Celts, and the English language, from this cause also, made rapid progress. For about twenty-five years Margaret exercised the most potent influence in her husband's kingdom, and, when she died, her reputation as a saint and her subsequent canonization maintained and supported the traditions she had created. Not only did she have on her side the power of a court and the prestige of courtly etiquette, but, as we have said, she represented a higher civilizing force than that which was opposed to her, and hence the greatness of her victory. It must, however, be remembered that the spread of the English language in Scotland does not necessarily imply the predominance of English blood. It means rather the growth of English commerce. We can trace the adoption of English along the seaboard, and in the towns, while Gaelic still remained the language of the countryman. There is no evidence of any English immigration of sufficient proportions to overwhelm the Gaelic population. Like the victory of the conquered English over the conquering Normans, which was even then making fast progress in England, it is a triumph of a kind that subsequent events have revealed as characteristically Anglo-Saxon, and it called into force the powers of adaptation and of colonization which have brought into being so great an English-speaking world. Malcolm's reign ended in defeat and failure; his wife died of grief, and the opportunity presented itself of a Celtic reaction against the Anglicization of the reign of Malcolm III. The throne was seized by Malcolm's brother, Donald Bane. Malcolm's eldest son, Duncan, whose mother, Ingibjorg, had been a Dane, received assistance from Rufus, and drove Donald Bane, after a reign of six months, into the distant North. But after about six months he himself was slain in a small fight with the Mormaer or Earl of the Mearns, and Donald Bane continued to reign for about three years, in conjunction with Edmund, a son of Malcolm and Margaret. But in 1097, Edgar, a younger brother of Edmund, again obtained the help of Rufus and secured the throne. The reign of Edgar is important in two respects. It put an end to the Celtic revival, and reproduced the conditions of the time of Malcolm and Margaret. Henceforward Celtic efforts were impossible except in the Highlands, and the Celts of the Lowlands resigned themselves to the process of Anglicization imposed upon them alike by ecclesiastical, political, and commercial circumstances. It saw also the beginning of an influence which was to prove scarcely less fruitful in results than the Anglo-Saxon triumph of which we have spoken. In November, 1100, Edgar's sister, Matilda, was married to the Norman King of England, Henry I, and two years later, another sister, Mary, was married to Eustace, Count of Boulogne, the son of the future King Stephen. These unions, with a son and a grandson respectively of William the Conqueror, prepared the way for the Norman Conquest of Scotland.