What were the prospects for his maternal birthright? It must have been clear to King Edgar from the fate of his father and elder brother in 1093 and his own subsequent experiences that there was little prospect of his securing the English throne. Edgar, King of Scots simply did not have sufficient resources to pursue a claim to the English throne. He could no longer challenge the Norman rulers of England without drastic political changes which were beyond his control. He had therefore to be content to accept his current subordination to King William II and the abandonment of his claims in England in order to secure the Scottish throne.
In 1098 King Edgar, who was no doubt busy consolidating his authority over his newly restored kingdom, faced a new threat from an unexpected quarter. It had been over thirty years since the disastrous defeat suffered by King Harald of Norway at Stamford Bridge in 1066. In this year, however, King Magnus III, the grandson of Harald led a major expedition to Orkney and down through the Western Isles. This Norwegian campaign is mentioned in contemporary sources from England, Wales and Ireland. It is only much later saga tradition that mentions an agreement between King Edgar and Magnus of Norway, which supposedly conceded the Western Isles to Norway but left the mainland under the control of Edgar. This is not much of a story for the saga-writer since it does little more than confirm the practical extent of the power of these monarchs. King Magnus of Norway had control over the Western Isles because of his personal presence there but little or no control over the mainland. In contrast, King Edgar had control of the mainland because of his personal presence there but little or no control in the islands. It is not adding much to propose a formal treaty, whether real or imaginary, that confirmed this practical arrangement. The saga account does little to confirm that such an agreement was ever actually negotiated. The real meat for the saga-writer was the story of how Magnus was supposedly able to secure control of Kintyre by hauling a fully-rigged sailing vessel across the isthmus at Tarbert. It appears from contemporary records that King Magnus simply had little interest in Scotland and directed his attentions primarily towards England and Ireland until his death in 1103.
In 1100 there were significant changes in the English kingdom that opened up opportunities for King Edgar. On 2 August 1100 King William II was killed in the New Forest. This immediately freed Edgar from the personal homage to William that had been extracted from him in 1095 as the price of his restoration. He no longer held his kingdom by the ‘gift’ of William II but as an independent ruler. More good news for King Edgar followed when William’s younger brother Henry seized the English throne, ignoring the claims of his older brother Duke Robert of Normandy. King Henry I was anxious about the relative weakness of his claim to the English throne compared to that of his older brother. He was therefore anxious to secure support from every conceivable source, including – for the first time for a Norman ruler – from his English subjects. He therefore opened negotiations to conclude a marriage alliance with the family of King Edgar of Scotland, which now represented the old English royal line. On 11 November 1100, the Norman Henry I, King of England married the Englishwoman Edith, the sister of King Edgar of Scotland, at Westminster Abbey. It was not quite what King Malcolm III had intended, when he had hoped back in the 1070s to place a descendant on the English throne, but it was far more than King Edgar could have hoped for as a lonely exile in 1093.
This Anglo-Scottish marriage alliance was very attractive to King Henry I since it provided him with a link to the English royal dynasty through Edith, who would be known to the Normans as Matilda, the great-niece of King Edward the Confessor. He could now present himself as the true successor of the old English kings as well as the successor of his brother King William II. It secured him the support of the English population against his brother Duke Robert of Normandy, which proved useful at the Battle of Tinchebrai in 1106. The marriage was also attractive to King Edgar as it made him brother-in-law of the ruling king of England. In 1068 Malcolm had married Margaret in the hope of securing such a relationship when Edgar Atheling recovered his inheritance. It was a dream that had ended with Edgar Atheling’s dismal failure to secure the English kingship. It had now come to fruition under his son Edgar. It also effectively ended Edgar’s subordinate status and transformed him into a close relative of the English King. The benefits of this relationship for both men clearly overrode any potential losses.
