William and Malcolm by the Scots' Water.
Mediation of Robert and Eadgar. from Durham to the border of the true Scotland, the Firth of Forth; and we are told that many of the land force also perished of cold and hunger.[1] The army however which remained was strong enough to make Malcolm feel less eager for deeds of arms than he had most likely felt in May. At last, near the shore of the Scots' Water, the estuary which parted English Lothian from Scottish Fife, the two kings met face to face, seemingly in battle array, but without coming to any exchange of blows. It is marked in a pointed way that Malcolm had crossed from his kingdom to his earldom. He "went out of Scotland into Lothian in England, and there abode,"[2] There a negotiation took place. The ambassadors or mediators were Duke Robert and the Ætheling Eadgar.[3] According to the most picturesque version, Malcolm, who is conceived as still keeping on the northern side of the firth, sends a message to
- ↑ Chron. Petrib. 1091. "Se cyng W. . . . sona fyrde hét ut abeodan ægðer scipfyrde and landfyrde; and seo scipferde, ær he to Scotlande cuman mihte, ælmæst earmlice forfór, feowan dagon toforan Sc̃e Michæles mæssan." Florence calls the host "classis non modica et equestris exercitus," and adds that "multi de equestri exercitu ejus fame et frigore perierunt."
- ↑ Chron. Petrib. 1091. "Ac þa þa, se cyng Melcolm gehyrde þæt hine man mid fyrde secean wolde, he for mid his fyrde ut of Scotlande into Loðene on Englaland, and þær abad." Florence, followed by Simeon, oddly enough translates this; "Rex Malcolmus cum exercitu in provincia Loidis occurrit." Hence some modern writers have carried Malcolm as far south as Leeds, I presume only to Leeds in Yorkshire. Orderic (701 A), though, as we shall see, he somewhat misconceives the story, marks the geography very well; "Exercitum totius Angliæ conglobavit, ut usque ad magnum flumen, quod Scotte Watra dicitur, perduxit." The "Scots' Water" is of course the Firth of Forth. So Turgot in the Life of Margaret (Surtees Simeon, p. 247) speaks of "utraque litora maris quod Lodoneium dividit et Scotiam." See Appendix P.
- ↑ Chron. Petrib. ib. "Ða ða se cyng William mid his fyrde genealehte þa ferdon betwux Rodbeard eorl and Eadgar æþeling, and þæra cinga sehte swa gemacedon." So Florence; "Quod videns comes Rotbertus, clitonem Eadgarum, quem rex de Normannia expulerat, et tunc cum rege Scottorum degebat, ad se accersivit: cujus auxilio fretus, pacem inter reges fecit." On the details in Orderic, see Appendix P.
