The young Maid of Norway died in Orkney, when on her passage from Norway to take possession of her kingdom, in the end of September 1290, and thus terminated the last native dynasty of Scottish monarchs of Celtic descent in the male line, and Scotland, with her united provinces, her feudal institutions, and her mixed population, now became a prize to be contested for between the English monarch, who asserted his right as her lord paramount, and the various Norman barons who claimed her as their inheritance through descent in the female line from her native monarchs. It is with the Celtic portion of her population alone that this work is now mainly concerned.
[620]. The first-known earl of Atholl was Madach Comes, who appears as witness to charters of Alexander I. and David I. He is called in the Orkneyinga Saga ‘Moddadr, Jarl af Atjoklum,’ and is there said to be son of ‘Melkolmr, brother of King Melkolf, father of David, who is now king of Scots’ (chap. lvii.). Melkolf is obviously Malcolm Ceannmor, and other MSS. read Melmare in place of Melkolmr, which is probably the true reading, as in the Book of Deer we find Malmori d’Athotla witnessing one of the charters. Wynton has a curious story that Malcolm Ceannmor was an illegitimate son of King Duncan, by the miller of Forteviot’s daughter, and that he had two legitimate brothers. The latter seems to be well founded, and the former may have been raised by the partisans of Donald to strengthen his claim upon the throne.
[621]. In the Chartulary of St. Andrews is a memorandum of a charter by ‘Edelradus vir venerande memorie filius Malcolmi regis Scotiæ Abbas de Dunkelden et insuper Comes de Fyf,’ confirmed by his brothers Eadgar and Alexander, because the lands had been granted to him by his parents ‘in juvenili etate’ (p. 115).
[622]. For Godred Crovan see Munch’s edition of Chron. of Man, pp. 3, 50. The Magnus Barefoot’s Saga seems to have combined the account of two expeditions of that king in 1093 and 1098 into one. But the distinct statement that he conquered the Western Isles during the reign of Malcolm, and while Godred and his son Lagman were still alive, leaves no doubt that his first expedition took place in the last year of Malcolm’s reign.
[623]. Sax. Chron. ad an. 1093.
[624]. Fordun, Chron. B. v. c. xxi. It is usually stated on Fordun’s authority that Donald Ban had obtained the assistance of Magnus, king of Norway, who had just conquered the Western Isles, but there is no expression to this effect in Fordun’s Chronicle. The words ‘auxilio regis Norwegiæ’ are interpolated by Bower.
[625]. Wynton, B. vii. c. 3.
[626]. Sax. Chron. ad an. 1093.
[627]. Sax. Chron. ad an. 1093.