Malcolm III of Scotland

“ MALCOLM III, called Canmore (d. 1093) , king of Scotland, succeeded to the kingdom of Duncan I, his father, by the defeat of Macbeth [q. v.] on 27 July 1054, by Earl Siward of Northumbria. This victory gave him possession of Cumbria, and his own victories at Lumphanan in Mar, where Macbeth was slain, and at Essy in Strathbogy, Aberdeenshire, on 3 April 1057, over Lulach, son of Gilcomgan, and nephew of Macbeth, secured his succession to the Scottish kingdom. On 25 April of the same year he was crowned at Scone.
Malcolm is the first king of Scotland who is more than a name. ”

“ Such a story may be legendary in its details, but it is clearly no legend, but true tradition, as regards the national feeling of the times which it describes. Scotland, at the time of Malcolm’s death, was still torn by local and dynastic factions; [54] but all parties in the old Scottish realm were 29 agreed on one point. A Scottish king to be chosen. They would have no more innovations from England or from Normandy; they would have no more English or Norman strangers to eat up their land in their own sight. They would have no son of Margaret, no son even of Malcolm, to reign over them ”

“ Malcolm, in 1010, marched north with his army, and encamped at Mortlach. The Danes advanced to meet the Scots, and a dreadful and fierce conflict ensued, the result of which was long dubious. At length the northmen gave way and victory declared for Malcolm. Had the Danes succeeded they would in all probability have obtained as permanent a footing in North Britain as they did in England; but the Scottish kings were determined, at all hazards, never to suffer them to pollute the soil of Scotland by allowing them even the smallest settlement in their dominions. ”

“ William sends his brother, who is courteously received by the Scottish King for three days. Somewhat like the Moabite king of old, though with quite another purpose, Malcolm takes his visitor to the tops of various hills, and shows him the hosts of Scotland encamped in the plains and dales below. With so mighty a force he is ready to withstand any one who should try to cross the firth; he would be well pleased if any enemy would make the attempt. Malcolm’s homage to Robert. ”

“ Accordingly, when in the year 1091 Eadgar Aetheling had been deprived of the lands which had been given him in Normandy by the new king, and went to Scotland to his brother-in-law and to his sister, Malcolm had no hesitation in this time adopting his cause. As the Saxon Chronicle tells us, ‘While King William was out of England King Malcolm of Scotland came hither into England and harried a great deal of it, till the good men who had charge of this land sent a force against him and turned him back. ”

“ He himself married the Princess Margaret (1068) , and made her the Queen of Scotland. ... When Malcolm, King of Scotland, was thus connected with the Saxon royal family of England, he began to think of chasing away the Normans, and of restoring Edgar Etheling to the English throne. This was an enterprise for which he had not sufficient strength; but he made deep and bloody inroads into the northern parts of England, and brought away so many captives, that they were to be found for many years afterwards in every Scottish village, nay, in every Scottish hovel. ”

“ King Malcolm cried, friends lately met, and now
To part for ever! and he kissed the cheek
Of Adela, and took brave Godwin's hand100
And Edmund's, and then said, almost in tears,
It is not now too late! yet o'er my grave
So might a duteous daughter weep! God speed
Brave Malcolm to his father's land! they cried.
The ships beyond the promontory's point
Were anchored, and the tide was ebbing fast.
[127] Then Ailric: Sire, not unforeseen by me107
Was this sad day. Oh! King of Scotland, hear!
I was a brother of that holy house
Where Harold's bones are buried ”

“ Kitson and Trenton looked at one another and grasped their swords, as though doubting whether they ought not to cut down their king’s prisoner rather than let him be rescued; and meanwhile the cry, ‘Save King James!’ broke out on all sides, knights leapt down to tender their homage, and among the foremost Malcolm knew Sir Patrick Drummond, crying aloud, ‘My lord, my lord, we have waited long for you. Be a free king in free Scotland! ”

