History Of Scotland Vol. 1 - Part 3

( Originally Published 1909 )

Malcolm III., called Cean-mohr Foreigners seek Refuge in Scotland: kindly received by the King and by his Wife—The King's Affection for Margaret—Death of Malcolm and Margaret—Donald Bane—Duncan—Edgar—Alexander I.—David I.—Battle of Northallerton—David's Death—His Beneficence to the Church—His Character as a Sovereign

MALCOLM III., son of Duncan, called Cean-mohr, or Great-head, from the misproportioned size of that part of his body, ascended the Scottish throne in 1056. He was a prince of valor and talent, and, having been bred in the school of adversity, had profited by the lessons taught in that stern seminary. His long residence in the north of England must necessarily have given him means of acquiring more information than if he had remained during his youth with his ignorant subjects. In his reign, too, a more steady light begins to dawn on Scottish history; rather, however, from the English annals than from any that are proper to the kingdom itself. Malcolm had resided long in England; he had probably visited the capital during the time of Edward the Confessor, to whom he had been indebted for relief and protection. His habits and attachments led him to keep up a correspondence with that country; and, excepting the Scottish short and hasty incursion into Northumberland in 1061, nothing occurred during the Saxon dynasty in England which could infringe the good understanding between what may be called from this period the sister kingdoms. The death of Edward the Confessor somewhat shook this state of amity. Malcolm appears to have been more indifferent to the friendship of his successor, Harold, since, in 1066, he received into Scotland Tostigh, brother to the English king, then hatching a conspiracy, and projecting an invasion of Harold's territories. Tostigh united with the king of Norway, and both were slain next summer at the battle of Stamford Bridge.

The conquest of England by the Normans sent other fugitives into Scotland, who emigrated in consequence of the general change of possession occasioned by so great a revolution. The most distinguished of these were Edgar Atheling of England, the heir of the Confessor's race, with his sister Margaret, one of the fairest and most accomplished maidens in England, and who, considering that her brother was weak both in mind and body, might be looked upon as the hope of the Saxon royal line, so dear to the English nation. Edgar Atheling was also accompanied in his flight by his mother and a younger sister. Malcolm espoused the princess Margaret, about 1067.

Allied to the Saxon royal family by this match, the king of Scots engaged in a league against William the Conqueror with some discontented lords in Northumberland, and with the Danes. The Danes, however, were repulsed, and the Northumbrian conspirators dispersed, before Malcolm took the field, in 1070. Exasperated by some retaliation on his own frontiers, he swept the bishopric of Durham and adjacent parts with such severity, and drove away so great a number of captives, that for many years afterward English slaves were to be found in every hamlet and hut in Scot-land.

The revenge of the Conqueror operated an effect similar to that of the wrath of Malcolm. To be avenged of the rebellious Northumbrians, William ravaged the country with a fury which laid utterly waste the fertile possessions between the Humber and Tees. So dolefully was the face of the country changed, says William of Malmesbury, that a stranger would have wept over it, and an ancient inhabitant would not have recognized it. Many thousands of the lower orders, and also a considerable number both of Anglo-Saxons and Normans of condition, who had incurred the wrath of the Conqueror William, so easy to awake, and so difficult to appease, retired into Scotland as the best place of refuge.

Malcolm, sensible of the value of the Norman chivalry, received both them and the English with distinction, and conferred offices, honors, and estates upon them with no sparing hand. For example, he gave refuge. to the Earl of March, who, by a corruption of his name and title (Comes Patricius), was called Gosspatrick, when he was banished from England. To this powerful baron Malcolm committed the castle of Dunbar, which might be called the second and inner gate of Scotland, supposing the strong town of Berwick to be the first. The example is only one out of many instances in which this Scottish monarch displayed his confidence in the Normans, and his desire to engage in his service distinguished persons of that redoubted nation, who, in that age, possessed the highest character for military skill and invincible valor.

