The Noric chief who acquires lands bounded on all sides by the sea and reigns six years and nine months is obviously Magnus, and the ‘rex Angligenus’ Eadgar.
[641]. Fordun, Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 214.
[642]. National MSS. of Scotland, Nos. iii. iv. v. and vi. The learned editor states in his introduction (p. viii.) that he would have included a fifth charter if the original had not been lost. Copies, however, exist, and it is printed in Raine’s North Durham, Ap. No. vii. The editor seems to consider that it was a genuine charter; but the expressions it contains, and especially the names of the witnesses, seem to the author to mark it out as unmistakably spurious.
[643]. The Saxon Chronicle has in 1107, ‘In this year also died king Eadgar of Scotland on the Ides of January, and Alexander, his brother, succeeded to the kingdom as King Henry granted him.’ The older chronicles place his death at Dunedin or Edinburgh, and the former name has by the later chronicles and by Fordun been mistaken for Dundee. See Chron. of Picts and Scots, pp. 175, 181, 289.
[644]. They appear in this order in the charter of David I., confirming the previous grants to Dunfermline. ‘Dona Duncani fratris mei, Dona Eadgari fratris mei, Dona Ethelredi fratris mei, Dona Alexandri regis fratris mei.’
[645]. Ailred in his tract ‘De Bello apud Standardum’ makes Robertus de Brus, in his address to David I., say ‘Quis Eadgarum fratrem tuum, immo plusquam fratrem, nisi noster exercitus, regno restituit? Tu ipse rex cum portionem regni quam idem tibi frater moriens delegavit, a fratre Alexandro reposceres, nostro certe terrore, quidquid volueras sine sanguine impetrasti.’ What the ‘portio regni’ given to David was will after appear.
[646]. Edgarus homo erat dulcis et amabilis, cognato suo Edwardo per omnia similis, nihil tyrannicum, nihil durum, nihil avarum in suos exercens sed cum maxima caritate et benevolentia subditos regens.—Ailred, Genealogia regum ap. Twysden, p. 367.
[647]. Porro Alexander clericis et monachis satis humilis et amabilis erat, cæteris subditorum supra modum terribilis, homo magni cordis, ultra vires suas se in omnibus extendens. Erat autem litteratus, et in ordinandis ecclesiis, in reliquiis sanctorum perquirendis, in vestibus sacerdotalibus librisque sacris conficiendis et ordinandis studiosissimus, omnibus etiam advenient bus supra vires liberalissimus; circa pauperes vero ita devotus ut in nulla re magis delectari, quam in eis suscipiendis, lavandis, alendis vestiendisque videretur. (Ib.)
[648]. National MSS., Nos. viii. ix. and x.
[649]. Chart. Scone, p. 1.