“ Canute, after his accession, summoned the Scottish King to acknowledge himself a vassal for Cumberland to the Crown of England; but Malcolm refused compliance, on pretence that he owed homage to those princes only who inherited that kingdom by right of blood. Canute was not of a temper to bear this insult; and the King of Scotland soon found that the sceptre was in very different hands from those of the feeble and irresolute Ethelred. ”

“ Malcolm, in his warlike incursions into Northumberland and Durham, carried off immense numbers of young men and women, who were to be seen in the reign of David I. in almost every village and house in Scotland. The Gaelic population were quite averse to the settlement of these strangers among them, and it is said that the extravagant mode of living introduced by the Saxon followers of Queen Margaret, was one of the reasons which led to their expulsion from Scotland, in the reign of Donal-bane, who rendered himself popular with his people by this unfriendly act. ”

“ Andrew for Scotland and her people, vowing that, if they obtained a victory, he would increase the chapel by three lengths of his spear, and make the church of a bishoprick dedicated to Heaven and its service. Wheeling round at that moment, he found a third Danish captain close by him, and slew him by one thrust of his lance, and restored courage to the Scots.
"Victory! Victory!" cried Malcolm; "God and St. Andrew for Scotland!"
Like a torrent the Scots again rushed through the narrow vale, and again many a tartan plaid and many an eagle's wing was dyed in the reddest blood of Denmark. ”

“ Malcolm was succeeded by his brother William, the declared enemy of England. Invading Northumberland, he was surprised near Alnwick Castle by Bernard de Baliol. Sixty cavaliers escorted him, and he made a desperate charge upon the English, exclaiming, “Now we shall see who are good knights.” He was unhorsed, and carried off to Newcastle on the spur. As the price of his liberty he performed feudal homage at York for the whole of Scotland, placing hostages and certain strongholds in King Henry’s hands. ”

“ Malcolm, in his zeal for the fallen Anglo-Saxon dynasty, five times made incursions into Northumberland, laid waste the country far and wide with fire and sword, and carried away almost the entire adult population as slaves into Scotland. ”

“ Meanwhile the Ætheling Edgar and his sisters, with other English exiles, sought shelter in Scotland, and were hospitably received. At the same time Gospatric, now William’s earl in Northumberland, retaliated by a harrying of Scottish Cumberland, which provoked Malcolm to greater cruelties. It was said that there was no house in Scotland so poor that it had not an English bondman. Presently some of Malcolm’s English guests joined the defenders of Ely; those of highest birth stayed in Scotland, and Malcolm, after much striving, persuaded Margaret the sister of Edgar to become his wife. ”

“ He made great havoc in the shore towns, but Eadwine and Morkere of Northumberland hurried to meet him with their troops and drove him away, so that with only twelve ships left he went to Scotland, where Malcolm, the Scottish king received him with a hearty welcome, and entertained him politely the rest of the summer. They had lately been sworn enemies, but now that Tostig was fighting against England, Malcolm put aside all bygone prejudice. ”

“ For half a year she had been unable to ride, and almost confined to bed. On the fourth day before her death, when Malcolm was absent on his last English raid, she said to this priest : 'Perhaps on this very day such a calamity may befall Scotland as has not been for many ages.' Within a few days the tidings of the slaughter of Malcolm and her eldest son reached Scotland. On 16 Nov. 1093 Margaret had gone to her oratory in the castle of Edinburgh to hear mass and partake of the holy viaticum. ”

“ 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 434have 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. ”

“ Malcolm, after "the deep damnation of his taking off," fled from the red wrath of Macbeth and into the far prophecy of Banquo, to the court of Edward the Confessor. There perhaps he met Margaret; or perhaps not, since she was grand-niece to the Confessor, and Malcolm was a middle-aged man when this first royal Scottish romance occurs. When he returned he built himself a castle here on the safe north side of the Forth; if ever any place were safe in that eleventh century. He waited here the coming of Margaret, and she came, the first Margaret of England. ”

