause of the Aetheling was mainly supported, and that part of it which was north of the Tyne presented a tempting field for the incursions of the Scots. On the death of Siward in 1055 an earl was for the first time appointed who was not of Northumbrian race. Tostig, the son of Earl Godwine, was appointed earl by King Eadward, but, after a ten years’ rule, we are told by the Saxon Chronicle that in 1065 ‘all the thanes in Yorkshire and Northumberland gathered together, and outlawed their Earl Tostig, and slew all his household-men that they could come at, both English and Danish, and took all his weapons at York, and gold and silver, and all his treasures which they could anyway hear of, and sent after Morkere, son of Earl Aelfgar (of Mercia), and chose him for their earl,’ which was confirmed by King Edward. Morkere does not seem, however, to have been accepted by the Northumbrians beyond the Tyne, as Simeon of Durham tells us that he transferred that part of the earldom to Osulf, son of Earl Eadulf, of the line of the native earls, who had been slain in the year 1041. In the year 1067 King William summoned Earl Morkere to attend him on his voyage to Normandy, and retained him beside him, and at the same time sent Copsige, who had been an adherent of Earl Tostig, to govern, as procurator, that part of the earldom under Osulf; but Simeon tells us that ‘Osulf, driven by Copsige from the earldom, concealed himself in the woods and mountains in hunger and want, till at last, having gathered some associates whom the same need had brought together, he surrounded Copsige while feasting at Newburn. He escaped through the midst of confused crowds, but, being discovered while he lay hid in the church, he was compelled, by the burning of the church, to go out to the door, where, at the very door, he was beheaded by the hands of Osulf, in the fifth week of his charge of the earldom, on the fourth of the ides of March. By and by, in the following autumn, Osulf himself, rushing headlong against the lance of a robber who met him, was thrust through, and there perished. At his death Gospatric, the son of Maldred, the son of Crinan, going to King William, obtained the earldom of the Northumbrians, which he purchased for a great sum, for the dignity of that earldom belonged to him by his mother’s blood. His mother was Algitha, the daughter of Earl Uchtred, whom he had by Algiva, daughter of King Agelred.’[[602]] Gospatric, by paternal descent, was nearly connected and a member of the same house with Malcolm, the king of the Scots, while the means by which he obtained his earldom ranged him among the followers of King William, and he thus placed himself in a position which it was very difficult for him to maintain without alienating from him either the one or the other. In the following year, therefore, the Saxon Chronicle tells us that, in 1067, after Whitsunday, ‘it was then announced to the king that the people of the north had gathered themselves together and would stand against him if he came. He then went to Nottingham, and there wrought two castles; and so went to York, and there wrought two castles, and in Lincoln, and everywhere in that part. And Earl Gospatric and the best men went to Scotland.’ The same Chronicle tells us that in the following year, 1068 according to the Chronicle, but correctly given by Simeon in 1069, ‘King William gave to Earl Robert (de Comines) the government over Northumberland; but the men of the country surrounded him in the burgh at Durham, and slew him and nine hundred men with him. And immediately after Eadgar Aetheling came, with all the Northumbrians, to York, and the townsmen made peace with them; and King William came unawares on them from the south with an overwhelming army, and put them to flight, and slew those who could not flee, which were many hundred men, and plundered the town, and defiled St. Peter’s monastery, and also plundered and oppressed all the others, and the Aetheling went back again to Scotland.’