In 1100, when Queen Edith or Matilda went south to head up the English royal Court she was accompanied by her youngest brother David. He would spend the next fourteen years immersed in the Anglo-Norman culture of the royal Court. The influence of his sojourn in England was much greater on David than that of his father Malcolm III had been on him. In 1040 Malcolm had arrived in England as a friendless exiled prince from a foreign land to face an uncertain future. In contrast, David arrived as the younger brother of the Queen of England, to be welcomed into the heart of the royal Court and the highest circles of Anglo-Norman society. As a result of this higher status David was offered an intimate insight into the Anglo-Norman state. This offered him a model of administration and government that he would seek to introduce into Scotland when he later became ruler of that country in 1124.
In 1102 Edgar Atheling was finally free from duties in support of his nephew, King Edgar in Scotland and able to embark on a personal crusade to the Holy Land. In 1096, Duke Robert of Normandy, Edgar’s close friend had participated in the First Crusade, which captured Antioch and Jerusalem after much fighting. In late 1100 Duke Robert had returned with stories of the military exploits of the crusaders. Edgar had missed this, the greatest event of the era because he had been preoccupied with preparations to assist his nephew to recover his throne. In 1101, according to William of Malmesbury, he set out for the Holy Land with a small company of men, including a Robert, son of Godwine, who had fought in the Scottish expedition of 1097 and been rewarded with land in Lothian by King Edgar. The party reached the Holy Land in time to participate in the siege of Ramleh in May 1102, where Robert was captured and killed by the Muslims. Edgar Atheling himself survived to return via Constantinople and Germany to Scotland, arriving probably at some point before 1105. In 1105 the Annals of Inisfallen report that ‘a camall an animal of remarkable size was brought from the King of Scots to Muirchertach Ua Briain’. This camel, or some have suggested elephant, can only have been brought back from the Holy Land by Edgar Atheling or one of his followers and presented to King Edgar. The latter swiftly disposed of this exotic beast as a gift to the King of Ireland, although what this ruler then did with it is unknown.
In 1107 King Edgar died peacefully and the succession passed without apparent incident to his younger brother Alexander I. At some point after this, David demanded and secured a share of the family inheritance from his older brother, King Alexander, which consisted of a large area in the south of the kingdom. It appears that David held the regions of Strathclyde and Lothian under the authority of King Alexander, who retained control of the heart of Alba north of the Forth. It has been suggested that this division was, in fact, agreed at Edgar’s death in 1107. This seems entirely possible but there is no way to establish conclusively whether it was a bequest by Edgar or an agreement reached later. The settlement, whenever it was reached, provided David with an introduction to the same southern areas of the kingdom that had probably supported his father in 1054 and had certainly backed his brother Edgar in 1095. It offered him the chance to foster the loyalty of this increasingly important region of the kingdom, which provided the bridge between the Gaelic north and Anglo-Norman England to the south.
King Alexander maintained the close relations already established with England and himself married an illegitimate daughter of King Henry I. In 1114 Alexander joined Henry on a major military expedition into Wales, as recorded in the Welsh Chronicles of the Princes. In the first major Scottish foreign venture since 1093, Alexander led a Scottish army into England, where he met Rannulf, Earl of Chester at Chester before they invaded North Wales together. The
re was apparently no actual fighting, however, and a long series of negotiations finally brought about the submission of the Welsh princes Gruffydd ap Cynan and Goronwy ab Owain on terms. This incident has been viewed as the military service of a subordinate king to his overlord but it might have been seen by Alexander as assistance to his brother-in-law.
