But when he came there, he could neither obtain a conference with our king nor the performance of the conditions formerly promised him, and therefore they departed in great enmity: and king Malcolm returned home to Scotland, and as soon as he came thither, he assembled his troops and invaded England, ravaging the country with more fury than behoved him: and Robert, earl of Northumberland, with his men, lay in wait for him, and slew him unawares. He was killed by Moræl of Bambrough, the earl's steward, and king Malcolm's own godfather:[1] his son Edward, who, had he lived, would have been king after his father, was killed with him. When the good queen Margaret heard that her most beloved lord, and her son, were thus cut off, she was grieved in spirit unto death, and she went with her priest into the church, and having gone through all befitting rites, she prayed of God that she might give up the ghost. And then the Scots chose[2] Dufenal, the brother of Malcolm, for their king, and drove out all the English who had been with king Malcolm. When Duncan, the son of king Malcolm, heard all this, for he was in king William's court, and had remained here from the time that his father gave him as an hostage to our king's father, he came to the king, and did such homage as the king required; and thus, with his consent, he departed for Scotland, with the aid that he could muster, both English and French, and he deprived his kinsman Dufenal of the throne, and was received as king. But then some of the Scotch again gathered themselves together, and slew nearly all his men, and he himself escaped with few others. They were afterwards reconciled on this condition, that Duncan should never more bring English or Frenchmen into that country.
A. 1094. This year, at Christmas, king William held his
- ↑ Ingram translates the original "godsib" baptismal friend, and adds the following note, "literally a gossip; but such are the changes which words undergo in their meaning as well as in their form, that a title of honour, formerly implying a spiritual relationship in God, is now applied only to those whose conversation resembles the contemptible tittle-tattle of a christening:—Gibson translates it a 'susceptor,' i. e. an undertaker."
- ↑ "From this expression it is evident, that though preference was naturally and properly given to hereditary claims, the monarchy of Scotland, as well as of England, was in principle elective. The doctrine of hereditary of divine of indefeasible right of modern growth."—Ingram.