This unsuccessful attempt seems to have led to a more general combination of the northern powers in favour of the Aetheling, in which the aid of Swein, king of Denmark, had been solicited and obtained; and in autumn ‘came from Denmark,’ the Saxon Chronicle tells in 1069, ‘three sons of King Svein and Asbiörn Jarl, and Thorkell Jarl, with two hundred and forty ships, into the Humber; and there came to meet them Eadgar child and Earl Waltheof, and Maerleswegen, and Earl Gospatric, with the Northumbrians, and all the country people, riding and walking, with a countless army, greatly rejoicing; and so all unanimously went to York and stormed and demolished the castle, and gained innumerable treasures therein, and slew there many hundred Frenchmen, and led many with them to the ships.... When the king learned this, he went northward with all his force that he could gather and completely harried and laid waste the shire. And the fleet lay all winter in the Humber, where the king could not come at them. And the king was in the day of Midwinter at York, and so all the winter in the land.’ Florence of Worcester tells us that ‘King William ceased not, during the whole winter, to lay waste the land, to murder the inhabitants, and to inflict numerous injuries.’[[603]] This devastation of the land, however, does not appear to have extended beyond the Tyne, or to have affected the districts on the coast; but what was left undone by William was completed by Malcolm, king of the Scots, for Simeon of Durham tells us that in the spring of the year 1070, after King William had returned to the south of the Humber, ‘a countless multitude of Scots marched through Cumbreland, under the command of King Malcolm, and turning to the east ravaged with fierce devastation the whole of Teesdale, or the vale of the river Tees, and the parts bordering it on each side.’ Then, ‘having pillaged Cleveland in part, by a sudden foray he seized Holderness, and thence savagely overrunning the territory of St. Cuthbert, between the Tees and the Tyne, he deprived all of their property, and some of their lives. Then he destroyed by fire, under his own inspection, the church of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, at Wearmouth. He burnt also other churches, with those who had taken refuge in them.’[[604]] Whether this inroad was made as part of the plan for a combined attempt in favour of Eadgar, which failed the preceding year, and that Malcolm had been too late in putting his part of it into execution, or whether, as seems more probable, he thought it a favourable opportunity for carrying out the policy which he hoped might lead to his extending his frontier to the Tyne, it seems difficult to say; but Gospatric, who had fled to Scotland before the approach of King William the preceding year, had now become reconciled to him, as Orderic of Vital says that while King William had pursued his foes to the river Tees, he ‘there received the submission of Waltheof in person, and of Gospatric by his envoys, who swore fealty on his part,’[[605]] and he seems to have thought that he might win favour by acting against Malcolm. Simeon therefore tells us, ‘Having called in some bold auxiliaries, he made a furious plundering attack upon Cumbreland. Having done this with slaughter and conflagration, he returned with great spoil and shut himself with his allies into the strong fortress of Bamborough, from which making frequent sallies, he weakened the forces of the enemy.’ Malcolm ‘having heard, while still gazing on the church of St. Peter as it was being consumed by the fire of his men, of what Gospatric had committed against his people, scarcely able to contain himself for fury, ordered his troops no longer to spare any of the English nation, but either to smite all to the earth, or to carry them off captives under the yoke of perpetual slavery.’ Simeon then gives us his usual picture of the barbarity with which such inroads were carried on by the Scots, and adds as the result, ‘Scotland was therefore filled with slaves and handmaids of the English race; so that even to this day, I do not say no little village, but even no cottage, can be found without one of them.’[[606]] Simeon inserts the following tale in his account of this inroad by Malcolm the king of the Scots. He says that ‘when he was riding along the border of the river (Wear) beholding from an eminence the cruel exploits of his men against the unhappy English, and feasting his mind and eyes with such a spectacle, it was told him that Eadgar Aetheling and his sisters, who were beautiful girls of the royal blood, and many other very rich persons, fugitives from their homes, lay with their ships in that harbour. When they came to him with terms of amity, he addressed them graciously, and pledged himself to grant them and all their friends a residence in his kingdom as long as they chose.’ And Simeon afterwards adds, ‘After Malcolm’s return to Scotland, when Bishop Egelwin was commencing his voyage towards Cologne, a contrary wind arising soon drove him back to Scotland. Thither also it bore with a favourable course Eadgar Aetheling with his companions before named. King Malcolm, with the consent of his relatives, took in marriage Eadgar’s sister Margaret, a woman noble by royal descent, but much more noble by her wisdom and piety. By her care and labour the king himself, laying aside the barbarity of his manners, became more gentle and civilised.’ But this story, if it has any foundation at all, appears to be misplaced, and the marriage which followed it had already taken place. Placed as it is in this year, it is quite inconsistent with the previous narrative. Simeon had recorded two years before the flight of Eadgar with his mother Agatha, and his two sisters Margaret and Cristina, by sea, to Scotland, where he says they passed the winter. It is therefore in the highest degree improbable that when Eadgar went in the following year to Northumbria to join the Danes in seizing the country, he should have taken his mother and sisters with him, from their secure refuge at the court of Scotland, to join him in so hazardous an expedition. Then the story as told implies that Malcolm now heard of these sisters and their charms for the first time; while, according to Simeon himself, they had already passed a winter with him in Scotland. The story really belongs to the first flight of Eadgar to Scotland, with his mother and sisters, in 1068, and not to his return from Northumbria in 1070, and seems to be the same tale which Fordun tells, on the authority of Turgot, that King Malcolm, when residing at Dunfermline, heard of the arrival of Eadgar and his sisters in St. Margaret’s Bay, and sent messengers to ascertain who they were, who brought him precisely the same report of the beauty of the sisters, in consequence of which he invited them to his court, and married Margaret.[[607]]
During the early years of the reign of the Conqueror, Scotland had not only been the refuge of his discontented subjects, and the haven in which those who unsuccessfully opposed him could at all times shelter themselves from his vengeance and renew their attempts when opportunity offered, but its king had afforded the Aetheling three times a refuge at his court, and had now identified himself with his cause by marrying his sister. King William therefore felt the necessity of establishing at once a more definite relation between himself and the Scottish king, and of convincing him that his power was not to be opposed with impunity. It was not till the year 1072 that he was able to turn his attention seriously to this object, but in that year the Saxon Chronicle tells us ‘King William led a naval force and a land force to Scotland, and lay about that land with ships on the sea-side, and himself with his land force went in over the ford.’ This was precisely the same disposition of his forces which Earl Siward had made when he invaded Scotland in 1054, and no doubt with the same object, that of investing Scone, the capital of the country. King William, we know, marched with his land army through Lothian and Stirlingshire, and entered Scotland proper by the ford over the Forth[[608]] there, and the only object in sending a fleet could have been to penetrate into the interior of the country by the Firth of Tay. We are then told that ‘King Malcolm came and made peace with King William, and gave hostages and became his man, and the king went home with all his force.’ Florence of Worcester says that ‘Malcolm, king of Scots, met him in a place called Abernethiei’[[609]] or Abernethy on the Tay, which is quite in accordance with this view. What the precise nature or extent of the homage was which Malcolm agreed at Abernethy to render, there are no materials now to determine. When the possessions of the king of the Scots were confined to the kingdom proper north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, the expression ‘he became his man’ would have a definite significance; but after the cession of Cumbria and Lothian it loses its force, as we cannot tell whether the homage was paid for the kingdom or for one or both of these outlying dependencies. The hostage given was, as we are afterwards informed by the Saxon Chronicle, Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm by Ingibiorg, his first wife, who must then have been a boy of about ten years of age. Simeon tells that on the return of King William from this expedition, he deprived Gospatric of his earldom, ‘charging him with having afforded counsel and aid to those who had murdered the earl (Robert de Comines) and his men at Durham, although he had not been present in person, and that he had been on the side of the enemy when the Normans were slain at York’ in the same year; and he adds that, ‘flying therefore to Malcolm, he (Gospatric) not long after, made a voyage to Flanders; returning after a little time to Scotland, the king bestowed upon him Dunbar with the adjacent lands in Lothian.’ [[610]] King William seems now to have thought it more politic to place one who had some hereditary claim to the earldom than a stranger over the Northumbrians, and bestowed Gospatric’s earldom upon Waltheof, ‘which,’ says Simeon, ‘was his right by his father’s and brother’s descent, for he was the son of Earl Siward by Elfleda, daughter of Earl Aldred.’
