XII

FOTHADH, THE LAST TRIBAL BISHOP

223

appears as Maldunus, bishop of St. Andrews, granting the church of Markinch with all its land in single-minded devotion to God, St. Serf, and the Culdees of Lochleven. Tighernac records his death in the year 1055 in these terms, “Maeldwin, son of Gillaodran, bishop of Alban, the giver of orders of the clergy to the Gael, died in Christ." Tuthald or Tuadal succeeded him and held the bishopric four years. He made a similar grant1 of the church of Scoonie, Fifeshire, to the same Culdees for the benefit of their prayers. This was the beginning of an evil custom which did much injury afterwards to the medieval Church. In 1059 another Fothadh became bishop, and his tenure of the bishopric extended through the whole reign of Malcolm Canmore. He was also a benefactor of the favoured Culdees of Lochleven, and granted them the church of Auchterderrane. The Irish annalists call him "Fothudh Archiepiscopus Alban." There was of course no archbishop, properly so called, in Scotland until the close of the fifteenth century, but the title is suggestive of other bishops in the country contemporary with, if not subordinate to Fothadh. He was the last of the bishops of Alban, his successor Turgot introducing a new line of Saxon bishops from the south, who became territorial bishops of St. Andrews.

1 Reg. Pr. St. Andrews, p. 116.

2 Burton, Hist., i. 396.

CHAPTER XIII

MALCOLM III. "CANMORE," 1058-1093

Influx of English Settlers

Marriage of Malcolm to Princess Margaret Influence of the Queen's life-Duthac of TainIona restored-Decadence of Scottish Church-Conferences of Queen Margaret with Scottish Clergy-Points discussed in Conference-Reformation of Church-Claims of See of York over Scottish Church-Malcolm's English wars-Death of Malcolm and of Margaret.

MALCOLM III. or Canmore (1058-1093) was a prince of more ability than his unfortunate father Duncan, and redeemed the credit of the Atholl line from the incapacity or misfortune of the first sovereign of the house. He was crowned at Scone, according to Fordun,' in the presence of his nobles, on the feast of St. Mark. It is the first case of a Scottish "coronation" that we know. The northern province of Moray had long owned but a nominal allegiance to the crown, and Malcolm reduced and incorporated it as part of the Scottish kingdom. The rulers or Mormaers of Moray are called "kings" by the Irish annalists,2 Malcolm's subjection of the province did not eradicate the spirit of independence in the men of Moray. It is probably at this period of the king's history that the endowment of Mortlach as a monastery is to be dated,

1 Scotichron., v. 9.

2 Mormaer is the Gaelic for the big chief, and the title afterwards

gave place to earl, as Toiseach, the next in rank to Mormaer, came to be thane or baron.

CHAP. XIII ROYAL SAXON REFUGEES IN SCOTLAND

225

which Fordun, as we have seen, describes as the foundation of a bishopric. On the death of Thorfin, Malcolm's authority extended to the Pentland Firth. Thorfin's young widow Ingebiorge became his first wife.

Malcolm's reign is remarkable for the great influx of English settlers into the south of Scotland, and this had an important and permanent influence upon the ecclesiastical history of the country. Scotland had been a harbour of refuge, for some years before the Norman conquest, to many whom political intrigues and the chances of war had driven across the Border. The conquest of England by William the Norman sent more of the Saxons to seek an asylum in Scotland, and a severe famine in Northumbria increased the number of involuntary immigrants. It has been computed that the English people in the south of Scotland at this period outnumbered the native population. Chief among the refugees was Edgar the Atheling, nephew of Edward the Confessor and heir of the Saxon line, with his mother Agatha and two sisters, Margaret and Christina. Malcolm was then living at Dunfermline, which is described as being well adapted by natural surroundings for a royal residence. St. Margaret's Hope bears the name of the landing-place of the royal refugees, and St. Margaret's Stone on the wayside is said to mark the spot where Malcolm first met his future wife in the summer of 1068. He gave them a hospitable welcome, and made them guests in his palace. Malcolm's first wife is supposed to have died after giving birth to a son, Duncan, who succeeded him on the throne.

In the spring of 1069 Malcolm and Margaret were married in Dunfermline by Fothadh the bishop, and they are said to have there built a church dedicated to the Holy Trinity in memory of their marriage. Margaret was at first much averse to marriage; the misfortunes of her

Q

family disposing her to the seclusion of the cloister, to which her sister subsequently retired. Her married life was singularly happy, and fraught with many blessings to her adopted country. Turgot, her confessor, prior of Durham, and afterwards bishop of St. Andrews, wrote her biography, and has given us many traits of a truly noble princess. As queen, and wife, and mother, her conduct was beyond praise, and her saintly character has called forth the eulogies of many historians. She was one of those personages, so rare in our annals, who have remodelled the institutions of the country and changed the current of its history. The Church was the first to benefit by her action, but the civilising influences of her daily life, in the rough court of a Scottish king of that age, soon affected a wider circle. Malcolm was devoted to his wife, and to retain his favour it was necessary for his subjects to stand well in the eyes of the queen. No rude word was spoken in her presence, and her industry as well as her piety influenced the ladies of her court, and made them as indefatigable as herself in labours of love for the Church and the poor. The making of vestments and furnishings for the Church and garments for the poor formed part of their daily occupation. Margaret was what in modern language would be called "an exotic," but the transplanting to our hardier soil and bleaker skies did not weaken the womanly virtues of the Saxon princess. She brought with her the grace and refinement of the southern home where she had been reared, and Scotland was the richer and better for her personal influence. There were sensible Scots in those days who regarded her mission as the partial repayment of the debt which Margaret's ancestors owed to the missionary Scots that evangelised the Saxon tribes of England. In no other light need it be regarded now. Some may think, and some historians

XIII

INFLUENCE OF QUEEN MARGARET'S LIFE

227 have written, that the debt was not paid in kind, gospel for gospel, but that is a subject on which historians, like others, are certain to differ. Dr. Skene1 observes that "there is perhaps no more beautiful character recorded in history than that of Margaret. For purity of motives, for an earnest desire to benefit the people among whom her lot was cast, for a deep sense of religion and great personal piety, for the unselfish performance of whatever duty lay before her, and for entire self-abnegation, she is unsurpassed, and the chroniclers of her time all bear testimony to her exalted character."

Of her influence over her husband Turgot speaks in high terms. "I confess," he says, "I was astonished at the great miracle of God's mercy when I perceived in the king such a steady earnestness in his devotion; and I wondered how it was that there could exist in the heart of a man living in the world such an entire sorrow for sin." Malcolm had a frank and generous disposition beneath a rough exterior, and though as ignorant of letters as most of his contemporaries, he used to handle with great reverence the devotional books which were the favourite study of his wife. He would take them up and kiss them, and occasionally carry them off to have them emblazoned with gold and jewels, in his respect for the books, and still more for their reader. When the queen

in her lavish generosity exhausted her own resources in alms-giving, she would have recourse to her husband's; and his only reproof, on making the discovery, would be to seize her hand and playfully call her a little thief. Every morning the poor of the district came to the palace door, and king and queen used to wash their feet and supply them with food and clothing. We read also of her earnest devotions, of prolonged prayer and fasting—a

1 C. S., ii. 344.