Máel Coluim III, The Complicated Legacy of an 11th-Century King

11TH-CENTURY KINGSHIP MÁEL COLUIM III: THE COMPLICATED LEGACY OF AN 11TH-CENTURY KING Dr Neil McGuigan reassesses the reign of Malcolm III, a king long overshadowed by his famous predecessor (Macbeth) and wife (St Margaret), but who deserves to be remembered as a pivotal figure in the evolution of the medieval Scottish kingdom O n St Brice’s Day (13 18th-century engraving November) 1093, of Malcolm Canmore the reigning Scottish king was killed in a skirmish. So ended the 35-year reign of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada, likely more familiar to most readers as either Malcolm III or Malcolm Canmore. He was probably in his late fifties or sixties at the time. Scottish and Irish sources refer to the location of the deadly encounter as Inber Alda[n], ‘Inveraln’, i.e. Alnmouth, in what would later become the English county of Northumberland. In the later Middle Ages he was remembered as the ‘father’ of Scotland’s feudal order. By the 18th century, Malcolm had become an ‘enlightened’ highland chief seeking to ‘improve’ his country by emulating England and marginalising his Gaelic subjects. Thus his reign came to be seen as marking the transition between the ‘Celtic’ era of the monarchy and the more ‘Anglicised’, more familiar period. He became the link between ancient Celtic Scotland and the highlands with the British state. Queen Victoria herself commissioned a statue to stand in the entrance hall of Balmoral (see image on page 12). Myth has provided the main way of understanding Malcolm’s most famous personalities. The or the avenger who dispatches the reign, leaving it poorly understood renown of Macbeth and Margaret villain at the end of a play. by modren historians. He also has made it difficult for Malcolm Yet, as I shall try to explain below, tends to be overshadowed by two to sustain much of an independent the developments of Malcolm’s contemporaries, St Margaret and popular legacy. Malcolm when he is reign have a strong claim to be Macbeth, among Scottish history’s known is the husband of Margaret among the most consequential of H I STO RY S C OTL A N D - SEPT EMBER / O CTO BER 2 0 2 3 11 www.historyscotland.com the ancestors of two sons of the legendary Cinaed mac Ailpín (Kenneth MacAlpin), those of Áed mac Cinaeda (d.c.878)and Causantín mac Cinaeda (d.c.877). Although the rule of the Alpinid dynasty ended in 1034, the ‘sharing’ model was still dominant across the Gaelic world, including Scotland. Dynastic displacement was also a regular occurrence, and so the usurpation of 1034 does not certainly mark a shift in political principle. It is notable that no-one succeeded to the Scottish kingship without opposition until the reign of Alexander III, the last to reign before the so-called ‘Wars of Independence’. It is likely that the respective support-bases behind the careers of Duncan and Macbeth had been inherited from the Alpinids. Duncan’s political base had probably been that of the Alpinid any Scottish monarch, and do need Statue of Malcolm III in the 1058 was foreign support and the branch dominant in the south of the to be understood in their own right. entrance hall at Balmoral fact that in a polity like Scotland no kingdom, particularly on Tayside. Castle. Photograph single king could ever hope to keep Macbeth’s family came from the Malcolm’s origins attributed to G.W. Wilson every member of the elite happy. Moray Firth, the base of the later Malcolm’s political success & Co, c.1875-99) Royal succession in the Gaelic MacWilliam ‘pretenders’ who meant that his dynasty would world between the 9th and 13th opposed William I (r.1165-1214) rule Scotland from his own centuries tended to rely heavily on and Alexander II (r.1214-49). lifetime until the 1280s. But his a system of ‘collateral rotation’. We do not know how Duncan dynastic credentials were relatively That is to say, kingship might pass obtained power in 1034, as no weak in his own day, something that needs to be understood if his accomplishments are to be evaluated properly. Up until All that Malcolm had in 1058 was foreign 1034, Scottish kings were chosen from another dynasty, referred support and the fact that in a polity like to by contemporaries as Clann Scotland no king could ever keep every member Cinaeda mac Ailpín, the ‘children of Kenneth Mac Alpin’; the of the elite happy ‘MacAlpins’ or ‘Alpinids’. The Alpinids had ruled