Eadgar Aetheling appears to have taken refuge, when King William invaded Scotland, in Flanders; but two years after, when King William went to Normandy, ‘Eadgar child came,’ the Saxon Chronicle tells us, ‘from Flanders to Scotland on St. Grimbald’s mass day, or the 8th of July, and King Malcolm and his sister Margaret received him with great worship. At that same time Philip, king of France, wrote to him and bade him come to him and he would give him the castle of Montreuil, that he might then daily do harm to his enemies. Moreover, King Malcolm and his sister Margaret gave him and all his men great gifts and many treasures in skins decked with purple and in pelisses of marten-skin and weasel-skin and ermine-skin, and in palls and in golden and silver vessels; and led him and all his ship men with great worship from his dominion.’ No doubt, in the relation in which Malcolm then stood to King William, his presence was an embarrassment to him; and as he was not disposed to assist him himself at this time, he was glad to be relieved from his difficulty by the king of France discovering that he might make use of him to annoy the king of England from another quarter. But King Malcolm was not to be so easily freed from the embarrassment of his presence as he expected; for we are told that ‘on the voyage evil befell them when they went out at sea, so that there came on very rough weather, and the raging sea and the strong wind cast them on the land so that all their ships burst asunder, and they themselves with difficulty came to land, and almost all their treasures were lost, and some of his men also were seized by the Frenchmen; but he himself and his best men went back again to Scotland, some ruefully going on foot and some miserably riding. When King Malcolm advised him that he should send to King William over the sea and pray his peace; and he also did so, and the king granted it to him and sent after him. And King Malcolm and his sister again gave him and all his men innumerable treasures, and very worthily again sent him from their jurisdiction.’ Malcolm was more fortunate the second time. Eadgar succeeded in reaching the court of King William in safety, where he was well received, and remained with him.
Malcolm appears now to have turned his attention more to the amalgamation of the provinces he held, instead of attempting to enlarge his dominions at the expense of Northumbria, and in the year 1078 he appears to have invaded the province of Moray. The hereditary ruler of the province at this time was Maelsnectan, the son of that Lulach who had borne the title of king for four months, and his son appears under the Celtic title of ‘Ri Moreb,’ or king of Moray. Malcolm seems to have been successful in his attempt, as the Saxon Chronicle tells us in an imperfect notice that ‘in this year King Malcolm won the mother of Maelslaeht ... and all his best men, and all his treasure and his cattle, and he himself escaped with difficulty.’ He may have taken refuge in the remote stronghold of Loch Deabhra in Lochaber, which St. Berchan tells us had been the habitation of his father Lulach, and here he died seven years after.[[611]]
Malcolm appears to have been emboldened by this success and by the continued absence of King William in Normandy to make another attempt to extend his frontier to the Tyne, notwithstanding that his son Duncan was still retained as a hostage at the English Court, as Simeon of Durham tells us that in 1079 ‘Malcolm, king of Scots, after the Assumption of St. Mary on the 15th of August, devastated Northumberland as far as the great river Tyne, slew many, took more prisoners, and returned with great spoil;’ but when King William returned in the following year to England, ‘he sent in the autumn his son Robert to Scotland against Malcolm, but having gone as far as Egglesbreth he returned without accomplishing anything, and built the new castle on the Tyne.’[[612]] Egglesbrech is the Gaelic name of Falkirk,[[613]] so that Robert penetrated as far as the river Carron, but did not venture to proceed farther, and it is probable that he contented himself with repaying the devastation of that part of Northumbria north of the Tyne by pillaging Lothian and Calatria, and was forced to retreat by the want of supplies; and while he protected Northumbria south of the Tyne by the castle he erected on that river, he virtually surrendered the district north of it to the incursions of the Scots.
