Was he surrendering the independence of Scotland?
Or was he merely acknowledging his feudal subordination to William for territories outside Scotland?
Three hundred years of warfare would demonstrate that in the eyes of English kings the answer was the former: Scotland fell within its realm . . . Scotland was one of England’s rightful provinces, over which the kingship of England extended. The King of Scotland, accordingly, was necessarily and forever subordinate to England’s King.
In the eyes of Scotland’s rulers, however, the independence of Scotland was inviolable. The King of Scotland ruled as monarch of a separate, autonomous, and independent nation, over which English kings had no right of jurisdiction.
This dispute between the two interpretations would continue—sometimes to simmer, at other times to rage. Indeed, an eventual climax seemed inevitable to determine whether Scotland was a free nation or a mere vassal state and province of England.
Notwithstanding his pledge of loyalty, after the odds for success became more favorable, Malcolm invaded northern England twice more.
Twelve
A certain old woman who dwelt in a small cottage on the edge of a wood east of Dunfermline Castle hurried home from the western forest one gray autumn afternoon.
Fionnaghal was not actually as old as she looked, for she was bent over as much from the cares of the world pressing upon her as from the bag of kindling sticks upon her back which she had collected this day. Somewhere deep within her bosom a remaining spark of Celtic flame remained aglow. But like the peats in her hearth after a long cold night, something was needed to rekindle her fire and fan it again into life.
She had seen neither husband nor son for five weeks and her heart had grown anxious as the time wore on. They had departed with their old horse and cart to cut and gather a winter’s supply of peats from a distant valley. Her husband had said they would perhaps be gone two or three weeks. He desired to see, and for their sixteen-year-old son to witness with him, certain ancient stones of their Caledonii ancestors, which he had seen with his father when, as a boy, he himself had made his home in the mountains. It could wait no longer, he said. They would collect their peats as they returned.
Perhaps it was good they had gone when they did, Fionnaghal thought, for they had missed the sickness that had come upon her daughter five days ago and was now threatening her as well. Yet still she was worried about them. They should have been back long before now.
Fionnaghal and husband came from the Highlands, and both spoke the old tongue. They had ventured down into lower regions when times were hard and food was scarce. Here, near the sea, her husband could work and fish and hope to feed the four mouths in their family. That she was descended from the Highland nymph Breathran, through one of her eldest sons, she had not an idea, nor did she guess that others like her and her husband had likewise migrated from out of the Highlands and carried their ancient bloodline in all directions throughout the land.
As Fionnaghal, unknown daughter of Breathran, now trudged her way through the small village through which she must pass to reach her cottage, her spirit was as bent over with anxiety for her loved ones as was her back under the load of fagots. Thinking only of making haste back to her sick daughter, she was scarcely conscious of the noise of the royal entourage as it returned to the castle from an afternoon’s hunt.
By the time she realized she was in the middle of their path, Fionnaghal threw herself up to the wall alongside which she walked, frantic to avoid horses and riders. There she leaned against the stones, panting for breath, waiting for the commotion to pass that she might continue on her way. Never once had she looked up to see who had thus interrupted her solitary steps.
By the time poor Fionnaghal realized that the ten or fifteen horses had stopped and that two people had descended to the street and were walking toward her, a sudden wave of fear swept through her. Had she unknowingly trespassed on castle grounds!
A sweet voice sounded.
Trembling, she looked up. The Queen stood not two feet away, gazing into her face with the most heavenly smile.
Again the Queen spoke. At last Fionnaghal managed a timid smile, which conveyed clearly enough that she could not understand the English words.
“Malcolm,” said Margaret, turning to the huge, stern-looking man beside her, “would you please ask this dear woman if we might help her?”
Now sounded the King’s voice—soft, though as terrifying as the expression on his face—in her own native tongue. She understood the King’s Gaelic clearly enough, though it accomplished nothing to loose her own tongue. Still she stood speechless, aware that fifty or more eyes were upon her.
