year and a half, was succeeded by Grime, the grandson of King Duffus and he again was defeated and killed by Malcolm, the son of Kenneth, the lawful heir of the Scottish throne.

Malcolm formed a strict alliance with the king of England; and proved so successful against the Danes in that country, that Sweyn, their king, resolved to direct his whole force against him by an invasion of Scotland. In conjunction with Duncan, prince of Cumberland, who on this occasion entered into an alliance with Sweyn, Malcolm sustained a terrible defeat, and was himself desperately wounded. So elated were the Danes by this victory, that they sent for their wives and children, intending to make Scotland their future home. Towns and fortresses fell into their hands, and the Scots were everywhere treated as a conquered people; but they afterwards met with a severe check, which they endeavoured to remedy by sending for reinforcements from both England and Norway. Their fleets soon appeared off the coast, and they effected a landing at Redhead, in the county of Angus. The castle of Brechin was first besieged; but meeting with a stout resistance there, they laid the town and church in ashes. Malcolm, in the meantime, was at hand with his army, and encamped at a place called Barr, in the neighbourhood of which both parties prepared to decide the fate of Scotland. The action was fierce and bloody, but was eventually crowned with complete success to the Scots. Sweyn was not, however, so discouraged, but that he sent his son Canute, afterwards king of England, and one of the greatest warriors of that age, into Scotland, with an army more powerful than any that had yet appeared; and though the Danes were, upon the whole, successful in the great battle which followed, they were so much reduced that they willingly concluded a peace on the following terms, viz: that the Danes should immediately leave Scotland; that as long as Malcolm and Sweyn lived, neither of them should wage war with the other, or help each other's enemies, and that the field in which the battle was fought should be set apart and consecrated for the burial of the dead. But glorious as the warlike exploits of Malcolm had been, he is said to have stained the latter part of his reign with avarice and oppression; and at the age of eighty after having reigned thirty years, he fell by the hand of an assassin. Duncan I., a grandson of Malcolm, succeeded him in 1034; he had also another grandson, the celebrated Macbeth, who in the early part of Duncan's reign signalized himself in quelling a formidable insurrection, but who subsequently, after having done much in expelling the Danish marauders, murdered the king, and usurped his throne, to the exclusion of Malcolm, the rightful son and heir of Duncan.

For some time Macbeth governed with moderation, but his tyrannical nature was afterwards shown in almost every act. He caused Banquo, the most powerful thane in Scotland, to be treacherously murdered, and intended that his son Fleance should share the same fate, had he not made his escape to Wales. Next to Banquo the most powerful of his subjects was Macduff, the thane of Fife; for which reason Macbeth plotted his destruction; but on Macduff seeking refuge in England, the tyrant cruelly put to death his wife and infant children, and sequestered his estate. The injured Macduff vowed revenge, and encouraged Malcolm to attempt to dethrone the traitorous usurper. With their united forces they gave Macbeth battle; and, being defeated, he retreated to the most inaccessible places in the Highlands, where for two years he continued to defend himself against all who dared to oppose him. In the meantime, however, Malcolm, was acknowledged king of Scotland, and Macbeth perished in a conflict with Macduff.

A. D. 1057.-Malcolm III. being now established on menced his reign by rewarding Macduff for his great ferred upon his family some distinguished honours

the throne, comservices, and conThe conquest of

England by William of Normandy involved Malcolm, who espoused the cause of the Saxons, in many fierce wars. Edgar Atheling, the heir of the Saxon line, and many of the Saxon nobles, found an asylum in Scotland. Malcolm married Margaret, the sister of the fugitive prince, who is said to have introduced a degree of refinement into her court remarkable for that time, and to have contributed to soften the rude manners of the people. Malcolm twice invaded England with success; but Williamı, having collected a great army, in his turn invaded Scotland, and compelled Malcolm to do homage for the lands which he held within what was accounted the English territory. This was, as the reader has been elsewhere informed, an ancient feudal practice, common at the period; though in later times it has been asserted that the Scottish monarchs held their whole kingdom on this tenure. On the death of William the Conqueror, Malcolm again espoused the cause of Edgar Atheling, who had been induced to seek his assistance a second time, when William II., surnamed Rufus, ascended the English throne. After several negotiations between Malcolm, Rufus, and Edgar, it was agreed that the king of England should restore to Malcolm all his southern possessions, for which he should pay the same homage he had been accustomed to do to the Conqueror; that he should restore to Malcolm twelve disputed manors, and give him likewise thirteen marks of gold yearly, besides restoring Edgar to all his English estates. William, however, afterwards refused to fulfil his engagements, and applied himself to the fortification of his northern boundaries, especially Carlisle, which had been destroyed by the Danes 200 years before. This place lay within the feudal dominions of Malcolm, and he complained of William's proceedings, as a breach of the late treaty. Another war was the natural consequence; and the Scottish king, with his eldest son, were killed in attempting to take the castle of Alnwick, A D. 1093.

