sions came the
centuries of war that made the hardy character of the folk of Scotland.
{10}

THE SCOTTISH ACQUISITION OF LOTHIAN.

We cannot pretend within our scope to follow chronologically "the
fightings and flockings of kites and crows," in "a wolf-age, a war-age,"
when the Northmen from all Scandinavian lands, and the Danes, who had
acquired much of Ireland, were flying at the throat of England and
hanging on the flanks of Scotland; while the Britons of Strathclyde
struck in, and the Scottish kings again and again raided or sought to
occupy the fertile region of Lothian between Forth and Tweed. If the
dynasty of MacAlpin could win rich Lothian, with its English-speaking
folk, they were "made men," they held the granary of the North. By
degrees and by methods not clearly defined they did win the Castle of the
Maidens, the acropolis of Dunedin, Edinburgh; and fifty years later, in
some way, apparently by the sword, at the battle of Carham (1018), in
which a Scottish king of Cumberland fought by his side, Malcolm II. took
possession of Lothian, the whole south-east region, by this time entirely
anglified, and this was the greatest step in the making of Scotland. The
Celtic dynasty now held the most fertile district between Forth and
Tweed, a district already English in blood and speech, the centre and
focus of the English civilisation accepted by the Celtic kings. Under
this Malcolm, too, his grandson, Duncan, became ruler of Strathclyde--that
is, practically, of Cumberland.

Malcolm is said to have been murdered at haunted Glamis, in Forfarshire,
in 1034; the room where he died is pointed out by legend in the ancient
castle. His rightful heir, by the strange system of the Scots, should
have been, not his own grandson, Duncan, but the grandson of Kenneth III.
The rule was that the crown went alternately to a descendant of the House
of Constantine (863-877), son of Kenneth MacAlpine, and to a descendant
of Constantine's brother, Aodh (877-888). These alternations went on
till the crowning of Malcolm II. (1005-1034), and then ceased, for
Malcolm II. had slain the unnamed male heir of the House of Aodh, a son
of Boedhe, in order to open the succession to his own grandson, "the
gracious Duncan." Boedhe had left a daughter, Gruach; she had by the
Mormaor, or under-king of the province of Murray, a son, Lulach. On the
death of the Mormaor she married Macbeth, and when Macbeth slew Duncan
(1040), he was remo