The course which Malcolm Cean-mohr pursued from political prudence was forwarded by his royal consort from love to her native country, joined to the dictates of female sympathy with misfortune. She did all in her power, and influenced as far as possible the mind of her husband, to relieve the distresses of her Saxon countrymen, of high or low degree; assuaged their afflictions, and was zealous in protecting those who had been involved in the ruin which the battle of Hastings brought on the royal house of Edward the Confessor. The gentleness and mildness of temper proper to this amiable woman, probably also the experience of her prudence and good sense, had great weight with Malcolm, who, though preserving a portion of the ire and ferocity belonging to the king of a wild people, was far from being insensible to the suggestions of his amiable consort. He stooped his mind to hers on religious matters, adorned her favorite books of devotion with rich bindings, and was often seen to kiss and pay respect to the volumes which he was unable to read. He acted also as interpreter to Margaret, when she endeavored to enlighten the Scottish clergy upon the proper time of celebrating Easter; and though we cannot attach much consequence to the issue of this polemical controversy, which terminated, of course, in favor of the cause adopted by the fair pleader and the royal interpreter, yet it is a pleasing picture of conjugal affection laboring jointly for the instruction of a barbarous people; nor can we doubt that its influence was felt in more material circumstances than the precise question at issue.

After the death of William the Conqueror, and the ac-cession of William Rufus, various subjects of quarrel and mutual incursions took place betwixt England and Scotland. The general cause of dispute related to the terms on which Malcolm was to possess Cumberland and Northumberland. These provinces, as already mentioned, had been ceded, the first by the Saxon king Edgar, the second by a Northumbrian earl, to the Scottish crown, under condition of close alliance and neighborly assistance. The introduction of feudal holdings substituted the homage and fealty of an inferior prince to a lord paramount, instead of the loose stipulation of friendship and occasional assistance. These feudal conditions could only apply to the provinces of Lothian, including Berwickshire and part of Teviotdale, to Northumberland, and to Cumberland. In the first of these provinces Malcolm, who, crossing the Firth of Forth, frequently resided there, had established a fixed and permanent authority. In the two English counties his tenure and his influence on the affections of the subjects were much less decided. In 1080 William Rufus built the fortress of Newcastle, and in 1092 that of Carlisle, both necessarily tending to bridle and render insecure the possessions of the Scottish king in the two northern counties; The question of homage was fiercely agitated at this early period, as in subsequent generations, and usually arranged upon general terms, or, according to the legal phrase, salvo jure cujuslibet.

These heart-burnings were terminated by the death of Malcolm Cean-mohr. This enterprising prince made a hasty incursion into England, and besieged Alnwick with a tumultuary army. The circumstance that a fortress so near the frontiers was not in his possession argues how imperfect was his authority in Northumberland. While thus employed, he was surprised by Roger de Mowbray, a Nor-man baron, at the head of a considerable force, and an action ensued, on the 13th November, 1093, in which Malcolm Cean-mohr fell, with his eldest son. Queen Margaret, much indisposed at the time, only lived to hear the event, and express her resignation to the will of God. She died on the 16th November, on receiving the fatal tidings.

After her death, Margaret was received into the Romish calendar. A legend of a well-imagined miracle narrates that when it was proposed to remove the body of the new saint to a tomb of more distinction, it was found impossible to lift it until that of her husband had received the same honor, as if in her state of beatitude Margaret had been guided by the same feelings of conjugal deference and affection which had regulated this excellent woman's conduct while on earth.

The character of Malcolm Cean-mohr himself stands high, if his situation and opportunities be considered. He was a man of undaunted courage and generosity. A nobleman of his court had engaged to assassinate him. The circumstance became known to the king, who, during the amusement of a hunting-match, drew the conspirator into a solitary glade of the forest, upbraided him with his traitorous intentions, and defied him to mortal and equal combat. The assassin, surprised at this act of generosity, threw himself at the king's feet, confessed his meditated crime, his present repentance, and vowed fidelity for the future. The king trusted him as before, and had no reason to repent of his manly conduct. This story seems to show that Malcolm, the protector and friend of the chivalrous Normans, had caught a portion of that spirit of knightly honor and high-souled generosity which they contributed so much to spread throughout Europe.