Alba, Scotland, almost continuously since the mid 9th century. between two or more ‘royal lines’ contemporary source is adequately After the death of the last with a common ancestor (who detailed and no later account Alpinid king, Malcolm II, a certain might be real or fictitious), each in sufficiently reliable. Duncan’s father Donnchad son of Crínán – Duncan turn supported by geographically Crínán may have been an Irishman I – took power. Donnchad’s recognisable bases, like for instance or, as a 13th-century royal chronicle reign was to be brief, ended by the Irish ‘high kingship’ that ‘rotated’ suggests, an ecclesiastical landowner his kinsman Macbeth in 1040 between the Uí Néill branches based responsible for Dull (Perthshire). after a disastrous invasion of in Meath and Tyrone. He was important enough to England. Macbeth then assumed Whether the ‘sharing’ principle have married one of Malcolm II’s power himself. Thus by 1057 was realised perfectly in practice daughters early in his life, Duncan’s when Malcolm launched his first depended on political fortune, but mother Bethóc: and by the time of campaign to seize the throne, was successful in Scotland during his death in 1045 he was abbot of Duncan’s reign would have been a the Alpinid period. Between the Dunkeld, one of eastern Scotland’s fading memory, that of a discredited late 9th century and 1034 the most important monasteries. usurper. All that Malcolm had in kingship had been shared between The traditional account says that 12 H I STO RY S C OTL A N D - SEPT EMBER / O CTO BER 2 0 2 3  11TH-CENTURY KINGSHIP Malcolm II had cultivated Duncan young son Lulach. throne to his own children are as his heir, but this is anachronistic During Macbeth’s reign, highlighted by his use of Alpinid and likely to be no more than later Malcolm likely either remained in names for his sons. Duncan’s own propaganda. One possibility is that Tayside or, more likely, especially name was not a Scottish royal Duncan enjoyed the support of after the death of Crínán in 1045, name, but those of his sons were. King Cnut (r.1016-35), Danish fled abroad. Later tradition held We do not have birth dates for ruler of England, and indeed the that Malcolm went to Strathclyde either the future Malcolm III or historian Alex Woolf has highlighted evidence linking Cnut’s regime with a figure named Crínán prior Duncan’s ambitions to pass the throne to his to 1034. Malcolm II’s likely heir at the own children are highlighted by his use of beginning of his reign had been Alpinid names for his sons. Duncan’s own Boite mac Cinaeda, probably son of Cinaed mac Duib (Kenneth name was not a Scottish royal name, but those III), displaced by Malcolm II of his sons were himself in 1005. Ordinarily power should have switched to Boite or a son, but Boite and his own male and then England, and that Donald III (Domnall Bán), but the heirs appear to have predeceased Malcolm’s brother Donald the names themselves strongly suggest Malcolm II. While there were likely Fair, Domnall Bán, went to the that they were born after 1034, many ‘country cousins’ of the Hebrides. Contemporary evidence when Duncan became king; and old dynasty who could have been is not informative, but many Kenneth MacAlpin in a hence that both were young when selected, the lack of an outstanding modern historians tend to think 18th-century engraving their father was killed in 1040. candidate from the old line was Malcolm more likely went to by Alexander Bannerman. It was rare that Scottish kings probably key. In that circumstance, Norway or Orkney, where he would The MacAlpins ruled and other rulers could long outlive Duncan’s accession was probably have been able to join his first wife, Alba from the mid 9th military disasters like the one the development that just suited Ingibjorg Finnsdóttir. century until the death of Duncan suffered in 1039. Although everyone’s best interests at the time. Duncan’s ambitions to pass the Malcolm II in 1034 not killed by the enemy, Duncan’s Likely vital to Duncan’s initial support at home evaporated success was Macbeth. Macbeth’s within a year. Macbeth had been father Findláech or Findlay (d. the beneficiary on that occasion, 1020) had been a formidable but the seeds of Macbeth’s own aristocrat in the north, and may demise in the 1050s seem to have even have been recognised as a been sown similarly - he suffered junior king north of the Mounth military defeat by Siward, governor (the