SCOTLAND (HISTORY) 



239 



The reign of Constantine, son of Aodh, who suc- 

 ceeded in 904, was a remarkable one. In his time 

 it is probable that the seat of the ecclesiastical 

 primacy was transferred from Abemethy to St 

 Andrews, and that t lie regal residence was fixed at 

 Scone. At the latter place, in the sixth year of 

 his reign, the chronicles mention that Constantine 

 the king, Kellach the bishop, and the Scots swore 

 to observe the laws and discipline of the faitli and 

 the rights of the churches and the gospels. This 

 seems to indicate the meeting of some sort of 

 council, civil or ecclesiastical, or more probably a 

 combination of both, according to the form pre- 

 valent at this period both among the Celtic and the 

 Teutonic nations. Even before the establishment 

 of the kingdom of the Picts and Scots in the person 

 of Kenneth, Northern Britain had experienced the 

 attacks of a new enemy, the Scandinavian invaders, 

 generally spoken of under the name of Danes. 

 Constantine resisted them bravely, but towards the 

 end of his reign he entered into an alliance with 

 them in opposition to the English. In 937 a power- 

 ful army, composed of Scots and Picts, Britons and 

 Danes, disembarked on the Humber, and was 

 encountered at Brunanbnrh (q.v.) by Athelstan, 

 king of England. A battle was fought there, the 

 first of a series of unfortunate combats by Scottish 

 princes on English ground. The confederate army 

 was defeated, and, though Constantino escaped, his 

 son was amongst the slain. Weary of strife, the 

 king soon afterwards retired to the Culdee monas- 

 tery at St Andrews, of which he became abbot, and 

 there died in 953. 



During the reign of Malcolm, the first of that 

 name, and the successor of Constantine, a jxirtion 

 of the Cumbrian kingdom, including the modern 

 Cumlierland and part of Westmorland, which h:ul 

 been wrested from the Britons by Edmund, king of 

 England, was bestowed by that prince on the 

 Scottish sovereign. This grant was the founda- 

 tion of that claim of homage made by the English 

 kings on the Scottish sovereigns, which afterwards 

 became the cause or the pretext for the great 

 struggle between the two nations. The northern 

 kingdom was still further increased in the reign 

 of Kenneth, son of Malcolm, by the acquisition 

 of Lothian, and of Northern Cumbria, or Strath- 

 clyde. The former province, previously a part of the 

 Northumbrian kingdom, and entirely English in 

 its population, was bestowed on Kenneth by Edgar, 

 king of England. The Cumbrian kingdom, which 

 had at one time extended along the west coast from 

 the Firth of Clyde to the border of Wales, had lieen 

 weakened by the loss of its southern territories ; it 

 was inhabited by a Celtic people speaking Cymric 

 or Welsh, and now fell under the dominion of the 

 Scottish king, though its inhabitants long retained 

 their own speech and a peculiar system of laws 

 (see BRETTS AND SCOTS). The lost addition to 

 Scotland in the south took place under Malcolm 

 II., son of Kenneth, who acquired the Merse and 

 Teviotdale from the Earl of Xorthnmbria, and thus 

 advanced his kingdom on the eastern border to the 

 Tweed. The reign "f Malcolm II. extended from 

 UJ03 to 1033. The kings.who immediately followed 

 are better known to the general readers than any 

 of their predecessors, Shakespeare having made their 

 names familiar to every one. Malcolm's successor 

 was his grandson, Duncan, whose brief reign was 

 followed by that of Macbeth (q.v.). The latter 

 was a vigorous and prudent ruler, munificent to 

 the church, and famous as the only Scottish king 

 who made a pilgrimage to Rome. But, although 

 by marriage he was connected with the royal line, 

 he was unable to secure the affection of liis sub- 

 jects. Malcolm, the eldest son of Duncan, assisted 

 by his kinsman, Siwarcl, Earl of Northumbria, 

 invaded Scotland. The usurper was defeated and 



slain at Lnraphanan, in Mar, in 1057, and Malcolm 

 was acknowledged as king. 



The long reign of Malcolm Canmore was the com- 

 mencement of a great social and political revolu- 

 tion in Scotland. His residence in England, and 

 still more his marriage with the English Princess 

 Margaret, the sister of Edgar Atheling, led to the 

 introduction of English customs, the English lan- 

 guage, and an English population into the northern 

 and western districts of the kingdom. The influx 

 of English colonists was increased by the tyranny 

 of William the Conqueror and his Norman fol- 

 lowers. All received a ready welcome from the 

 Scottish king, whose object it was to assimilate the 

 condition of the Scots in every respect to that of 

 their fellow-subjects in Lothian ; and what his 

 stern, though generous, character might have failed 

 to accomplish was brought about by the winning 

 gentleness and Christian graces of his English 

 queen. 



Malcolm fell in battle before Alnwick Castle in 

 the year 1093, and Margaret survived only a few 

 days. It seemed as if the work of their reign 

 was about to be utterly overthrown. The Celtic 

 people of Scotland, attached to their old customs, 

 and disregarding the claims of Malcolm's children, 

 raised his brother, Donald Bane, to the throne. 

 The success, however, of this attempt to restore 

 a barlwrism which the better part of the nation 

 had outgrown was of brief duration ; Donald 

 was dethroned, and Edgar, the eldest surviving 

 son of Malcolm and Margaret, was acknowledged 

 as king. The very name of the new sovereign 

 market! the ascendency of English influence. That 

 influence, and all the beneficial effects with which 

 it was attended, continued to increase during the 

 ivigns of Edgar and his brother and successor, 

 Alexander I. The change went steadily on under 

 tlif wise and beneficent rule of David (q.v.), the 

 youngest son of Malcolm. His reign, which 

 extended from 1124 to 1153, was devoted to the 

 task of ameliorating the condition of his sub- 

 jects, and never was such a work more nobly 

 accomplished. David was in every respect the 

 model of a Christian king. Pious, generous, and 

 humane, he was at the same time active and just, 

 conforming himself to the principles of religion 

 and the rules of the church with all the devotion 

 of his mother, but never forgetting that to him, 

 not to the clergy, God had committed the govern- 

 ment of his kingdom. He was all that Alfred 

 was to England, and more than St Louis was to 

 France. Hod he reigned over a more powerful 

 nation his name would have been one of the best 

 known among those of the princes of Christendom. 

 At the time of David's accession Scotland was still 

 but partially civilised, and it depended in a great 

 measure on the character of its ruler whether it 

 was to advance or recede. It received a permanent 

 stamp from the government of David. The Celtic 

 people were improved morally, socially, and ecclesi- 

 astically, and all along the eastern coast were 

 planted Norman, English, and Flemish colonies, 

 which gradually penetrated into the inland dis- 

 tricts, and established the language and manners of 

 that Teutonic race which forms the population of 

 the greater part of Scotland. David encouraged and 

 secured the new institutions by introducing a system 

 of written law, which gradually superseded the 

 old Celtic traditionary usages, the first genuine 

 collections of Scottish legislation belonging to his 

 reign. David was as great a reformer in the 

 church as in the state. The ecclesiastical system 

 prevalent in Scotland almost up to his time differed 

 in some points from that established in England 

 and on the Continent, bearing a great resemblance 

 to that of Ireland, from which it was indeed 

 derived. David established dioceses, encouraged 



