Whom Wynton means by Gyllandrys Ergemawche it is difficult to say. William Fitz-Duncan, son of Duncan, king of Scotland, had attached himself to his uncle David throughout the whole of his career both as earl and as king, and distinguished himself as a commander in all his wars. He married Alice de Romellie, heiress of Skipton and Craven, by whom he had a son William and three daughters. The Orkneyinga Saga says of William Fitz-Duncan, that ‘he was a good man. His son was William the Noble, whom all the Scots wished to take for their king.’—Coll. de Reb. Alb. 346. William Fitz-Duncan was dead in 1151, when a charter was granted of Bolton by ‘Adeliza de Rumelli consensu et assensu Willelmi filii et hæredis mei et filiarum mearum,’ and among the witnesses is ‘Willelmo filio meo de Egremont.’ He was commonly called the Boy of Egremont, and is said to have died under age, but he may have lived till after 1160. This may have been the occasion in which the Scots wished to make him their king, and Wynton’s barbarous name Ergemawche may have been intended for Egremont.
[696]. 1160 Rex Malcolmus duxit exercitum in Galwaiam ter; et ibidem inimicis suis devictis federatis, cum pace et sine damno suo remeavit. Fergus princeps Galwaiæ habitum canonicum in ecclesia Sanctæ crucis de Ednesburch suscepit.—Chron. S. Crucis.
Malcolmus rex tribus vicibus cum exercitu magno perrexit in Galweia, et tandem subjugavit eos.—Chron. Mel.
[697]. Fordun, Annalia, iv.
[698]. Account of the Family of Innes (Spalding Club), p. 51.
[699]. 1164 Sumerledus regulus Eregeithel jam per annos xii. contra regem Scotorum Malcolmum dominum suum naturalem impie rebellans, cum copiosum de Ybernia et diversis locis exercitum contrahens apud Renfriu applicuisset, tandem ultione divina, cum filio suo et innumerabili populo a paucis comprovincialibus ibidem occisus est.—Chron. Mel.
Anno mocolxoivo Sumerledus collegit classem centum sexaginta navium, et applicuit apud Renfriu, volens totam Scotiam sibi subjugare. Sed ultione divina a paucis superatus, cum filio suo et innumerabili populo ibidem occisus et.—Chron. Manniæ.
[700]. This poem is printed in Fordun, Chron. vol. i. p. 449.
[701]. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 374. The Gael seem to have applied to him the same epithet of Cenmor, borne by his great-grandfather. There is preserved in a MS. at Cambridge a supposed vision of a certain cleric after Malcolm’s death in which he converses with the glorified king. The original is printed in Fordun, Chron. i. 452. When he asks—‘Cur sic, care, taces?’ the king answers, ‘Pro me loquitur mea vita.’ The cleric then says, ‘Eger eras longum?’ to which the king replies, ‘Jam bene convalui.’
He seems to have been sickly for several years, and Fordun says that after Somerled’s defeat his brother William was made warden of the kingdom.