“ If we do get free, Malcolm, the sooner we return to Scotland the better. We have seen almost all those whom we are charged to call upon, and we are certainly in a position to assure the prince that he need hope for no rising in his favour here before he comes, and that it is very doubtful that any numbers will join him if he marches south. ”

“ Thus died Malcolm Ceanmore in the six-and-thirtieth year of a long and prosperous reign. An able king, and a bold and fearless warrior, the traits that have been preserved of his private character evince the kindliness of disposition, and the frank generosity, which not unfrequently adorn so gracefully the character of a brave man. Though as ignorant of letters as most of his contemporaries, he loved to choose the books which were the favourite study of his queen, and to cause them to be emblazoned with gold and jewels as a testimony of his affection and esteem ”

“ Malcolm III., 1057-1093.—The reign of this Malcolm, surnamed Canmore or the great head, is a turning-point in Scottish history, which henceforth ceases to be essentially Scottish; the Celtic manners, language, laws, and customs being changed by the strong English influence brought to bear on them in this and the following reigns. This change was in great measure due to the conquest of England in 1066 by the Normans under William the Conqueror. The Scottish court was the nearest and most natural refuge for those Englishmen who would not yield to the strangers. ”

“ The northern districts appear to have been peculiarly fatal to this branch of the reigning family, and Malcolm’s death may probably be attributed to the vengeance of the men of Mærne, for the death of Cellach, a northern Mormaor, whose defeat in the earlier years of the king’s reign is amongst the occasional vague notices in the Scottish chronicles, which alone remain to shed a dim light upon the incessant contest waged for many generations between the northern and southern provinces of Scotland. ”

“ Far more important were the effects of this alliance upon the history of Scotland. A considerable portion of the old Northumbrian kingdom had been reduced by the Scottish kings in the previous century, but up to this time the English population had little influence upon the ruling element of the kingdom. Malcolm’s marriage undoubtedly improved the condition of the English to a great extent, and under Margaret’s sons, Edgar, Alexander I. and David I., the Scottish court practically became anglicized. ”

“ The Norwegians knew it by the name of Gaddgeddla, a district said in the Orkneyinga Saga to be ‘at the place where Scotland and England meet.’ [58]
Jarl Thorfinn. On the death of Malcolm the Second in the year 1034 the dynasty of Scottish kings, which had been established on the Pictish throne nearly three centuries previously, came to an end. There appears to have been no male descendant left who could claim the crown, and the succession opened to his grandson by his eldest daughter. ”

“ He commenced his reign by a raid on Northumbria and the siege of Durham, before whose gates he was repulsed with great slaughter by Uchtred, son of the Ealdorman Waltheof, in 1006. Uchtred was rewarded for this victory by receiving a grant of the two Northumberland earldoms, Bernicia and Deira, from Ethelred, king of Wessex, who gave him as his third wife his daughter Ælgifu (Freeman, Norman Conquest, i. 358) . The whole south-eastern border of Scotland being thus united under this powerful earl, Malcolm turned his attention to the north of Scotland. ”

“ Scotland, according to Fordun, was portioned out in ancient times into Thanages, or Fee-farms paying rent, held of course of the crown—for any other theory was incompatible with the ideas of the feudal era—until Malcolm, remitting the rents, gave away the whole kingdom, only reserving to himself the Moot Hill of Scone, when in return for the royal prodigality his people confirmed their sovereign’s right to wardship, relief, and other feudal privileges. ”

“ That monarch, although victorious, was so weakened that he dared not pursue Dunmail without the assistance of the Scots. And the condition upon which Malcolm, king of Scotland, joined Edmund with his forces, was, that if they were successful, Malcolm should possess Cumbria by paying homage to Edmund and his successors. The subjection of this wild race of mountaineers was then determined upon as a necessary step towards the pacification of the kingdom ”