Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/406

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Malcolm III
400
Malcolm III

to the church; but the foundation of the see of Mortlach, afterwards transferred to Aberdeen, ascribed to him by Fordoun, can scarcely be historical, and probably belongs to the reign of Malcolm III. The laws attributed to him, by which all Scotland was transformed into a feudal monarchy at a council held at Scone, are apocryphal, for feudalism proper did not penetrate Scotland till the time of Malcolm Canmore and his sons. The year before his own death he had slain a possible competitor for the crown, who is described by the ‘Ulster Annals’ as ‘the son of Boete, the son of Kenneth, possibly his cousin or nephew’ (Skene, p. 399), and he was succeeded by his grandson, Duncan I [q. v.], son of his daughter Bethoc by Crinan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and father of Malcolm III [q. v.] With Malcolm ended the male line of Kenneth Macalpine.

[Chron. of Picts and Scots, Anglo-Saxon Chron., Annals of Tighernac, Heimskringla, vii., chap. ii., Simeon of Durham, John of Wallingford's Chronicles, and Marianus Scotus are the authorities on which Skene, Celtic Scotland, and Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, have constructed the history of this reign. Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. i.; Robertson's Scotland under her Early Kings; Skene's Celtic Scotland, vol. i.]

Æ. M.

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. In 1061, taking advantage of the absence of Tostig, earl of Northumbria, at Rome, he broke the peace between him and that earl, his ‘sworn brother,’ and ravaged the territory of St. Cuthbert. After the death of Thorfin, Norwegian jarl of Orkney, which cannot be certainly dated, but is conjecturally placed in 1057 (Skene, Celtic Scotland, i. 413), Malcolm married his widow, Ingibrorg. He took no part in the expedition of Harold Hardrada and Tostig against England, which ended by their deaths at Stamford Bridge in 1066. Soon afterwards, Edgar Atheling, son of Edward, the son of Eadmund Ironside [q. v.], came to Scotland along with his mother Agatha and his sisters Margaret and Christina. It appears most probable they arrived at Dunfermline in the autumn of 1067, and that in the following spring, his first wife being dead, he married Margaret as his second [see Margaret, d. 1093]. After his marriage Malcolm was almost incessantly engaged in wars, in the main successfully. He thus guaranteed the independence of his kingdom, and enabled those internal reforms to be carried out which his queen directed. In curious contrast to the culture of his wife. Malcolm could not read, although he is said to have spoken three languages, Latin, English, and Gaelic. In spring 1070 Malcolm came to the aid of Edgar, his brother-in-law, who was fighting William the Conqueror in Northumbria, and, advancing with a large force through Cumberland, ravaged Teesdale and Cleveland, and thence overran the district between the Tees and Tyne till he reached Wearmouth, where he burnt St. Peter's Church. Meantime Edgar had been deserted by his allies, the Danes under Sweyn, king of Denmark, and Gospatric [q. v.], the exiled Saxon earl of Northumbria. The former went home; the latter was induced by a grant of the Northumbrian earldom to side with William. Malcolm, in revenge for this defection, laid waste Northumbria, carrying away many captives, so that, according to an English chronicler, ‘no village in southern Scotland was without English slaves.’ Availing himself of Malcolm's absence, Gospatric made a counter-raid on Cumbria, but after taking much spoil retreated to Bamborough.

In 1072 William the Conqueror invaded Scotland for the first time with his whole forces by land and sea. Malcolm came to Abernethy on the Tay and ‘made peace with him, and gave hostages, and became his man, and the king went home.’ This brief entry in the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ describes a real conquest of Scotland, but its temporary character is shown by the flight of Gospatric, after his deprivation by William of the Northumbrian earldom, to Malcolm, who shortly after made him Earl of Dunbar. Next year Edgar Atheling returned to Malcolm's court, but though well received, his presence was felt to be hazardous under the new relations between the English and the Scottish king, and he was despatched to Flanders. Shipwrecked on his way he again sought shelter with his brother-in-law, but was again dismissed, and, repairing to the court of William in Normandy, submitted to him, as, according to the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ Malcolm had advised. Malcolm now turned his arms against a domestic enemy, and in 1077 defeated the forces of