A very improbable legend asserts that Malcolm formally introduced the feudal system into Scotland. It is circumstantially alleged that he summoned all the Scottish nobility to meet him at Scone, and that each bringing with him, as directed, a handful of earth from his lands, surrendered them by that symbol to the king, who granted charters of them anew to each proprietor, under the form of feudal investiture. The Moot Hill of Scone, or place of justice, called Mons placiti, is said to be composed of these symbols of surrender, and thence called omnis terra. This legend is totally incredible. But if Malcolm did not, as indeed he probably could not, change the laws of his whole kingdom, by altering in every case the tenure on which property was held, there is no doubt that, by various grants in particular in-stances, he contributed to introduce into Scotland the custom of feudal investitures. It was a system agreeable to the prince, to whom it attributed the flattering character of superior, paramount, or original proprietor of the lands of the whole kingdom. It was agreeable also to the Normans whom he attracted to his court. These attached security to a royal charter, and felt that they increased their personal consequence, by obtaining the power of granting lands which they could not occupy to sub-vassals, who should hold of them, under terms of service similar to those by which they themselves held their estates from the crown. The feudal system was also the established law of France and England, to which the Scottish monarch would naturally look for the means of improving the rude institutions of his native country. Although, therefore, feudal law certainly was not introduced by Malcolm Cean-mohr, we may conclude that Scotland was in his time first prepared to receive it by detached instances, and the gradual operation of concurring circumstances.

Malcolm Cean-mohr at his death left a family under age, but was succeeded by his brother Donald Bane, a wild Scot, who, flying to the Hebrides on the death of their father Duncan, does not appear to have visited his brother Malcolm at any period of his reign, or partaken in any of the novelties which he had introduced. He hurried to Scotland on his brother's decease, and, by the assistance of an army of western islanders, took possession of the crown, to the prejudice of his brother's children. This rough chieftain was welcomed by many of the northern Scots, who were jealous of the innovations of Malcolm and his preference of strangers.

The first edict of Donald Bane was a sentence of banishment against all foreigners; a brutal attempt to bring back all Scotland to the savage state of Argyle and the Hebrides. It is seldom, however, that civilization, having once made some progress, can be compelled to retrograde, unless when knowledge is united with corruption and effeminacy. Donald Bane had no permanent triumph. In 1094, Duncan, a base-born son of the late king, collected a numerous force of English and Normans, and, driving Donald Bane back among the Red-shanks, took possession of his throne; whether in his own right, or as regent for the lawful family of Malcolm, is uncertain. After having held the sceptre, proper or delegated, for a year, Edmund, his half-brother, the second of the legitimate children of Malcolm Cean-mohr (the first being a priest), procured the assassination of Dun-can, by an earl of the Mearns, and replaced Donald Bane on the throne, in consequence of a treaty, by which he became bound to share the kingdom with Edmund.

Donald Bane, thus again enthroned, resumed his purpose of destroying what his brother Malcolm had accomplished for civilizing Scotland, and expelled anew the foreigners from his kingdom. This produced a fresh revolution. In 1098, Edgar, the third son of Malcolm and of the amiable Margaret, being favored by William Rufus, received succors from England, and making himself master of his uncle Donald Bane's person, imprisoned him, and put out his eyes. Edmund, who had been the author of this second usurpation of Donald Bane, was imprisoned, and in token of penitence for the guilt he had incurred by his accession to the murder of Duncan, ordered the fetters which he had worn in his dungeon to be buried with him in his coffin. Notwithstanding his cruelty to his aged uncle, the character of Edgar seems to have been equitable and humane. He kept peace with England ; and the amity between the kingdoms was strengthened by Henry I., called Beauclerc, becoming the husband of Matilda, the sister of Edgar. Edgar died in 1106, after an undisturbed reign of about nine years.

