A.D. 1164.
Invasion by Somerled. His defeat and death at Renfrew.
Malcolm had to sustain one other invasion of his kingdom ere he passed from this earthly scene at the early age of twenty-five. It proceeded once more from Somerled, who had now become more powerful by the addition of one-half of the Western Isles, which he held under the king of Norway, to his possessions on the mainland. What provoked this invasion we know not, but it proved fatal to himself. Having collected forces from all quarters, including Ireland, and assembled a fleet of 160 ships, he landed at Renfrew with the intention of subduing the whole kingdom, but was suddenly attacked by the people of the district and sustained an unexpected defeat, having been slain with his son Gillecolm.[[699]] This took place in the year 1164, nearly two years before Malcolm’s death, and was attributed by the chroniclers to divine interposition; but the author of a curious contemporary poem claims the credit for the merits of Saint Kentigern of Glasgow.[[700]] The rest of the country had remained quiet during the few concluding years of Malcolm’s reign, but he appears to have conciliated its Gaelic population, and won their regard, for the Ulster Annals tell us that in 1165 ‘Malcolm Cenmor or Greathead, son of Henry the high king of Alban, the best Christian that was to the Gael on the east side of the sea for almsgiving and fasting and devotion, died.’[[701]]
A.D. 1166-1214.
William the Lyon, brother of Malcolm, reigns forty-eight years.
Malcolm was succeeded by his brother William, commonly called the Lyon King, who was crowned at Scone on Christmas eve of the year 1165, but no particulars of the ceremony are recorded.[[702]] His first proceeding was to claim from the king of England the restoration of Northumberland, which had been assigned to him as his appanage by his father David, but had been surrendered along with Cumberland during his brother Malcolm’s reign in 1157, and we find him invading England in 1173, with an army consisting mainly of those Highland Scots, whom, Fordun tells, men call ‘Bruti,’ and the Gallwegians.[[703]] In the following year William was taken prisoner by the English, when Fordun tells us the Scots and Gallwegians ‘wickedly and ruthlessly slew their Norman and English neighbours in frequent invasions with mutual slaughter, and there was then a most woeful and exceeding great persecution of the English, both in “Scotia” or Scotland proper and Galloway.’[[704]]
A.D. 1174. Revolt in Galloway.
This account is confirmed by Roger of Hoveden, so far as Galloway is concerned, where he had been himself sent by the king of England. He tells us that Uchtred, son of Fergus, and Gilbert, his brother, princes of the Gallwegians, immediately after the captivity of the king entered their own land, and expelled the king’s officers from its bounds, slew the English and Normans whom they found in their lands without mercy, and took and destroyed the fortifications and castles which the king had placed in their territory. They even proposed to the king of England to pass from the dominion of the king of Scots to that of the English crown. In short, it was a resistance by the Gaelic population to encroachments of the Norman and English barons, and shows the nature of the policy adopted by the Scottish king in subjecting these districts to his authority, and the extent to which it had been carried. The liberation of William from captivity in the following year arrested the progress of the insurrection.[[705]] According to Fordun the king led an army into Galloway, but ‘when the Gallwegians came to meet him under Gilbert, the son of Fergus, some Scottish bishops and earls stepped in between them, and through their mediation they were reconciled; the Gallwegians paying a sum of money and giving hostages.’[[706]]
A.D. 1179.
King William subdues the district of Ross.
Having thus quieted the Gallwegians, the king resolved to bring the district of Ross, which lay between the Moray and Dornoch Firths, under his authority. In the year 1179 he penetrated into that district at the head of his earls and barons, with a large army, subdued it, and in order to maintain his authority built two castles—one called Dunscath on the prominent hill on the north side of the entrance to the Cromarty Firth, to dominate over Easter Ross, and the other called Etherdover on the north side of the Beauly Firth, at the place now called Red Castle, to secure the district called the Black Isle.[[707]] Though William had thus for a time brought the northern districts under subjection to the royal authority, he was not permitted to retain them long without disturbance, and two years after he had to encounter the assault by a pretender to the crown, who found his chief support in the Gaelic population of these districts. This was Donald Ban, who called himself the son of William Fitz Duncan, and claimed the throne as lineal heir of Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm Ceannmor, who had been himself king of Scotland.
A.D. 1181. Insurrection in favour of Donald Ban Macwilliam.
King William had purchased his liberation from captivity in England by the surrender of the independence of Scotland, and this probably created great dissatisfaction among the Celtic population of the kingdom north of the Firths, which finally broke out, in 1181, in a serious attempt to place the ancient kingdom of Alban with the northern districts under a separate monarch in the person of Donald Ban, whose descent from the marriage of Malcolm Ceannmor with the Norwegian Ingibiorg would commend his pretensions both to the native and the Norwegian leaders. He seems to have borne the name of Macwilliam, and this is the first appearance of a family name, which was to become more familiar to the kings of Scotland in connection with such insurrections. Invited, or at least encouraged, by a formidable party among the earls and barons of Scotland proper, he invaded the northern districts with a large force.[[708]] Fordun tells us that ‘for the whole time from the capture of the king of Scots to his liberation, the inhabitants of the southern and northern districts of the kingdom were engaged in mutual civil war with much slaughter;’ and this was probably true of the entire period from the surrender of the independence of the kingdom to its restoration, during which time Galloway and the districts beyond the Spey were more or less in insurrection, and a considerable party in Scotland proper were hostile to the king. On the 1st of January 1185, Gilbert, son of Fergus, lord of Galloway, died, and a part of the Gallwegians broke out into rebellion under a certain Gilpatrick; while Roland, the son of Uchtred, who had been slain by his brother Gilbert, espoused the cause of the king, and a battle took place between them in which Roland was victorious. One of the king’s officers, too, Gilcolm the Marescal, revolted from him and surrendered the king’s castle of Earn or Dundurn, at the east end of Loch Earn, to the king’s enemies, which shows that there was a party in Stratherne hostile to him, and infested Lothian with frequent attacks. As soon as he heard of the defeat of Gilpatrick, Gilcolm, who is termed by Fordun ‘a tyrant and robber chief,’ and whose name shows that he was of Gaelic, and probably of Gallwegian, descent, invaded Galloway with the view of putting himself at the head of the insurgents, and establishing himself as ruler in those parts of Galloway hostile to the king; but he, too, was defeated in battle by Roland on the 30th of September, and perished with many of his followers.[[709]]