By some of the Scotch Chronicles Malcolm is said to have been slain at Inneraldan or the mouth of the river Alne, by others at Alnwick, and to have been buried at Tynemouth;[[618]] and thus terminated his long reign of thirty-five years.[[619]] The character of Malcolm was variously regarded by the English and by his own subjects. The English historians, who had mainly to record his frequent invasions of Northumberland, regarded him as a man of barbarous disposition and a cruel and pitiless temper, who delighted to ravage and devastate the northern districts of England, instigated by avarice; while they attributed any better traits in his character to the humanising influence of his Saxon consort Queen Margaret. By his Celtic subjects he was known as Malcolm Ceannmor, or ‘great head,’ and was regarded, according to the testimony of St. Berchan, as
A king, the best who possessed Alban;
He was a king of kings fortunate.
He was the vigilant crusher of enemies.
No woman bore or will bring forth in the East
A king whose rule will be greater over Alban;
And there shall not be born for ever
One who had more fortune and greatness.
State of Scotland at Malcolm’s death.
On his death he left the kingdom in possession for the first time of the same southern frontier which it ever after retained. It was now separated from the kingdom of England by the Solway Firth, the range of the Cheviot Hills, and the river Tweed. From the Solway to the Clyde extended that portion of Cumbria which still belonged to the Scottish king; from the Tweed to the Forth, the district of Lothian. From the Forth to the Spey was Alban or Albania, now called Scotia. Beyond it, on the north, the province of Moravia; on the west, Airergaidhel or Argathelia; while beyond these were, on the north, Caithness and the Orkney Isles forming the Norwegian earldom of Orkney; and, on the west, the Sudreys or Western Islands still occupied by the Norwegians, though since the death of Thorfinn belonging nominally to Scotland.