Bethòc, Princess of Scotland
was the grandmother of MALDRED OF WINLATON, who was hisself an ancestor of WILLIAM MEDECALFE DE DENT, forefather of David Walker's grandmother, Jane Metcalfe.
BETHÓC, Princess of Scotland was the eldest daughter of MALCOLM II., KING of SCOTS, who reigned 1005 – 1034. Malcolm II. was a son of KENNETH II. (971–995) and the Prophecy of Berchán says that his mother was a woman of Leinster and refers to him as 'Forranach' ('the destroyer'). They belonged to the HOUSE OF ALPIN.
MALCOLM II demonstrated a rare ability to survive among early Scottish kings by reigning for twenty-nine years. He was a clever and ambitious man. Brehon tradition provided that the successor to Malcolm was to be selected by him from among the descendants of King Aedh, with the consent of Malcolm’s ministers and of the church. Ostensibly in an attempt to end the devastating feuds in the north of Scotland, but obviously influenced by the Norman feudal model, Malcolm ignored tradition and determined to retain the succession within his own line. But since Malcolm had no son of his own, he undertook to negotiate a series of dynastic marriages of his three daughters to men who might otherwise be his rivals, while securing the loyalty of the principal chiefs, their relatives.
I. BETHOC OF SCOTLAND married CRINAN OF DUNKELD, Thane of the Isles, head of the House of Atholl and secular Abbot of Dunkeld. Both had children:
(1) Duncan I., King of Cumbria (1018-1040) and Scotland (1034-1040)
(2) MALDRED OF ALLERDALE, Lord of Cumbria, regent of Strathclyde between 1034/35-1045
(2.1) GOSPATRIC, EARL OF NORTHUMBRIA AND DUNBAR
(2.2) MALDRED OF WINLATON
(2) MALDRED OF ALLERDALE, Lord of Cumbria, regent of Strathclyde between 1034/35-1045
(2.1) GOSPATRIC, EARL OF NORTHUMBRIA AND DUNBAR
(2.2) MALDRED OF WINLATON
(3) a not named daughter, who is supposed to be the mother of Moddan, Earl of Caithness (killed 1040)
II. Olith married to Sigurd, Earl of Orkney known as 'Sigurd the Stout' (c 960-1014). Both had a son:
(1) Thorfinn Sigurdson (known as 'the Mighty'), Earl of Caithness and Orkney (c. 1009-1065); he was only five at his father's death and being fostered by his maternal grandfather on the Scottish mainland; Thorfinn had four half-brothers (Einar, Brusi, Sumarlidi and Hundi / Hvelp, who died as child in Norway being a hostage at the court of King Olaf Trygvasson).
III. Donada married to Findláich, Mormaer of Moray, Thane of Ross and Cromarty and a descendant of Loarn of Dalriada. Both are supposed to be parents of Mac Bethad mac Findláich ('Macbeth').
Malcolm's marriage policy was a risky business under the rules of succession of the Gael, but he thereby secured his rear and, taking advantage of the renewal of Viking attacks on England, marched south to fight the English. He defeated the Angles at Carham in 1018 and installed his grandson, Duncan, son of the Abbot of Dunkeld and his choice as Tanist, in Carlisle as King of Cumbria that same year.
NOTE: Lothian, which had previously been held by England, was also delivered up to Malcolm II., in 1018, after the battle of Carham. --- (Paterson, History of the County of Ayr, p. 15)
To the Irish annals which recorded his death, Malcolm was 'ard rí Alban', High King of Scotland. In the same way that Brian Bóruma, High King of Ireland, was not the only king in Ireland, Malcolm was one of several kings within the geographical boundaries of modern Scotland: his fellow kings included the king of Strathclyde, who ruled much of the south-west, various Norse-Gael kings of the western coasts and the Hebrides and, nearest and most dangerous rivals, the kings or Mormaers of Moray. To the south, in the Kingdom of England, the Earls of Bernicia and Northumbria, whose predecessors as kings of Northumbria had once ruled most of southern Scotland, still controlled large parts of the southeast.
The first reliable report of Malcolm's (Máel Coluim) reign is of an invasion of Bernicia in 1006, perhaps the customary crech ríg (literally royal prey, a raid by a new king made to demonstrate prowess in war), which involved a siege of Durham. This appears to have resulted in a heavy defeat by the Northumbrians, led by UCTRED OF BAMBURGH, later Earl of Bernicia, which is reported by the Annals of Ulster. A second war in Bernicia, probably in 1018, was more successful. The Battle of Carham, by the River Tweed, was a victory for the Scots led by Máel Coluim and the men of Strathclyde led by their king, Owen the Bald. By this time Earl Uchtred may have been dead, and Eiríkr Hákonarson was appointed Earl of Northumbria by his brother-in-law Cnut the Great, although his authority seems to have been limited to the south, the former kingdom of Deira, and he took no action against the Scots so far as is known. The work De obsessione Dunelmi claims that Uctred's brother Eadwulf Cudel surrendered Lothian to Malcolm, presumably in the aftermath of the defeat at Carham. This is likely to have been the lands between Dunbar and the Tweed as other parts of Lothian had been under Scots control before this time. It has been suggested that Cnut received tribute from the Scots for Lothian, but as he had likely received none from the Bernician Earls this is not very probable.
Cnut, reports the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, led an army into Scotland on his return from pilgrimage to Rome. The Chronicle dates this to 1031, but there are reasons to suppose that it should be dated to 1027. Burgundian chronicler Rodulfus Glaber recounts the expedition soon afterwards, describing Malcolm as "powerful in resources and arms … very Christian in faith and deed." He claims that this peace was made between Malcolm and Cnut through the intervention of Richard, Duke of Normandy, brother of Cnut's wife Emma. Richard died in about 1027 and Rodulfus wrote close in time to these events.
