Each month we present a chapter in the history of Scotland. We move forward in time each month.
Kings of Scots, Their People and Alba (continued)Macbeth reigned for seventeen years (1040 - 57). The first attempt to oust him, which predictably came from Duncan's father Crínán, secular Abbot of Dunkeld, did not materialise until 1045 and ended with Crínán decisive defeat and death. The beginnings of external interference by Earl Siward of Northumbria, who was connected to the house of Crínán, came in 1046. Macbeth, however was confident enough to leave his kingdom to travel to Rome in 1050 and there, it was said, he 'scattered money like seed'. A second expedition by Siward in 1054 met with partial success. Malcolm, son of Duncan, was installed, but only apparently in Strathclyde and Lothian; Macbeth retreated northwards to his heartland. The details of the final decision confrontation, between Macbeth and Malcolm at Lumphana north of the Mounth in 1057, are scanty. Macbeth was killed but the war of the mac Alpin succession was not yet over. His stepson, Lulach, also son of mormaer of Moray, took his place, until he too was killed seven month later in Strathbogie. The reason for the success of Malcolm's two-stage coup, after seventeen years of rule by Macbeth, are elusive but they maybe connected with the death of Thorfinn, Macbeth's powerful ally, if it is the case (and the mathematics are problematic) that he died in 1057. As with so much of Malcolm III's reign (1058 - 93), hard facts are elusive. Macbeth's own reputation is elusive too, but it would have been strange for a simple usurper to be buried, as he was, in that graveyard of Scottish kings before and after him, on Iona. 1057 or 1058 are too easily seen as a turning point for Scotland and its kings. If the accession of Malcolm marked anything, it was the end of the crisis of the mac Alpin succession. The consolidation of the kingdom had survived the self-induced crisis of the dynasty.
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