In 1124 King Alexander died and his younger brother David succeeded to the whole kingdom. It has been claimed by a recent account, and with some justification, that King David was the king who made Scotland. He certainly transformed it into a new kind of kingdom on the Anglo-Norman model with mounted knights, castles, burghs, coinage, reformed monastic orders and many other things. He was, however, working on a solid foundation established by his predecessors. They had bequeathed him a vibrant multicultural kingdom that was able to accommodate and absorb these changes and progress into the future.
the Kingdom of Scotland
At the time of David I’s accession to the throne in 1124, the kingdom of Scotland, as it was increasingly becoming known in England and across Europe, was a very different entity from the kingdom of Alba that first emerged in 900. The original kingdom of Alba had been a largely Gaelic-speaking realm confined to the north of the Forth–Clyde line. There was no indication at this time that it was on the brink of a southward advance that would transform it fundamentally. This advance brought into the Gaelic kingdom the formerly independent British or Welsh kingdom of Strathclyde and the northern portion of English Northumbria. The process of absorbing these new territories resulted in unexpected changes for the kingdom of Alba.
It is very difficult to be certain about the impact of the absorption of Strathclyde simply because so little is known about that kingdom in this key period. It had originated as a British kingdom based on the Clyde Valley in the post-Roman period with a Welsh language and culture, which contributed significantly to the wider culture of Wales itself. It is consistently referred to in our sources as a British or Welsh kingdom although it had lost its direct connection with Wales with the arrival of the Vikings in the Irish Sea during the ninth century. It had been subject to heavy English cultural influence throughout the eighth century. It had lost its capital at Dumbarton in 871 to the Vikings and its last fully independent king, Arthgal in the following year. It had been exposed to a mixed Norse-Irish culture introduced from Ireland into the region around the Solway in the early tenth century. It had been subordinate to the Gaelic kings of Alba from at least the death of King Arthgal onwards and its rulers had begun to adopt Gaelic names. It is not at all clear from all this what its linguistic and cultural background was by the eleventh century, but it was almost certainly becoming increasingly Gaelicised. The presence of Gaelic place names throughout the kingdom suggests that this was the case and stands in stark contrast to the position in neighbouring English Lothian where Gaelic place names are noticeable by their absence (see Map 5).
In contrast, the northern part of the former English kingdom of Northumbria, which had been occupied by the kings of Alba in stages between the early 950s and 1016, had retained its strong English culture. This is confirmed by the place name evidence which reveals an absence of Gaelic names in the south-east of Scotland in sharp contrast to the position north of the Forth–Clyde line and in the former kingdom of Strathclyde to the west. It is clear from this that the Gaelic culture of the kingdom of Alba completely failed to penetrate this region. A few personal and place names are the only signs of Gaelic influence in this area. It appears that this area was either more resistant to Gaelic culture or was not exposed to it for long enough to be influenced by it. The local English culture not only remained strong in this area but was actually reinforced following the influx of English refugees from the Norman Conquest. The sources focus on the important individuals involved, but there were many ordinary people too, including the captives taken on King Malcolm III’s raids. It might be suggested that the captives who became slaves were unlikely to have much cultural influence, but Queen Margaret devoted herself to freeing such English slaves. They would then have been free to settle in Alba as farm labourers or better. This process must have increased the English population and reinforced the English culture of this region and perhaps introduced English speech and culture into other areas as well. The monk Eadmer mentions ‘a certain married woman of noble English descent named Eastrhild’ who was restored to health by Anselm and who was associated with Dunfermline in Fife in a Canterbury obituary.
In the end, the English culture of Lothian would transform the kingdom of Alba rather than vice versa. There were a number of reasons for this, some of which have been mentioned in earlier chapters of this book. The relatively short period of Gaelic cultural dominance – 100 years – was perhaps not long enough to bring about any Gaelicisation. Strathclyde by contrast had been exposed to Gaelic influence for at least a century longer. In 1054, if not before, the return of the English-speaking King Malcolm III from exile provided a suitable focus for the loyalty of the English of Lothian. In 1068, the marriage of Malcolm III and Margaret and the birth of their Anglo-Scottish children solidified the allegiance of the English of Lothian to the new Anglo-Scottish dynasty. This happened at exactly the same time as their old loyalties were being undermined by the Norman Conquest of England. In the period before 1066 there was always a risk that the English of Lothian might transfer their allegiance to the kings of England. In the period after the Conquest this was much less likely. It is ironic but true that the English of Lothian probably found more support for their English culture among the kings of Scots than the Norman kings of England after 1066. In addition, the kings of Alba spent more time in Lothian from the reign of Malcolm III onwards and Edinburgh became an important royal residence. It was at Edinburgh that Queen Margaret died in 1093.
