A History of Scotland Presented by Scottish Radiance - The MacMalcolm Dynasty (continued)

Each month we present a chapter in the history of Scotland. We move forward in time each month.

The MacMalcolm Dynasty (continued)

The impact of a queen who knew no Gaelic, unlike her bind, must have been muted beyond the immediate circles of the royal court. The reforms with which Turgot credits Margaret - establishing more regular observation of the Lenten fast, the discouragement of celebration of the mass with 'I know not what barbarous rite' and prohibitions on marriage within forbidden degrees such as a stepmother or a deceased brother's wife - all brought Scotland into closer line with established practice elsewhere in the Church Universal, but other, probably more important issues such as clerical celibacy and observance of a strict rule in monastic communities were left untouched. There can be little doubt, however, of the depth of the mark which Margaret left on her children. A firm believer in the axiom of not sparing the rod, her real legacy lay in the conspicuous piety of her sons. Yet their accession - the line of 'Margaretsons' as one modem historian has suggested mischievously - was as notable a fluke of history as any other in Scottish history. To acclaim the queenship of Margaret as a fundamental turning-point in the history of Scotland is to risk reading history backwards from 1250 - which was what the royal house of MacMalcolm intended when Margaret, now canonised as a saint, was formally reburied in Dunfermline in a great set-piece occasion which followed the inauguration of Alexander III.

Viewed in more conventional terms, the long reign of Malcolm III is puzzling in many respects, as is the confusion which marked its end. A civil war, it is sometimes said, lifts the veil which covers the usually hidden secrets of society. The prolonged crisis which followed the death of Malcolm III is an instructive period. The king was succeeded, not by his eldest surviving son (Duncan), but by his brother Donald Ban III (1093-7), who was the choice of the leading magnates and, according to one chronicler, also 'drove out all the English who were with King Malcolm before'.11 Clearly some kind of reaction against the English influence and culture of the court which had marked the years of Margaret's period as Queen had set in, and it is likely that her sons - four of them (Edward, Edgar, Edmund and Ethelred) given names of her own royal house of Wessex - had to flee into exile.

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