Grampians). Macbeth is or ealdorman of northern later described as the ‘son England, on the day of the of Duncan’s sister’ and as Seven Sleepers in 1054. The nepos (junior male relative) location of the encounter is of Malcolm II, best unknown, but contrary to explained if Findláech later tradition encapsulated had married a daughter by the fictional ‘battle of of Crínán and Bethóc. Dunsinane’, a telescoping Hence, as Duncan of the 1054 battle with I’s junior male relative, the 1057 battle of Macbeth was a natural Lumphanan, Malcolm ally in 1034. Bringing seems still to have been the northerners in absent from the political support of Duncan’s scene in Scotland. claim, the ‘rotational That soon changed. principle’ would have Although Macbeth had given Macbeth a realistic clearly built up enough hope of succeeding credibility at home to survive himself, a hope that any for three years, it is likely that Alpinid ‘country cousin’ by the resulting hostile domestic contrast would have frustrated. climate created the opportunity Macbeth later boosted his for the ‘return’ of Duncan’s Alpinid credentials even further by children. In 1057, Malcolm marrying Boite’s daughter Gruoch, defeated Macbeth in battle, and in and serving as protector for her 1058 Macbeth’s stepson Lulach. H I STO RY S C OTL A N D - SEPT EMBER / O CTO BER 2 0 2 3 13 www.historyscotland.com that in Malcolm’s reign we see provided shelter to Tostig, formerly The Scottish Charlemagne the largest output of Scottish ealdorman in northern England In some ways, Malcolm can vernacular literature prior to the (Siward’s successor), and assistance be regarded as a Scottish Stewart era. We also see at least to King Harald Hardrada of Charlemagne. Like the legendary five invasions of England. The Norway, both of whom sought to Frankish ruler, Malcolm was the first we know about occurred in oust King Harold II of England second king of his dynasty but 1061, targeting the people of the that year. King Harald and Tostig the one who made people forget earldom of Bamburgh, the most met their end soon after leaving that his family were usurpers. important polity to the south- Scotland at the battle of Stamford Newcomers like Malcolm and east of the Scottish kingdom. In Bridge, but Harold of England was Charlemagne, or like the early this expedition, the Scottish army soon deposed himself by William, ‘Ottonians’ in Germany, initially seems to have overrun Lindisfarne, duke of Normandy, the beginning lack the legitimacy necessary to or at least the churches under its of the Norman Conquest. distance themselves as king from protection, which in 1061 probably In 1068, in the aftermath of other senior aristocratic leaders. stretched as far north as Inveresk. William the Conqueror’s invasion, Such a legitimacy gap typically The next invasion was sometime the most credible native claimant creates pressure to seek new sources between 1068 and c.1070, when the to the English throne, Edgar the of political authority, filling the Scots may have got as far south as Ætheling, fled to the Scottish breech through feats of military, Cotton world map, with York. This is where we see a major court with his mother, sisters political and cultural success. Britain and Ireland shown ‘leap forward’ in the king’s political and a variety of English leaders. It is probably no coincidence at the bottom left ambition. In 1066, Malcolm had In this circumstance, Malcolm married Edgar’s sister Margaret, tying his dynasty to House of Wessex, England’s equivalent of the Alpinids. Although Edgar soon gave up his claim to the English throne, and Malcolm his involvement in the English succession, there were to be three more invasions. In 1079 Malcolm’s forces again targeted the earldom of Bamburgh, confining themselves to territory north of the Tyne, probably in an effort to avoid conflict with the English king (see below). In 1091 the Scots got to Chester-le-Street on the River Wear. Lastly, there was the invasion of 1093, the project that led to the disaster at Alnmouth. Invasions of England were sensitive set-piece gambles. Large proportions of the landowning elite participated. As we saw above, defeat in battle could mean death, either at the hands of the enemy or at home soon after. Several of his predecessors, including his own father, had failed to deliver even a single successful invasion. Malcolm’s five invasions (there were likely more) mark, in their own right, something