Malcolm III and his successors also sought to cultivate the loyalties of English Lothian by their support for the church of St Cuthbert at Durham. The cult of St Cuthbert had survived the Viking destruction of the kingdom of Northumbria in 867 to expand throughout the remnants of English Northumbria. It was the most important church in the far north of England and it remained so in Lothian in spite of its occupation by the kings of Alba from the 950s onwards. The early kings of Alba had allowed the bishop of St Andrews to expand his authority into Lothian in an effort to counter the influence of St Cuthbert. In this same period, the church of Durham experienced a number of Scottish attacks, which were no doubt partly inspired by frustration at the continuing loyalty of the men of Lothian to St Cuthbert. In spite of all this, the inhabitants of Lothian remained steadfast in their faith in St Cuthbert and the kings from Malcolm III onwards recognised this fact and sought to exploit it to win over the population of Lothian.
On 11 August 1093, in spite of the imminent crisis in his relations with William II, King Malcolm III took time out from his journey south to negotiate with the English King to lay a foundation stone for the new Norman cathedral at Durham. He was apparently the only layman present at this important ceremony. At the same time he probably agreed the following covenant with the church of Durham:
This is the covenant which the convent of St Cuthbert has promised to Malcolm King of Scots and to Queen Margaret and to their sons and daughters to keep for ever. Namely that, on behalf of the king and queen, while they are alive, one poor man shall be nourished daily and likewise two poor men shall be maintained for them on Thursday in holy week at the common maundy, and a collect said at the litanies and at mass. Further, that they both, in this life and after, they and their sons and daughters shall be partakers in all things that be to the service of God in the monastery of St Cuthbert. And for the king and queen individually from the day of their death there shall be thirty full offices of the dead in the convent and Verba mea shall be done every day and each priest shall sing thirty masses and each of the rest ten psalters and their anniversary shall be celebrated as an annual festival like that of King Athelstan.15
King Malcolm and Queen Margaret and the rest of t
he Scottish royal family also feature in the Liber Vitae of Durham, which lists the names of all those whose souls the monks will pray for.
In spite of Malcolm’s death soon after this in November 1093, this initial connection with the church of Durham was actively pursued by his sons. In 1094 King Duncan II issued a charter granting to Durham lands and dues in East Lothian which had formerly belonged to Bishop Fothad of St Andrews. In 1095 King Edgar made a generous grant of Coldinghamshire and Berwickshire to Durham and although this grant fell through it would subsequently be replaced by several others. In 1104 the future King Alexander I would be the only layman invited to witness the ceremonial opening of the coffin of St Cuthbert. This active support for St Cuthbert and his church contrasts markedly with earlier Scottish raids and was clearly an important element in securing the loyalty of English Lothian.
The kind of men designed to be won over by this sort of initiative were Thor the Long of Ednam in Berwickshire, who issued a charter in around 1105, once preserved at Durham, as follows:
To all sons of the Holy Mother Church, Thor the Long gives greeting in the Lord. Know that Edgar, my lord, King of Scots gave to me Ednam lying waste which I occupied with his help and with my own stock, and I have built a church in honour of St Cuthbert and his monks to be possessed by them for ever. This grant I have made for the soul of my lord, King Edgar, and for the souls of his father and mother and for the salvation of his brothers and sisters, and for the redemption of Leofwine, my beloved brother, and for the safety of my own body and soul. And if anyone shall presume, by any violence or device, to take away this my grant from the aforesaid saint and the monks serving him, may God Almighty take away from him the life of the kingdom of heaven and may he undergo everlasting punishment with the devil and his angels. Amen.16
Lords of Alba Page 20