In the year 1085, the same year in which Maelsnectan died, Malcolm appears to have lost a son, Domnall, probably another son by his first marriage, who seems to have died a violent death;[[614]] and two years afterwards William the Conqueror died and was succeeded by his son William Rufus. By the death of his great and imposing antagonist Malcolm seems to have considered himself relieved from the necessity of further observing any engagements he may have entered into towards the king of England; and though his eldest son was still retained as a hostage at the English Court, he had now around him a flourishing band of youthful sons, the fruit of his union with Queen Margaret, the eldest of whom may now have been approaching majority, and he may have felt less hesitation in exposing the son whom he had not seen since he was a boy, and by a mother whom he had forgotten, to have the consequences of any act of hostility visited upon him. Accordingly, when in the year 1091 Eadgar Aetheling had been deprived of the lands which had been given him in Normandy by the new king, and went to Scotland to his brother-in-law and to his sister, Malcolm had no hesitation in this time adopting his cause. As the Saxon Chronicle tells us, ‘While King William was out of England King Malcolm of Scotland came hither into England and harried a great deal of it, till the good men who had charge of this land sent a force against him and turned him back. When King William in Normandy heard of this he made ready for his departure, and came to England, and his brother the Count Robert with him, and forthwith ordered a force to be called out, both a ship force and a land force; but the ship force, ere he could come to Scotland, almost all perished miserably a few days before St. Michael’s mass,[[615]] and the king and his brother went with the land force. But when King Malcolm heard that they would seek him with a force, he went with his force out of Scotland into the district of Lothian in England, and there awaited.[[616]] When King William with his force approached, there intervened Count Robert and Eadgar Aetheling, and so made a reconciliation between the kings, so that King Malcolm came to our king and became his man, with all such obedience as he had before paid to his father, and that with oath confirmed. And King William promised him in land and in all things that which he had had before under his father. In this reconciliation Eadgar Aetheling was also reconciled with the king, and the kings then with great good feeling separated.’ This passage seems very clearly to imply that the expression ‘and Malcolm became his man’ does not refer to any homage rendered by Malcolm for the kingdom of Scotland, either on this or the former occasion, but for land held under the king in England; and although Malcolm may have considered that he had a hereditary right to the district of Lothian, and was not inclined to admit its dependence upon the king of England when he could help it, yet it can hardly be doubted that when forced to recognise the claims of the king of England he conceded that Lothian was not an integral part of Scotland but of England, and, in becoming the king’s man, acknowledged his supremacy over it.
A.D. 1092.
Cumbria south of the Solway wrested from the Scots.
The Chronicle adds, in narrating this reconciliation, ‘but that stood only a little while;’ and accordingly in the following year[following year] King William, who apparently coveted that part of the Cumbrian territory which extended from the Solway to the river Derwent and the Cross at Stanmore, and probably considered that if his right as overlord had been recognised he might resume any part of it, ‘with a large force went north to Carlisle and restored the town, and raised the castle and drove out Dolphin, who had previously ruled the land there, and garrisoned the castle with his own men, and then returned south hither. And very many country folk, with wives and with cattle, he sent thither to dwell and to till the land,’ Dolphin was probably the son of Earl Gospatric, and held this part of Cumbria under Malcolm, and this was a direct invasion of his rights, as the kings of Scotland unquestionably were in legitimate possession of the whole of the ancient British kingdom of Cumbria, which extended from the Clyde to the Derwent and to Stanmore; but he appears to have endeavoured at first to obtain redress by negotiation, for the Chronicle tells us that ‘after this, the king of Scotland sent, and demanded the fulfilment of the treaty which had been promised him. And King William summoned him to Gloucester, and sent him hostages to Scotland, and Eadgar Aetheling afterwards, and the men back again, who brought him with great worship to the king. But when he came to the king he could not be held worthy either the speech of the king or the conditions that had been previously promised him; and therefore in great hostility they parted, and King Malcolm returned home to Scotland. But as soon as he came home he gathered his army, and marched into England, harrying with more animosity than ever behoved him. And then Robert the earl of Northumberland ensnared him with his men unawares and slew him. Morel of Bamborough slew him, who was the earl’s steward and King Malcolm’s gossip. With him also was slain his son Eadward, who should, if he had lived, have been king after him.’ Simeon of Durham adds that he was cut off near the river Alne, and that ‘his army either fell by the sword, or those who escaped the sword were carried away by the inundation of the rivers which were then more than usually swollen by the winter rains. Two of the natives placed the body of the king in a cart, as none of his men were left to commit it to the ground, and buried it at Tynemouth.’[[617]]