Three parties may be said to have divided Scotland at the period of Malcolm’s death. In the north, the partizans of the house of Moray, crushed by the decisive victory gained by the late king over Lulach’s son Malsnechtan, were in no condition to sustain the pretensions of any member of his family to the vacant throne. Along the eastern coast, and in the south, the supporters of the reigning family were divided between the national and foreign factions; the former composed of the hereditary adherents of the house of Atholl, mostly of pure Gaelic or of Scoto-British descent; the latter of the refugees from England, and probably of the descendants of the ancient Northumbrians of the Lothians. The influence of Margaret at her husband’s court, as well as motives of policy, had induced Malcolm to show especial favour to the countrymen of his queen, thus implanting the seeds of a bitter feeling of hostility in the breasts of many of the Scottish nobles at a line of conduct exhibiting, as they thought, an undue partiality for the Saxons and their innovations. The smothered enmity of the Scots blazed forth after the death of the king, and the haste and secrecy with which the body of the royal Margaret was removed by Ethelred to its last resting-place, discloses the existence amongst many of her contemporaries of a feeling of antipathy against the _Saxon Queen_, widely different from the enthusiastic veneration paid by their descendants to the memory of the _Royal Saint_.[185] The election of Donald Bane to his brother’s throne was the natural consequence of this wide-spread jealousy, [Sidenote: A. D. 1093.] as well as of a reactionary feeling in favour of the ancient national usage, according to which he was undoubtedly the rightful heir; and the immediate expulsion of the detested _Saxons_ followed upon the triumph of the national party.[186]