Scotland under her early kings, Volume 1 (of 2) : $b a history of the kingdom to the close of the thirteenth centuryRobertson, Eben William
History
Scotland under her early kings, Volume 1 (of 2) : $b a history of the kingdom to the close of the thirteenth century
Robertson, Eben William
Scotland -- History -- To 1603
[140] _Innes_, Ap. 5. _Tigh._ 1040. _Mar. Scot._ 1040. Slain “a duce
suo,” writes Marianus. Tighernach adds _immaturâ ætate_, contrary to
all modern ideas of Duncan. Marianus was born in 1028, Tighernach
was his senior; their authority, therefore, at this period, as
contemporaries, is very great. _Bothgowanan_ means “the smith’s
bothy,” and under this word may lurk some long forgotten tradition
of the real circumstances of Duncan’s murder. The vision of a weary
fugitive, a deserted king, rises before the mind’s eye, recalling
“Beaton’s mill” and the fate of James the Third. Two hundred years
after his death a chaplain was appointed by his descendant, Alexander
the Second, to celebrate masses in Elgin Cathedral for the benefit of
Duncan’s soul. No allusion is made in the Saga to any alliance between
Thorfin and Macbeth, and whilst the former is described as collecting
reinforcements from Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness, Duncan retires
upon Moray as a friendly province in which he recruits his forces.
Considering the hereditary enmity between the Jarls of Orkney and the
Mormaors of Moray, it seems more probable that the ill fortune of the
young king tempted Macbeth to aspire to the crown, and to murder his
rival in “the Smith’s bothy,” where he was resting after retreating
from the field of his last defeat. In the Saga, Kali disappears after
the battle and is heard of no more, from which it would appear that the
Orkneymen and their allies had nothing to do with his death, of which
they were probably ignorant.
[141] Chalmers, who has traced in his _Caledonia_ the memorials of
these contests with all the zeal of an enthusiastic antiquary, is
angry with Pinkerton for asserting that “there is not a shadow of
authority for the Danish wars of Malcolm the Second;” remarking that
“popular tradition, with well vouched remains, are historical documents
of sufficient authority for narrative facts.” For the _facts_,
undoubtedly, but not for the _narratives_, which have been subsequently
appended. The remains, so industriously noted down by Chalmers, fully
attest the frequent conflicts occurring along the Scottish coasts with
the Northmen, but they do not prove the truth of minute descriptions of
battles unknown before the time of Boece, who wrote in the early part
of the sixteenth century.
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