of an achievement. Part of the accomplishment was surviving the aftermath. Three of Malcolm’s invasions were followed by full-sized ‘punitive’ expeditions from the Norman kings of England, in 1072, 1080 and 1091. This was not the era of Bannockburn; in the late 11th 14 H I STO RY S C OTL A N D - SEPT EMBER / O CTO BER 2 0 2 3  11TH-CENTURY KINGSHIP century, the size, training and without them’. reduced to cannibalism. equipment of the Norman armies This type of open harvesting of The hagiographer of Malcolm’s made any successful battle against human beings for sale and export queen, writing for an English them impossible for the Scots. seems to have been abandoned audience in the early 12th century, Despite the dangers, Malcolm in Scotland in the 1140s or was at pains to try to distance managed to negotiate his way thereabouts. Prior to the conquest Margaret from mass enslavement out safely each time. Indeed, it is of 1066, the English had themselves that her regime oversaw, and remarkable that Malcolm avoided indulged in slave-warfare. Their claimed that the queen deliberately any sort of set-piece encounter with Norman conquerors came to regard sought out knowledge of which any English or Anglo-Norman army it as ‘barbaric’, and so what you get slaves were afflicted ‘with the prior to 1093. The event of that year between about c.1070 and 1140 harshest servitude, and treated most was an aberration, and there are is an era where the practice was inhumanely’, seeking to free them. suggestions in some sources that the re-interpreted as evidence for the death of Malcolm III at Alnmouth may have been an accident or a badly executed ambush. Invasions provided plunder to participants, the Brutality Every generation between c.850 Fir Alban, ‘men of Scotland’, and so long as the and the 1210s, Scottish armies Fir Alban returned unbroken and enriched the invaded ‘England’ in some form or another. Although sometimes invasion would be a success linked to higher-level political disputes, military and short-term goals were in many ways incidental to economic ones: plunder. A large peculiar barbarity of the Scots, as Malcolm’s conquest part of the wealth targeted by well as the Irish and Welsh. The Malcolm began his reign in charge Scottish armies was ‘human’, in writer Lawrence of Durham, for of a small polity between the Moray the literal sense, most of all young instance, writing a hagiography (a Firth and Firth of Forth; his son women or ‘maidens’. A chronicler at biography of a saint) of St Brigit David ruled from Lancashire to Durham described how unfortunate around the 1130s, explains that the Northern Isles. Back around victims were ‘bound and driven’ although the Normans had forced c.1050, in the Canterbury world before the Scottish force, and that the English to get rid of slavery, it map, the scholar responsible ‘some of these females, worn out endured among the present-day names the Strathclyders (Camri) in by running in front of their drivers Scots and Irish as these peoples northern Britain but not the Scots further than their strength would continued to have ‘rulers of their and does not even depict Scottish bear’, lost consciousness and were own race’. territory. By the end of Malcolm’s left to ‘perish even where they fell’. It was this kind of regular, mass reign Scotland had become the Malcolm, the chronicler alleges, brutality that allowed Malcolm other polity in northern Britain was merciless, ‘moved to pity by no to compensate for the lack of that mattered. It is in Malcolm’s tears no groans’. legitimacy provided by his own reign also that we find our first Captives who survived their dynastic credentials. Invasions reliable contemporary evidence for trip north, if they were not lucky provided plunder to participants, continued Scottish control of south enough to be ransomed further the Fir Alban, ‘men of Scotland’, of the Forth, and when we cease to down the line, would have faced and so long as the Fir Alban see independent earls of Bamburgh a life of domestic and sexual returned unbroken and enriched or separate Strathclyde kings in servitude. Descriptions of Scottish the invasion would be a success contemporary sources. practice in the 1130s, where we for its participants. The success in The key outside development have some of the fullest evidence turn boosted the domestic support of Malcolm’s reign was obviously for slave-warfare anywhere in enjoyed by the regime. the