What he could not achieve by arms, Malcolm, both before and after his accession, decided to secure by a series of matrimonial alliances. He had no son; but he had three available daughters,[2] of whom the eldest was Bethoc, and the two others are said to have been called Donada or Doada and Plantula. 1. _Bethoc_ he married to the most powerful Pictish leader of the time, Crinan, Abthane of Dunkeld, the capital of the southern Picts, and they had issue (a) _Duncan_, afterwards Duncan I of Scotland, born about 1001; (b) _Maldred_ of Cumbria, whose eldest son was Gospatrick, and whose second son was Dolfin; but with Maldred we are not concerned; (c) _A daughter_, who became the mother of Moddan, whom Duncan I, after his accession in 1034, created Earl of Caithness or Cat, probably about 1040, his father being possibly of the family of Moldan of Duncansby, whose sons Gritgard and Snaekolf, if we may believe the _Njal Saga_, were slain by Helgi Njal's son and Kari Solmundarson, Moldan being said to be a kinsman of Malcolm the Scots king. 2. Malcolm's second daughter, _Donada_, he married to Finnleac or Finlay Mac Ruari, Maormor of North Moray, and a chief of the northern Picts, and they had a son, Macbeth, born about 1005, who succeeded Duncan I on his death in 1040 as King of Scotland, but left no issue.[3] 3. Malcolm's third daughter, said to have been called _Plantula_, he gave, about 1007, as his second wife to Sigurd Hlodverson, who, as we have seen, was killed in 1014 at the decisive battle of Clontarf, his wife having died probably before that event; and their only child was a son, born about 1008 and created Earl of Caithness and Sutherland, who became the great Earl and Jarl _Thorfinn_. The three marriages were intended to secure to Malcolm the south, the middle, and the north of Pictland through the fathers of Duncan, Macbeth, and Thorfinn respectively; and we may note that from Thorfinn are descended all subsequent Jarls and Earls of Orkney and Shetland and Caithness of the so-called Norse line. Duncan I, Macbeth, and Thorfinn Sigurd's son were thus first cousins, and, in spite of the fiction of Holinshed, Boece, and William Shakespeare, they were all about the same age, being born within seven years of each other; and none of them lived to old age.