Alexander I. succeeded as next brother of Edgar. His reign is chiefly remarkable for the determined struggle which he made in defence of the independence of the Church of Scot-land. This was maintained against the archbishops of Canterbury and York, each of whom claimed a spiritual superiority over Scotland, and a right to consecrate the archbishop of St. Andrew's, the primate of that kingdom. Notwithstanding the hostile interference of the pope, Alexander, with considerable address, contrived to play off the contradictory pretensions of the two English archbishops against each other, and thus to evade complying with either. Of Alexander's personal character we can only judge from the epithet of the fierce, which referred probably to his own temper and manners, since assuredly his reign was peaceful. He died 1124.

Alexander was succeeded by David I., youngest son of Malcolm Cean-mohr, and a monarch of great talents. He was free from the ignorant barbarity of his countrymen, having been educated, during his youth, at the court of Henry I., the celebrated Beauclerc, his sister's husband. David had entered into the views of that wise monarch touching his succession, and had sworn to maintain the right of Henry's daughter, the Empress Matilda, the well-known Queen Maud of the English chroniclers, to the kingdom of England. Accordingly he asserted her title in 1135, and when, upon the death of Henry, Stephen, earl of Mortagne, usurped the throne of England, the Scottish king commenced war for the purpose of displacing him. But the forces of David I. were of a character unusually tumultuary, and afforded a curious specimen of the miscellaneous tribes which, long mixing without incorporating, at length formed the source from which the Scottish people of modern times derive their descent. "That accursed army," says the monkish chronicler, so stigmatizing David's troops on account of their horrible excesses, "consisted of Normans, Germans, and English, of Cumbrian Britons, of Northumbrians, of men of Teviotdale and Lothian, of Picts, commonly called men of Galloway, and of Scots." Differing from each other in customs, and in a certain measure in language, these various nations seem only to have agreed in the general use of the utmost license and cruelty, which the English historians candidly admit was restrained as much as possible by the regulations of their monarch.

Stephen marched northward to repel David and his miscellaneous host; but the war languished, and gave place to a succession of truces and hollow treaties, which were made and broken without much ceremony. The parties were, perhaps, more equally balanced than a Scottish and an English king had been either before or after. The want of discipline in David's army was compensated by the treachery subsisting in that of Stephen, which every now and then showed itself by the revolt of some of his barons. Stephen tried to obtain peace with Scotland by surrender of the open country in Northumberland and Cumberland, retaining, however, the castles and strong places, by means of which the territory which he now ceded could, in a more favorable moment, be speedily recovered. David was awake to this policy, and, well aware his single force was unequal to placing Matilda on the throne, he, with the usual policy of auxiliaries, made it his object to gain what enlargement of territories he could, either by conquest or cession, though the price should be his forsaking the cause in which he had taken up arms. For this purpose, he invaded Northumberland, in 1138, at a time when Stephen was so hard pressed in the south that he was compelled to abandon the northern barons to their own defence. These brave men, however, despised submission to an invader; or, whatever deference some of them might be disposed to render to the king of Scots' personal merits, the atrocities of the Galwegians and other barbarous tribes in David's army roused every hand in opposition to such an army and its leader. Thurstan, archbishop of York, a prelate of equal prudence and spirit, summoned a convention of the English northern barons, and exhorted them to determined resistance. Age and boyhood were called to the combat. Roger de Mowbray, almost a child, was brought to the English host, and placed at the head of his numerous vassals. Walter l'Espec, an aged baron of great fame in war, was chosen general-in-chief. A standard was erected in the camp, being the mast of a ship fixed on a four-wheeled carriage, from which were displayed the banners of Saint Peter of York, Saint John of Beverley, and Saint Wilfred of Rippon. On the top, and surrounded by these ensigns, was a casket or pyx, containing a consecrated host. The displaying of this standard served to give a sacred character to the war, and was the more appropriate, as the struggle was with the Galwegians, a barbarous people, as sacrilegious as they were bloodthirsty and inhuman. With this apparatus of religion mixed with war, the barons advanced to Northallerton.

