A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



difficult to defend the old theory of the effective sovereignty of Scot- 

 land over the district south of the Solway from the date of King 

 Eadmund's grant till the conquest of Carlisle in 1092. It would 

 appear that the compact lasted only for the lifetime of the contract- 

 ing parties, for Kenneth son of Malcolm soon after his accession in 

 971 plundered part of the district of Strathclyde and the whole of 

 Northumbria as far as Stainmore. 1 In these circumstances it must be 

 concluded that Scottish claims to the sovereignty of Cumberland, 

 founded on King Eadmund's grant, must have been put forward at a 

 later date. 



Early authorities like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Florence of 

 Worcester are content with the bare statement of King Ethelred's 

 invasion of Cumberland in 1000. Henry of Huntingdon 2 however 

 enlarges on the older narratives and supplies a reasonable account of the 

 object of the expedition. King Ethelred, he says, assembled a powerful 

 host and went into Cumberland, which was at that time a stronghold 

 of the Danes, and he conquered the Danes in a great battle and laid 

 waste and pillaged nearly the whole of Cumberland. In this state- 

 ment we have a more likely pretext for the invasion than that sup- 

 plied by Fordun, to which attention has been called, and it possesses 

 the additional recommendation that it seems to harmonize with the 

 general sequence of events in the northern districts. It is noteworthy 

 how much the Danish colonization is mixed up with the political 

 vicissitudes of Cumberland, whether that geographical term be taken 

 in its limited or enlarged sense, and how often these vicissitudes resulted 

 from, or were associated with, the history of Northumbria. It was an 

 unjustifiable exercise of Danish power in that kingdom which drew the 

 attention of King Eadmund to northern affairs and caused the expulsion 

 of the two kings in 944,' and it was probably some insubordination on 

 the part of the people of Cumberland, if we can trust Huntingdon's 

 description of their character, that led in the following year to the ces- 

 sion of this treacherous and lawless race to the dominion of the Scottish 

 king. 4 Both acts seem to have been parts of one plan, the annexation 

 of Northumbria to his own kingdom ofWessex and the cession of Cum- 

 berland to Scotland, as he was himself, owing to its turbulence and 

 isolation, unable to keep it under effective control. If it be admitted 

 that the evidence is insufficient to predicate a permanent grant of 

 Cumberland to Scotland in 945, it cannot be denied that the district 



1 Statim (Cinadius filius Maelcolaim) predavit Britanniam ex parte. Scotti predaverunt Saxoniam 

 ad Stanmoir, et ad Cluiam, et ad Stangna Dera'm (Skene, Chron. of Picts and Scots, p. 10). Skene 

 interpreted the Britannia of the ' Pictish Chronicle ' as the land of the Strathclyde Britons, and Saxonia 

 as ' the northern part of Northumbria as far as Stanmore, Cleveland, and the pools of Deira, that 

 is, the part of Northumbria which had been placed as a separate earldom under EadulP (Celtic 

 Scotland, i. 369). E. W. Robertson understood Britannia to refer to Cumberland (Early Kings, i. 

 72). As Kenneth II. began to reign in 971, the expedition against Strathclyde must have taken 

 place soon after (statim) his accession. 



2 Historia Angkrum, p. 1 70, ed. Arnold. There is no mention of Scottish sovereignty in this 

 account ; the Danes were in possession of the district called Cumberland at this time. 



3 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, i. 89-90. Historia Angkrum, p. 162, ed. Arnold. 



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