The first reliable report of Malcolm's (Máel Coluim) reign is of an invasion of Bernicia in 1006, perhaps the customary crech ríg (literally royal prey, a raid by a new king made to demonstrate prowess in war), which involved a siege of Durham. This appears to have resulted in a heavy defeat by the Northumbrians, led by UCTRED OF BAMBURGH, later Earl of Bernicia, which is reported by the Annals of Ulster. A second war in Bernicia, probably in 1018, was more successful. The Battle of Carham, by the River Tweed, was a victory for the Scots led by Máel Coluim and the men of Strathclyde led by their king, Owen the Bald. By this time Earl Uchtred may have been dead, and Eiríkr Hákonarson was appointed Earl of Northumbria by his brother-in-law Cnut the Great, although his authority seems to have been limited to the south, the former kingdom of Deira, and he took no action against the Scots so far as is known. The work De obsessione Dunelmi claims that Uctred's brother Eadwulf Cudel surrendered Lothian to Malcolm, presumably in the aftermath of the defeat at Carham. This is likely to have been the lands between Dunbar and the Tweed as other parts of Lothian had been under Scots control before this time. It has been suggested that Cnut received tribute from the Scots for Lothian, but as he had likely received none from the Bernician Earls this is not very probable.Cnut, reports the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, led an army into Scotland on his return from pilgrimage to Rome. The Chronicle dates this to 1031, but there are reasons to suppose that it should be dated to 1027. Burgundian chronicler Rodulfus Glaber recounts the expedition soon afterwards, describing Malcolm as "powerful in resources and arms … very Christian in faith and deed." He claims that this peace was made between Malcolm and Cnut through the intervention of Richard, Duke of Normandy, brother of Cnut's wife Emma. Richard died in about 1027 and Rodulfus wrote close in time to these events.
It has been suggested that the root of the quarrel between Cnut and Malcolm lies in Cnut's pilgrimage to Rome, and the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II, where Cnut and Rudolph III, King of Burgundy had the place of honour. If Malcolm were present, and the repeated mentions of his piety in the annals make it quite possible that he made a pilgrimage to Rome, as did Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findláich) in later times, then the coronation would have allowed Malcolm to publicly snub Cnut's claims to overlordship.
Cnut obtained rather less than previous English kings, a promise of peace and friendship rather than the promise of aid on land and sea that Edgar and others had obtained. The sources say that Malcolm was accompanied by one or two other kings, certainly Macbeth, and perhaps Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, King of Mann and the Isles, and of Galloway. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle remarks of the submission "but he [Máel Coluim] adhered to that for only a little while". Cnut was soon occupied in Norway against Olaf Haraldsson and appears to have had no further involvement with Scotland.
It has traditionally been supposed that King Eógan the Bald of Strathclyde died at the Battle of Carham and that the kingdom passed into the hands of the Scots afterwards. This rests on some very weak evidence. It is far from certain that Eógan died at Carham, and it is reasonably certain that there were kings of Strathclyde as late as the 1054, when Edward the Confessor sent Earl Siward to install "Máel Coluim son of the king of the Cumbrians". The confusion is old, probably inspired by William of Malmesbury and embellished by John of Fordun, but there is no firm evidence that the kingdom of Strathclyde was a part of the kingdom of the Scots, rather than a loosely subjected kingdom, before the time of Malcolm II of Scotland's great-grandson Máel Coluim mac Donnchada.
By the 1030s Malcolm's sons, if he had any, were dead. The only evidence that he did have a son or sons is in Rodulfus Glaber's chronicle where Cnut is said to have stood as godfather to a son of Malcolm. His grandson Thorfinn would have been unlikely to accepted as king by the Scots, and he chose the sons of his other daughter, Bethóc, who was married to Crínán, Lay Abbot of Dunkeld. It may be no more than coincidence, but in 1027 the Irish annals had reported the burning of Dunkeld, although no mention is made of the circumstances. Malcom's chosen heir, and the first tánaise ríg certainly known in Scotland, was Duncan I. (Donnchad mac Crínáin).
Máel Coluim died in 1034 at Glamis, variously describing him as a "most glorious" or "most victorious" king. The Annals of Tigernach report that "Máel Coluim mac Cináeda, king of Scotland, the honour of all the west of Europe, died." The Prophecy of Berchán, says that he died by violence, fighting "the parricides", suggested to be the sons of Máel Brigte of Moray.
Tradition knew the Pictish stone now called "Glamis 2" as "King Malcolm's grave stone". The stone is a Class II stone, apparently formed by re-using a Bronze Age standing stone. Its dating is uncertain, with dates from the 8th century onwards having been proposed. While an earlier date is favoured, an association with accounts of Máel Coluim's has been proposed on the basis of the iconography of the carvings.On the question of Máel Coluim's putative pilgrimage, pilgrimages to Rome, or other long-distance journeys, were far from unusual. Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Cnut and Mac Bethad have already been mentioned. Rognvald Kali Kolsson is known to have gone crusading in the Mediterranean in the 12th century. Nearer in time, Dyfnwal of Strathclyde died on pilgrimage to Rome in 975 as did Máel Ruanaid uá Máele Doraid, King of the Cenél Conaill, in 1025.
Not a great deal is known of Máel Coluim's activities beyond the wars and killings. The Book of Deer records that Máel Coluim "gave a king's dues in Biffie and in Pett Meic-Gobraig, and two davochs" to the monastery of Old Deer. He was also probably not the founder of the Bishopric of Mortlach-Aberdeen. John of Fordun has a peculiar tale to tell, related to the supposed "Laws of Malcolm MacKenneth", saying that Máel Coluim gave away all of Scotland, except for the Moot Hill at Scone, which is unlikely to have any basis in fact.