Again the Queen’s lovely voice spoke—first to Malcolm, then to one of her attendants—ordering that water be found from one of the nearby cottages and that a basin be brought. The King took a great step forward. He stretched out his massive arms and lifted the burden from Fionnaghal’s back, setting it beside him on the road.
All consciousness now floated about in a dream to the bewildered woman—all, that is, except the eyes of love and the gentle smile upon the face of the Queen.
The lady who could be nothing but an angel took Fionnaghal’s hand and made her sit down on a rock beside the road . . . now the lady Margaret knelt in front of her and was unwrapping her weary feet . . . now came the attendant with water and basin . . . and suddenly Fionnaghal realized—but how could such a thing be!—the Queen was washing her feet!
The soft, gentle touch of her warm hands was more soothing and healing to the tired soul than any touch of human kindness she could remember.
The companions of King and Queen, on horse and on foot, waited patiently. None were surprised at the delay, for they had come to know that their Queen felt such profound compassion for her fellow creatures that it was hardly possible for her to lay eyes on man, woman, or child in need but that she must go and see what ministration might be offered. Wherever Margaret turned her eyes, those upon whom she looked were instantly engulfed in peace. In truth, this was her greatest ministry of all.
The King himself had witnessed similar occurrences many times. These were not the only feet his wife had washed. The first time he saw her kneel down before a beggar woman seeking alms in front of the castle, he had been stunned into speechlessness. He had done nothing, however, but stand awkwardly to one side until the humiliating ordeal should be done with.
Thereafter he had always stood by—stoically, silently . . . enduring while not altogether condoning his wife’s acts of charity.
All at once on this day, however, a breeze of gasps began to go through the courtly entourage, followed by what could only be described as the descent upon those same astonished mouths of a holy hush. Before them the King now knelt beside his wife and proceeded himself to bathe the second foot of the awestruck woman in the basin of water. What was it about this Queen who could so tame the wild beast in their King . . . and even transform him into a ministering angel?
Quietly Fionnaghal began to weep.
Margaret saw the tears and was moved yet more deeply. She set aside the basin, now dried both the feet within the folds of her own robe, then reached forward with both hands and tenderly cradled the weeping face in her palms. The words she spoke needed no translation, for they were the gentle words of love, and Fionnaghal understood them clearly enough. King and Queen now each wrapped the feet of the woman back as they had been.
Malcolm eased himself back, still on his knees. Margaret turned and glanced deeply into his eyes. A look of sheepish boyishness was on his face. Margaret smiled, tears now standing in her own eyes. She wept not only for Fionnaghal.
“Thank you, Malcolm,” she whispered. No other soul ever heard the words. “This means more to me than I can say.”
Malcolm smiled but had no words. He was almost as surprised at what he had done as everyone else was. Margaret turned back to Fionnaghal.
“What is your name?” she asked gently.
; Malcolm repeated the words in Gaelic.
Fionnaghal answered.
“Where do you live?”
“In a cottage . . . it is not far, my lady.”
“We will help you with your fagots. Do you have a husband?”
Fionnaghal briefly explained, and now—looking not nearly as old as before, her face softened by the kind treatment she had received—began to weep anew. The three continued to speak quietly—the King of the realm, his saintly Queen, and the poor Highland woman who was their subject. Gradually the whole story came out of the long absence of husband and son, as well as the ailing daughter.
Malcolm now stood, turned, and barked out brisk commands to several of his men.
They came forward. One caught up the bundle of sticks, two were sent off to the castle with orders to bring back a full cartload of dried peats. Malcolm turned back, and now he and Margaret assisted Fionnaghal to her feet and into one of the horse-drawn traps, where she might sit comfortably. Sending the rest of their attendants on to Dunfermline, Margaret and Malcolm now escorted the bewildered Fionnaghal home.