David had moved toward the same point, and not without gaining considerable success. William, the son of that Duncan, natural brother of David, who had expelled Donald Bane from the Scottish throne in 1094, was a distinguished leader in his uncle's army. He seems to have been a chief of military talent, and was employed by David in commanding the Galwegians so often mentioned. On this occasion he led a large body of these wild men into Lancashire, and defeated a considerable English army at a place called Clitherow, near the sources of the Ribble. From thence William Mac Duncan conducted them to join King David at Northallerton, loaded as they were with spoil and elated with additional presumption.

David, thus reinforced, moved forward with such celerity that he had wellnigh surprised the English army, who were encamped on Cuton Moor. Robert de Bruce, an aged Norman baron, familiar with the king, and holding, as many others did, lands in both kingdoms, was despatched from the English camp to negotiate with David, at least to gain time. This old warrior objected to the king the impolicy and unkindness of oppressing the English and Normans, whose arms had often supported the Scottish throne. He argued with him upon the unchivalrous and unchristian atrocities of his soldiers, and finally surrendering the land which he held of David, he renounced all homage to him, and declared himself his enemy. Bernard de Baliol, a Yorkshire baron in like circumstances, made a similar renunciation and defiance. Bruce and the king wept as they parted. William, the son of Duncan, called Bruce a false traitor.

Another characteristic scene took place in a council of war held in the Scottish camp on the same evening, to pre-pare for the battle of the next day. The king had deter-mined that the action should be begun by the archers and men-at-arms, who composed the regular strength of his army. But the Galwegians, presumptuous from their late success, were determined on leading the van, though it is not easy to guess by what alleged right they supported such a pretension. "Whence this confidence in these men cased in mail?" said a Celtic chief, Malise, earl of Stratherne : "I wear none; yet will I advance further to-morrow than those who are sheathed in steel." Alan de Percy, a natural brother of the great baron of that name, and a follower of David, replied that Malise said more than he would dare to make good. David interfered to put an end to the dispute, and yielded, though unwillingly, to the claim of the Galwegians.

On the fated morning of August 22, 1138, both armies drew up. The English were in one compact body, with their cavalry in the rear. I he Scottish army formed three lines. In the first were the Galwegians, under their leaders, Ulgrick and Dovenald. The second line was commanded by David's son, Prince Henry, and consisted of the men-at-arms and the archers, with the men of Cumberland and Teviotdale, both of the ancient stock of Britons. The men of Lothian and the Hebrideans formed the third body; and a reserve, consisting of selected English and Normans, with the Scots properly called so, and the Moray men, who were chiefly of Scandinavian descent, completed the order of battle. Here David himself took his station.

The English in the meantime received the blessing of the aged Thurstan, conferred by his delegate the titular bishop of the Orkneys, and swore to each other to be victorious or die. The Galwegians rushed on with a hideous cry of Albanigh ! Albanigh!1 and staggered the phalanx of spearmen, on whom they threw themselves with incredible fury. The severe and unremitting discharge of the English archery was, however, unsupportable by naked men, and the Galwegians were about to leave the field, when Prince Henry came up with the Scots men-at-arms in full career, and dispersed "like a spider's web" that part of the English army which was opposed to him. The Galwegians had begun to rally, and the battle was renewed with fury, when a report flew through both armies that David had fallen. It was in vain that the king flew helmetless through the ranks, imploring the soldiers to rally and stand by him. Order could not be restored, and he was at length forced from the field to secure his personal safety. The king availed himself of the humiliation of the Galwegians to introduce some humanity into his army of barbarians, and to draw the reins of discipline more tight.

