[608]. Ailred, in the battle of the Standard, makes Walter l’Espec say, ‘Angliæ victor Willelmus per Laodoniam, Calatriam, Scotiam usque ad Abernith penetraret.’ The river Avon was the boundary of Laodonia. Between that river and the Carron was the district called Calatria. Dufoter de Calateria witnesses a charter of King David I. in the Glasgow Chartulary, and he appears in the Chartulary of Cambuskenneth as ‘vicecomes de Strivilyn.’
The ford King William crossed was the great entrance into Scotland proper, which King Kenneth fortified when ‘vallavit ripas vadorum Forthin.’
[609]. Flor. Wig. Chron. ad an. 1072.
[610]. Sim. Dun. de Gest. Reg. ad an. 1072.
[611]. The Ulster Annals have at 1085, ‘Maelsnectai mac Lulaigh Ri Muireb, suam vitam feliciter finivit.’—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 370.
[612]. Sim. Dun. de Gestis Reg. ad an. 1079.
[613]. Falkirk is termed in Latin ‘Varia Capella,’ and is still known to the Highlanders by the name of Eaglesbreac, or the ‘speckled church.’ Falkirk, or rather Fawkirk, is the Saxon equivalent, and has the same meaning from A.S. Fah, ‘of various colours.’
[614]. The Ulster Annals have in 1085, ‘Domhnall mac Malcolm Ri Albain, suam vitam infeliciter finivit.’
[615]. In the end of September, one of the most stormy months in the Scotch seas.
[616]. Mr. Burton considers that the place meant (Lothene) was the district of Leeds. The author dissents entirely from this, and is surprised that a writer of his acuteness and sagacity should have adopted this view. Scotia was still confined to the country north of the Firth of Forth, which still separated it from Anglia. William the Conqueror, who made the same preparation, went through Laodonia into Scotia. How could Malcolm await the king’s approach at Leeds?