Within an hour the blissful woman was resting comfortably. A huge supply of peats and kindling sticks had been stacked outside, and Margaret was returning from the castle with what provisions she judged would make the lives of Fionnaghal and her daughter easier until the return of their men. She sent one of her women from the castle back to stay with the two peasants, mother and daughter, in the cottage and care for them until the sickness was passed.
Before she left them, Margaret slipped one of her rings from its finger, placed it into Fionnaghal’s palm, then closed the woman’s fingers around it, clutching her hardworking hand in the middle of her own.
“I want you to have this, dear Fionnaghal,” she said through the interpretation of her maid, also a transplanted Highlander. “If you ever need me, this ring will be a token between us of our friendship. You may call upon me anytime.”
Again Fionnaghal wept. What words of gratefulness could she possibly utter? An angel had come to her this day. Forever would this humble cottage seem to shine with the memory of the heavenly visitation.
Thirteen
During Malcolm III’s reign, shifts occurred away from the Celtic past and toward the Norman future—in three areas: language, custom, and religion. These changes signaled the beginning of a major division that would divide Scotland and make harmony among its peoples increasingly difficult.
From the twelfth century forward, because of these changes, the most serious enemy to Scotland’s unity would be the Scots themselves.
Ann an aonachd tha bràithreachas—”In unity is brotherhood”—would fade as a prescription for nationhood ever more distantly into the past, and become a vision long forgotten and unfulfilled by the descendents of those two Caledonii brothers who first dreamed it.
Through no fault of either Margaret’s or Malcolm’s other than the desire to bring beneficial change and learning to their people, Gaelic language, clan customs, and Celtic religion were gradually pushed back into the regions of their origins—toward the ancient Caledonia of the mountainous north and west.
Two Scotlands began thus to emerge and develop distinct cultures—the Highlands of the north and west, where the Celtic and Gaelic heritage of Caledonia remained vital and alive, and the Lowlands of south and east, which continued to grow more courtly, more genteel, more English. And as England itself became more Norman, the Norman influence of Scotland would become more pronounced. The brown peat waters of Celt and Scot and Pict would retreat deeper into the Highlands while the Norman sea completed its conquest, flooding the Scottish aristocracy and Lowlands with the clear waters of continental and English change.
Though Malcolm himself was of Celtic ancestry—never a more anti-Norman could be imagined than the King of the Scots—the fact that he took to using the English tongue evidenced the shifting direction of Malcolm’s cultural loyalties. Perhaps without intending it, and because of his great love for his angel-wife, he turned his back on his Celtic heritage and threw wide the door for change. With strange irony, the fiercest of Celts and his Anglo-Saxon/Hungarian wife thus ushered in refinements that would speed the Normanization of his nation.
Ever after Malcolm’s reign, therefore, a rift would exist, invisible at first but steadily widening, between the Gaelic-speaking Celtic Highlanders—ancestors of former Scots and Picts, in whose veins flowed the rich amber heritage of mountain peat—and the English influence of crown and nobility—in whose veins flowed blood blue as the Channel over which the Norman had crossed to achieve his conquest.
This fissure revealed itself periodically at the deaths of various monarchs. Then would old Celtic forces rise to exert claim to the kingship according to the former complex Scottish system of tanistry, pitting itself at odds with Saxon, English, and Norman linear succession. Possession of the crown of Scotland would thus—as an ongoing legacy to the Picts and Scots—remain divisive for the next seven centuries . . . until the right of self-rule was taken from Scotland altogether.
Malcolm had fathered one son, Duncan, by his previous marriage to Orkney princess Ingibjorg. He and Margaret produced six sons and two daughters of their own. Even in the naming of these children, Margaret’s influence over the King was not difficult to observe—all were given English, biblical, or classical names: Edward, Edgar, Edmund, Ethelred, Alexander, and David. The daughters were Matilda and Mary. No reminders of the House of Alpin were thus passed into the twelfth century through the names of the offspring of Scotland’s King. Though MacAlpin’s Pict and Scot blood still flowed in its veins, henceforth would Scotland’s royal line be Norman, not Celtic, in its orientation.