Though Malcolm left male heirs, yet his throne was usurped, first by his brother Donald Bane, and afterwards by Duncan, his natural son. By the interposition of the king of England, however, Edgar, lawful son of Malcolm, was placed upon the Scottish throne. After a reign distinguished by no remarkable event, Edgar died in 1107, and was succeeded by his brother Alexander, surnamed the Fierce, from the impetuosity of his temper. But though impetuous, he was severely just, and rendered himself chefly remarkable by the attention he paid to the administration of justice and redress of wrong. A conspiracy formed against the life of this good king was dissipated by the vigour of his measures; and after assisting Henry I. of England in a war with the Welsh, he died in 1124. Having left no issue, Alexander was succeeded by David, his younger brother, commonly called St. David, on account of his great piety and excessive liberality to the church and clergy. David interested himself in the affairs of England, espousing the cause of Maud against Stephen. In several engagements he was successful, but was in others defeated, and found himself unable effectually to support the cause he had undertaken. He died in 1153, and was succeeded by Malcolm IV., a prince of a weak body, and no less feeble mind, who, dying in 1165, left his crown to his brother William.

In the beginning of his reign, William recovered from Henry of England the earldom of Northumberland, which had been relinquished by Malcolm; but afterwards leading an army into England, and conducting himself with too little caution, he was made prisoner by surprise, and detained in captivity, till, in order to regain his liberty, he consented to declare himself a vassal of England, and to do homage for his whole kingdom. Richard Cœur de Lion, however, who succeeded Henry, remitted the oppressive terms, and declared Scotland to be an independent kingdom; a measure to which he was induced partly by the injustice of the

claim itself, and partly by his wish of rendering the Scots his friends during an expedition he was about to undertake in Palestine. William showed his gratitude for the restoration of his independence, by continuing a faithful ally of the English till his death, in 1214.

-,!

William was succeeded by his son, Alexander II., a youth of sixteen. He took the side of the English barons in their contentions with John their feeble and imprudent monarch. He was a wise and good prince and maintained with steadiness and spirit the independency of his crown abroad, and the authority of his government at home. At his death, in 1249, he was succeded by his son, Alexander, a child of eight years of age, who was immediately crowned at Scone as Alexander III. Having been betrothed, when an infant, to the princess Margaret of England, their nuptials were celebrated at York in 1251, and he did homage to Henry for his English possessions. The latter monarch demanded homage for the kingdom of Scotland, but the young prince replied with spirit, that he came to York to marry the princess of England, not to treat of state affairs, and that he would not take so important a step without the concurrence of the national council. One of the principal events of Alexander's reign was the battle of Largs. Haco, king of Norway, having collected a fleet of one hundred and sixty ships, sailed towards Scotland with a numerous army, A. D. 1263, with a view to recover such of the western isles as had formerly belonged to his crown, but which had been wrested from it by the Scots. He made himself master of Arran and Bute, and afterwards landed on the coast of Ayrshire. Alexander attacked him at Largs, where, after a fierce contest, victory at last declared for the Scots, and the greater part of the invading army fell either in the action or the pursuit. Haco reached the Orkneys, but soon afterwards died, as is said, of a broken heart, and was succeeded by Magnus, who, discouraged by the disaster which had befallen his father, yielded all his rights to the Western Islands and the Isle of Man to the crown of Scotland, for the sum of four thousand marks, to be paid in four years, and a quit-rent of one hundred marks, yearly; A. D. 1266. The Norwegians still retained the Orkney and Shetland islands. From this period, Alexander was employed for several years in maintaining the independence of the Scottish church against the pretensions of the pope, and in restraining the encroachments of the clergy. His reign was a long and prosperous one, and his death was, in its consequences, a serious calamity to Scotland. While riding in the dusk of the evening along the sea-coast of Fife, his horse started, and he was thrown over the rock and killed on the spot.

A. D. 1286.-Alexander's children had all died before him. His daughter Margaret had married Eric, king of Norway, and died, leaving issue one daughter, Margaret, usually called the Maiden of Norway, the now undoubted heiress of the crown of Scotland, and recognized as such by the states of the kingdom about three weeks after Alexander's death. The same convention appointed a regency of six noblemen during the absence of the young queen. These regents for some time acted with wisdom and unanimity; but two of them dying, dissensions arose among the remaining four, and Eric, king of Norway, apprehensive for the interests of his daughter, applied to Edward, king of England, for his assistance and protection. Edward had already formed a scheme for uniting the two kingdoms by the marriage of his eldest son, Edward, with the queen of Scots. A treaty was entered into for this purpose; but the Maiden of Norway unfortunately died at Orkney, on her passage to Scotland, and the nation was struck with grief and consternation in beholding the extinction of a race of sovereigns who had distinguished themselves for their bravery and wisdom, and in anticipating the miseries of a contested succession.

The line of Alexander's descendants being thus extinguished, the right