Norman Conquest of England, medieval Europe, indicates that There is another important angle which began in 1066 and led to the captives were divided among the here. Some of these wars were replacement of almost the entire army and subsequently either driven by the agenda of Malcolm’s aristocracy of England with French retained for personal use or sold. queen and her followers when they and Flemings. This process ended Indeed, writing about Malcolm III, arrived in 1068 and lobbied for up presenting great opportunities the Durham chronicler tells us that intervention. The Rhineland-based for the Scots, as we have seen. because of his wars that Scotland Irish chronicler Marianus Scotus Malcolm’s activity seems to have came to be ‘filled with slaves and tells us that the Scots and the been directed at benefitting from slave-girls of the English race’, with Normans caused such deprivation the Norman Conquest, but he was so many there was ‘not a hamlet and famine in northern England also able to set limits to Anglo- (villula) nor even a hut (domuncula) in 1070 that the inhabitants were Norman expansion and gain for his H I STO RY S C OTL A N D - SEPT EMBER / O CTO BER 2 0 2 3 15 www.historyscotland.com own dynasty a slice of the pie. attractive for those seeking to expel north still, reaching Carlisle, In some ways Alnmouth marked William the Conqueror. The latter, Bamburgh, and the basin of the the end of the age where someone thus, was forced to take a firm River Tweed. It was this recent like Malcolm was possible. Back in interest. A Norman ealdorman establishment that Malcolm the 1050s, the most northerly part installed at Durham in late 1068 encountered at Alnmouth in of ‘England’ was outside the direct was dead, however, within a November 1093. control of the king of England. One month, sparking a wider revolt Before the 1090s, the Scots of the king’s representatives, an that culminated in the notorious might hope to invade the territory ealdorman or ‘earl’ based at York, ‘Harrying of the North’ of the of Bamburgh without involving exercised power over Yorkshire and following winter of 1069-70. the central government. This County Durham, but this did not A decade later, men from changed after 1080, particularly extend significantly north of the ‘beyond the Tyne’ killed the after the end of the Anglo-Norman Tyne into the lands of the ‘earls Norman-installed bishop of succession war of 1088-91. By of Bamburgh’. Scottish invasions Durham at Gateshead, prompting 1092, Norman forces established of the region, thus, were of little the Normans to build a new themselves around Bamburgh and interest to the kings of England. fortress across the Tyne in 1080, Carlisle. In the aftermath, there The Norman Conquest would Depiction of Malcolm the origins of Newcastle. After the would be new shires that made the eventually change this. The loose III at the head of a new conclusion of a civil war among surrounding region (later called attachment of the north of England dynasty, with Canmore William I’s sons in 1091, Norman Northumberland and Cumberland) to the kings of the south made it descendants presence was extended further as integral to the kingdom as Hampshire and Yorkshire. Like the image of the railroad closing down the world of the Old West, this development ended the ‘Middle zone’ where such Scottish predation could take place unpunished. Along with sheriffs came the written administration of the king, the settlement of episcopal boundaries and great castles. The old expeditions that sent thousands of men to plunder without consequence were over. The Scots themselves adopted the same types of administrative set-up for their own acquired territory, leading to the first sheriffs of Lothian and Teviotdale in the early 12th century. A zone of plunder was converted to one of taxation, and Scottish kings could extend their permanent landed power base south of the Forth. Because of Scottish relations with the Normans, they could do that with some security. It helped that the Norman regime, in turn, was overextended in the north. The ealdorman Robert de Mowbray who had taken Bamburgh rebelled and was deposed in 1095. The second Norman king of England, William Rufus, rather than installing a replacement and allowing Norman freebooters to proceed independently into the Tweed basin, instead sought to interfere in the Scottish succession, ensuring that there was someone sympathetic to the north. 