Malcolm would not be the last son of Caledonia to forsake the heritage of his fathers for the lure of the south and all its manifold attractions.
Fourteen
Rains came to Scotland every year in the fall. It was the established pattern of nature in the north. This particular autumn, however, they came in more than usual earnest. They began in early September and did not let up for three weeks, steadily increasing to the point where danger became evident in the lower regions.
Still the downpours persisted. By the end of the month most rivers and burns of Lothian, Fife, and inland along the Rivers Tay and Earn were swollen beyond their banks. Serious floods threatened.
Within another week, brown water swirled everywhere, spreading across valleys, over farms, through streets of villages—rivers meeting other rivers, carrying trees and animals and shrubs and carts and even cottages helplessly to the sea. In all low-lying regions, the homes of the poor were flooded, some swept entirely away by the deepening currents. Many were left with no place to find shelter, and their numbers increased daily.
One by one, then by fives and tens, they began gathering outside the castle gates of Dunfermline. Their Queen would tell them what to do.
Before Malcolm was aware what was happening, his wife had turned the great hall of his home into a refugee center. Messengers were sent out to all the noble houses within fifty miles where passage was possible, requesting blankets and food and other supplies. By the middle of October, two hundred people of all ages, mostly peasants who had lost their houses, now called Dunfermline Castle their temporary home.
Dunfermline had not been the center of so much activity since the King’s marriage to Queen Margaret! Children scurried about everywhere. The poor knew their Queen would care for them, and none were disappointed. Margaret served her huge new family with an indefatigable energy and joy. Truly did nobility now become servant to the people. Even the most hard-bitten anti-English Highlander could admire this new kind of royalty, which actually cared for its subjects.
Four of Margaret’s most dedicated and hardest-working assistants were the peasant woman Fionnaghal, along with her husband and son and daughter. Their own cottage next to the wood sat on high ground and was safe from the calamity of the surrounding lowlands. But with happy hearts they now eagerly repaid th
e Queen’s kindness during their own time of need. Each morning they rowed across a newly created lake of brown water, then took the high road leading to the castle and spent the day helping to care for the masses of homeless citizens. Each evening they would walk and row back again to their own home.
At long last the rains began to abate and the floodwaters to recede.
Now, however, did even greater work begin, for the loss of property and crops had been great. Many of those without shelter were taken in by friends and relatives. King Malcolm ordered that new cottages be built to replace those lost to the flood.
Great was the happiness when the villagers and crofters and fisherfolk began returning to their homes, both old and new. The King and Queen continued to lodge some of their flood guests throughout the winter months. As new cottages were slowly completed, gradually the great hall of Dunfermline was restored to its original state.
As winter gave way to the next spring’s thaw, a great hope filled the people for a good season’s growth following what was already being called the year of the Great Flood. The affection between the people and their King and Queen deepened all the more from having weathered a crisis together. That next year, Malcolm himself was seen frequently walking in the village, chatting with workers and peasants whose friendship he had gained during the rainy winter.
Nine waifs remained behind at the castle, orphaned by storm and flood, with neither parents nor relatives to look after them. During the flood days, the Queen made them her personal charges. Now, with the crowds gone, she adopted them into the household of the castle, seating them at her own table, at times feeding the younger ones at her side with her own spoon.
Fifteen
William the Conqueror died in 1087.
His son William the Red, called Rufus, came to the throne even more determined than his father to secure Cumbria and Northumbria against Scottish hands. Four years after the Conqueror’s death, Malcolm once more invaded across Northumbria’s border. But William Rufus proved as able a general as his father. He drove Malcolm back and, following in his father’s footsteps, forced the Scottish King again to do homage.
An Ancient Strife Page 36
