[617]. Sim. Dun. de Gest. Reg. ad an. 1093.
[618]. Interfectus in Inveraldan.—Chron. St. A. Fust tue a Alnewyk et enterrez a Tynmoth.—Scala. Cron. Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 175, 206.
[619]. Mr. Burton gives Malcolm a reign of forty-six years. He says, ‘He is the first monarch of whose coronation we hear. The ceremony was at Scone near Perth—a place which had become the centre of royalty, though it hardly had the features which make us call a town a capital. History now becomes precise enough to fix the day of this event as the 25th of April 1057.’ By history Mr. Burton here means John of Fordun, whose authority ought not to be relied upon for such an event. The statement is quite incorrect. The first authentic record of a coronation at Scone is that of Malcolm the Fourth in 1154, and Malcolm Ceannmor reigned from 17th March 1057-8 to 13th November 1093, the day on which he was slain, or exactly thirty-five years and nearly eight months. The author has preferred narrating the events of his reign as nearly as possible in the words of the Chronicles which record them, as in fact we know nothing beyond what they tell us. All else is mere speculation, and adds nothing to our information. Mr. Burton introduces under this reign some remarks on the effect of the Norman influences and the feudal system upon Scotland. Excellent as these observations are, they are here out of place, and belong more properly to a later period. It was an old notion that feudalism came into Scotland in the reign of Malcolm, but it will not bear a close examination, and these influences were in fact very slight in the kingdom of Scotland proper, which still continued essentially in all its characteristics a Celtic kingdom till the reign of David the First, who was the first feudal monarch of Scotland, and when these influences became permanent. The author must, however, protest against one statement. Mr. Burton says (vol. i. p. 372), ‘Whether the thanes had or had not a distinct feudal existence independent of the power of the Crown to deal with them as official subordinates, it seems clear that the Abthane was placed among them as a royal officer, deriving his dignity and power from the Crown, and that it was his function to see to the collection of the royal dues payable from the landed estates—something, on the whole, bearing a close resemblance to feudal holding and its casualties.’ This account of the Abthane Mr. Burton has too readily adopted from Fordun, without proper examination; for nothing is more certain than that no such office, either in name or in reality, ever existed.
CHAPTER IX.
THE KINGDOM OF SCOTIA PASSES INTO FEUDAL SCOTLAND.
Effects of King Malcolm’s death.
The death of Malcolm Ceannmor, though his reign had been prolonged for the unusual period of thirty-five years, was a great misfortune for Scotland. He united in himself so many claims to the allegiance of the heterogeneous races under his rule, that a work of consolidation had been insensibly going on during his reign, while the influence of his pious and accomplished queen, the Saxon Princess Margaret, equally advanced their civilisation. His death, followed in four days by that of his queen, who succumbed to the grief and shock caused by this unexpected blow, arrested the progress of both, and not only retarded the advance the kingdom had been making for a period of thirty years, but threatened its dismemberment, till the accession of David the First once more united all the races of its population under one vigorous rule, and the task commenced by his father—the process of consolidation and advancing civilisation—was again resumed.
It will be necessary for our purpose to notice the events which affected the population of the country during this interval.
The death of Malcolm raised once more the vexed question of the succession to the throne, and brought the laws and prepossessions of the different races, now united under one government, into conflict. Malcolm appears to have had two brothers, Donald Ban and Melmare, from the latter of whom the earls of Atholl descended.[[620]] By his first wife Ingibiorg, the widow of Thorfinn, earl of Orkney, he seems to have had two sons, Duncan, who was given up to the king of England as a hostage in 1072, and Donald, who predeceased him in 1085. By his second wife, the Saxon Queen Margaret, he had six sons and two daughters. The sons were Eadward, who was slain with his father at Alnwick; Eadmund; Ethelred, who appears, while under age, as lay abbot of Dunkeld and earl of Fife;[[621]] Eadgar, Alexander, and David.
By the Welsh population of the Cumbrian province belonging to Scotland, Duncan, as the eldest son of his father, must have been regarded as the true heir to the throne, and those parts of the kingdom which were colonised by Norwegians, or under Norwegian influence, must have also looked to him both on that account and as the son of the Norwegian Ingibiorg. On the death of Thorfinn, the powerful earl of Orkney who had brought under his rule both the Western Isles and so many earldoms on the mainland, while his patrimonial inheritance of the Orkneys, and probably Caithness, passed to his sons, the other districts, as well as the Western Islands, reverted to their natural lords, and no doubt passed under the dominion of Malcolm Ceannmor. The earldoms which lay within the bounds of the kingdom of Alban, or Scotland proper, became once more incorporated with it. The great district of Moravia, or Moray and Ross, fell under the rule of his native Mormaers. The Western Isles, with Galloway and Argyll, must still to a great extent have been occupied by Northmen; and the revolution by which Godred Crovan, a Norwegian, succeeded in driving out the Danish ruler, and taking possession of the Island of Man some time between the years 1075 and 1080, appears to have led to the Western Isles passing also under his rule, over which he placed his eldest son Lagman; while the appearance of Magnus Barefoot, who had recently become king of Norway, with his fleet in the autumn of the year 1093, and his conquest of the Orkneys and the Western Isles, led to the latter being for the time transferred from the rule of Malcolm Ceannmor, who was at the time engaged in preparing the expedition into England which had, for him, so fatal a termination, and could not defend these remote possessions, to that of the king of Norway.[[622]] In these more remote parts of the kingdom the claim of Duncan would be regarded with most favour.
Lothian, however, had now become a very important and influential dependence of the kingdom, and its Saxon population must have looked with longing eyes to the children of their revered Saxon princess Queen Margaret as their natural lords. This is clear from the Saxon Chronicle, which, in recording the death of Eadward, the eldest son of Malcolm by Queen Margaret, who was slain with his father in 1093, adds ‘who should, if he had lived, have been king after him,’ and in Lothian the claim of Eadmund, the next surviving son, would be preferred.