16 H I STO RY S C OTL A N D - SEPT EMBER / O CTO BER 2 0 2 3  11TH-CENTURY KINGSHIP Matilda, married the last Salian who can easily be romanticised or A more connected kingdom German emperor Henry V, and idealised. Nonetheless, although Malcolm’s own children may have later Geoffrey Plantagenet, count the myths about him are largely encountered some small problems of Anjou. Matilda fought against misguided, it is hard to argue controlling the region south of Stephen, and successfully passed her against the traditional assessment the Forth, but as long as the claim to her own son, subsequently of his reign’s importance. Normans were supportive then Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet Dr Neil McGuigan has authored a monograph on the life, times and legacy Máel Coluim III, and edited a volume on the millennium of the battle of The loose attachment of the north of England Carham (c.1018). He has a PhD from the University of St Andrews, where he to the kings of the south made it attractive for taught continuously for over a decade. those seeking to expel William the Conqueror that control was relatively safe. kings who ruled England for the FURTHER READING The significance of Malcolm’s remainder of the Middle Ages. behaviour would lie thus not The springboard for this legacy Saint Margaret, Queen of the Scots: merely in his deeds themselves was Malcolm’s reign, during which A Life in Perspective (Basingstoke, but in their ramifications further the Scottish court became one of 2013), C. Keene down the line: the formation of a a number linked into a network familiar Scotland. of mobile English exiles, among Crucible of Nations: Scotland He also left Scotland more which were also included Flanders, from Viking Age to Medieval connected. Marriage to Margaret Denmark, Normandy, Norway Kingdom (Edinburgh, 2021), A. made their children descendants and Rus. Illustrative of these links, Maldonado of England’s old royal line, the we know that Margaret obtained House of Wessex. In Scotland, that a personal confessor born in Máel Coluim III, ‘Canmore’: An probably did not matter much, Lincolnshire who had previously Eleventh-Century Scottish King but it mattered elsewhere, and been tutor to the king of Norway. (Edinburgh, 2021), N. McGuigan their daughters Matilda and Maria In the 11th century the North Sea gained marriages that would have was becoming a major source of ‘From Reformed Barbarian to been well beyond the reach of any cash wealth for all the rulers based ‘Saint-King’: Literary Portrayals earlier Scottish princesses. around it. The Scottish kingdom, of King Malcolm III Canmore Maria married Eustace III, count perhaps excluded by its ‘exotic’ (r. 1058-93) in Scottish Historical of Boulogne (died c.1125), whose culture from what was basically a Narratives, c.1100–1449’ brothers included the Crusade leader Germanic-speaking lake, initially (University of Guelph PhD thesis, Godfrey, duke of Lorraine (d.1100), looks like the North Korea or 2018), M. Toledo Candelaria and Baldwin, king of Jerusalem Iran of the region. It can be no (d.1118). Matilda earlier married coincidence that we see an opening Macbeth: A True Story (London, William the Bastard’s youngest son, up of the North Sea World to 2010), F. Watson Henry I, king of England (r.1100- Scotland in Malcolm’s era. It was 35), and became queen consort. around the 1090s that St Andrews From Pictland to Alba: 789 to 1070 She was also a great literary patron, famously was visited by the young (Edinburgh, 2007), A. Woolf commissioning one of the earliest English merchant and future saint, extended works in French, a version Godric of Finchale. Within a decade of the Voyage of St Brendan. or so, eastern Scotland had its first A significant point of interest is towns, with planned burghs like that with both Maria and Matilda Perth, Aberdeen and Berwick it would be their daughters that led their legacy, competing for control Conclusion of England and Normandy during Malcolm had been a ‘new man’ the 1130s and 1140s. The heir on the make; and survival itself of Eustace and Maria was their necessitated success. As is so often daughter Matilda, who married the case with ‘successful’ rulers, Stephen, count of Blois and, after Malcolm’s methods were often 1135, king of England. The heir brutal, relying on untold levels of Henry and Matilda, another of suffering. He is not a figure H I STO RY S C OTL A N D - SEPT EMBER / O CTO BER 2 0 2 3 17