It is obvious from this whole narrative that the battle of Cuton Moor, or Northallerton, was a well disputed, and for some time a doubtful action; and though its immediate con-sequences seem less important, the remote effects of the victory decided much in favor of England. David, victorious at Cuton Moor, might have assured to himself and his posterity the north of England, as far as the Trent and Humber; and what influential importance that must have given to a Scottish monarch in future wars can only be matter of conjecture, or must rather have depended on the character and talents of David's successors.

Even amid all the pride of victory, Stephen consented, in 1139, for the sake of peace, to surrender to Prince Henry of Scotland the whole earldom of Northumberland, with the exception of the castles of Newcastle and Bamborough, by means of which the English monarch retained the means of recovering the whole province when time should serve. After this peace of Durham, as it was called, David appears to have gone to London, in 1141, to share the short-lived triumph of his niece Matilda. But this was the visit of a relation and friend, and not that of an ally. The Scottish king found the royal lady ill-disposed to receive the lessons of calmness and moderation which his experience recommended, and returned to his own country in disgust, leaving his niece to her fortunes.

In 1152 Scotland lost a treasure by the death of the in-estimable Prince Henry. He left by Ada, an English lady of quality, a family of three sons and as many daughters.

In the subsequent year the venerable David followed his son. Having discharged all his duty as a man and a monarch, by settling his affairs as well as the early age of his grandchildren would permit, he was found dead in an attitude of devotion, 24th May, 1153.

That extensive liberality to the Church which procured David's admission into the ample roll of Romish saints, made rather an unfavorable impression on his successors. "He kythed," said James the First, "a sair saint to the crowne." If indeed we contemplate with modern eyes the munificent foundations of Kelso, Melrose, Holyrood House, Jedburgh, Newbottle, Kinloss, Dryburgh, etc., we may be disposed to consider David's liberality to the Church as nearly allied to wasteful extravagance. But it is to be considered that the monks were the only preservers of the little learning of the time; that they were exclusively possessed of the knowledge of literature, the arts of staining glass, gardening, and mechanics; that they taught religion to all, and some touch of useful learning to the children of the nobility. These things kept in view, it will not seem strange that a patriot king should desire to multiply the number of communities so much calculated to aid civilization. Let it be remembered, also, that the monks were agriculturists; that their vassals and bondmen were proverbially said to live well under the crosier; that though these ecclesiastics are generally alleged to have chosen the best of the land, its present superiority is often owing to their own better skill of cultivation. The convents, besides, afforded travellers the only means of refuge and support which were to be found in the country, and constituted the sole fund for the maintenance of the poor and infirm. Lastly, as the sacred territory gifted to the Church escaped on common occasions the ravages of war, there seems much reason for excusing a liberality which placed so much fertile land, with its produce, beyond the reach of military devastation. It was, perhaps, with this view that King David endowed so many convents upon the borders so peculiarly exposed to suffer by war.

In other respects, the prudence and kingly virtues of David I. are unimpeachable. Buchanan, no favorer of royalty, has left his testimony, that the life of this monarch affords the perfect example of a good and patriot king. He was constant and active in the distribution of justice, was merciful and beneficent in peace, valiant and skilful in war. He wept over the horrors committed by his lawless armies, and endeavored to atone for what he could not prevent, by presents to the churches which suffered. Nay, so great was his remorse for the crimes they had committed under his rule, that it is said the king of Scotland entertained thoughts of going a pilgrimage to Palestine, and dedicating the remainder of his life to combating the Saracens. But he was withheld from his purpose by a more rational consideration of the duty he owed to his subjects. It is also recorded of David, that, loving pleasure like other men, he was always ready to postpone it to duty. If his hounds were drawn out, his courser mounted, and all prepared for the enjoyment of the chase, the voice of a poor man requiring justice at his hand was sufficient to postpone the amusement, though the king was passionately fond of it, until he had heard and answered the petition of the suppliant.