The historical Macbeth appears to have been an able monarch, and religious after the fashion of the age, for his reign has been handed down in tradition as an era of fertility and prosperity--generally a sign of the ability of the ruler; and he is recorded with his queen amongst the earliest benefactors of the Culdee society of Lochleven.[143] With their joint grant to the little priory is associated the only historical mention of the true descent of the Lady Gruoch; and the venerable Culdee who briefly registered their donation, little thought that, in entering the simple notice, he was perpetuating the sole record of the real nature of the claims of his benefactors upon the throne they were accused of usurping. His liberality to the poor of Rome is also mentioned by a contemporary historian; but in such a manner as to leave it a matter of doubt whether the king was ever present in person at the Eternal City.[144] For five years after the fall of Duncan his successful rival reigned in peace, when an attempt was made by the adherents of the late king to regain their lost ascendancy. [Sidenote: A. D. 1045.] The children of Duncan were still in their infancy, and their cause was sustained by their grandfather, Crinan, the aged abbot of Dunkeld; but his defeat and death, “with nine times twenty warriors,” extinguished for a time the hopes of the House of Atholl, and only served to secure the throne more firmly in the power of Macbeth.[145] Seven years elapsed and the fortunes of the House of Moray were still in the ascendant, when several of the Confessor’s Norman favourites, [Sidenote: A. D. 1052.] who were driven from England on the return of Earl Godwin, fled for refuge beyond the Tweed,[146] and the asylum granted to the fugitives at Macbeth’s Court may have afforded a pretext for the hostility of Siward, who, two years later, invaded the dominions of the Scottish king. [Sidenote: A. D. 1054.] The whole force of the Northumbrian provinces collected around the banner of the Danish earl, and attacked Macbeth on the day of “the Seven Sleepers;” [Sidenote: 27th July.] fifteen hundred of the Anglo-Danes fell in the contest, with the son and nephew of the earl, but Siward gained the day, slew three thousand of the enemy--the detested Normans amongst the number--and carried off a booty unprecedented in the annals of Border warfare.[147]