For the fifth time Malcolm harried England with fire and flame: he overspread the country, ravaged and plundered Teesdale, Cleveland, and Richmondshire; then directing his course homeward, invested Alnwick Castle, taking his station on the north. The season was exceedingly stormy: deluges of rain swelled the streams and broke up the ground. Fearless Malcolm and his men crossed the river Alne by the ford which still bears his name. It was a bold enterprise of Malcolm's to attempt reducing such a fortress, new in its strength, and defended by the Earl Mowbray, and his favourite Morel; Mowbray the stubborn and stern, who answered not if you spake to him, who made no return if you saluted him, upon whose sullen countenance a smile was never seen, 'Mowbray always troubled, full of guiles and wiles, and whose cunning inspired as much apprehension as his ferocity.

Within the Castle of Alnwick, the warder, passing from Hotspur's Chair, conducts you down a steep and gloomy flight of steps, opening into a small, concealed, but protected postern; hence, as he informs you, sallied forth the warrior Hamond, by whom Malcolm was slain. The legend is somewhat old, and may be traced as early, at least, as Hotspur's time. . . .

"When the fierce Scots besieged the Castle, the stout valiant soldier stole out, determined to brave every danger. Hamond simulated himself as an herald of peace: the garrison, straitened by: Malcolm's besieging army, as he told the sentinels, had resolved to implore the King's clemency. He was sent forth to proffer the Castle's keys, pendant on the sharp point of his lance. Malcolm, unsuspicious and, unarmed, received the messenger at his tent's door; when Hamond suddenly transfixed the King in the eye; by his speedy flight into the woods he escaped the vengeance of the Scottish soldiery, and the surname Pierce-eye, or Percy, acquired by the act, was transmitted to his noble posterity." Such were the traditions of the age, when the pleasant fictions of chivalry,—that chivalry whose ideal period recedes when you advance in search of it, like the vase of the rainbow,-began to be incorporated by herald and pursuivant, with the information derived from pedigree, chronicle, and charter.

Authentic history agrees with these fables in the main fact,

that Malcolm's death, on the festival of St. Brice, a festival still recognised in our calendar, was effected through a stratagem which conscience repudiates, though the laws of war absolve the perpetrator. Morel, so intimately connected with Malcolm, by a bond then deemed no less strong than the ties of consanguinity, seduced or betrayed his "gossip" into an ambush, where Mowbray's forces surrounded him; but it was by Morel's own hand that the King was slain. The deed was committed upon a rising ground, on the northern banks of the Alne, opposite the Castle; whose image reflected in the stream may oft be seen, intersected, yet not concealed, by the shadows which the towers cast.

The locality is indicated with singular precision. Malcolm's Cross still marks the spot where Malcolm fell. Other memorials there were, but Malcolm's Well is obliterated: subterraneous workings, disturbing the adjoining strata, have drawn off the waters, and time and violence have ruined the chapel of St. Leonard, founded by the piety of Eustace de Vescy, who, married to a Margaret of the royal family of Scotland, endowed the sanctuary for the repose of Malcolm's soul.

A general attack upon the Scottish forces ensued. Mowbray's forces pursued them, and afforded to the Northumbrian earl a glorious victory. Very many of the Scots were drowned in the overflowing rivers, or clernmed in the quagmires, or suffocated in the marshes, or slaughtered in the rout. Some took refuge in the woods which covered the country up to the Scottish border. Prince Edward, the King's eldest son, who received a mortal wound in the conflict, was carried off from the field of battle to the forest which bounded the Redesdale, where he died. The name of Edward's Ley, given to the glade, commemorated his fate: his body was deposited by the side of his father's in Tynemouth Priory; but both the corpses were subsequently translated to the royal sepulchres at Dumferline.

Margaret continued languishing in dreary Dunedin, distressed, heavy-hearted, unable to rise from her bed, a widening chasm of time separating her from those most dear. No messenger from Northumbria reached her. No intelligence from the host. Nothing known how Malcolm had sped;

nothing about Edward, from whom she had parted so reluctantly; nothing about Edgar.

The rough coarse weather, the raging floods which destroyed the tracks, might in some degree account for the delayed intelligence. Yet these circumstances, adding to the perils of the expedition, would also increase solicitude. Each gloomy, brief November day was lengthened by anxiety: night brought no comfort. Sinking rapidly under bodily infirmity and foreboding dread, speaking as if certain that her children would soon be deprived of all parental care, she earnestly besought her confessor and chaplain, Turgot, to guide them for good. Margaret still clung to life. Nothing but lingering love kept her affections in the world: she became feebler and feebler : having received the Holy Communion, her face turned more ashy pale, and the bystanders knew that death was near. Edgar entered the chamber. He was silent. Margaret's anxious inquiries, Where was Malcolm? Where Edward? received one answer. It was well with them, was the reply. No more earthly hope, no more fear. Margaret's yearning earnestness, nevertheless, extorted the details of the calamity. She heard, burst into an ejaculation of praise and thanksgiving, and expired.

Whilst the mourners were watching and wailing, and the tapers burning round the tranquil corpse, their flickering flames contending with the murky air, Dunedin was suddenly surrounded by the hostile forces of the Gael. Malcolm's death had been the signal for a general insurrection. Morel and Mowbray had set them free: they reverted to their national rights, they proclaimed their natural sovereign, natural by blood and lawful by right, the brother of the deceased monarch, one who would own them as his people. It must be recollected that, as yet, the law of direct and lineal representation had not been established amongst the Scots. The function of deciding upon the succession depended upon those seven chieftains whom later constitutional language termed the Seven Earls of Scotland. They were the authorities empowered to bestow the sovereignty upon that individual to whom the crown of Fergus1 properly belonged.

1 Reckoned as the first of the kings of the Scots.-C. M. Y.

Donaldbane was proclaimed. With lightning swiftness the fiery cross reached the Western Isles. The Norwegians imnediately gave their support to the future King of the Scots. It is asserted that he purchased the alliance by making a formal concession of the Ebudes1 to Magnus. The sturdy Northman was already master of the islands; but he gladly gave his aid. The fleet was always ready; the crews eager for conflict; the battle-axes hanging on the wall. The Scandinavian and Celtic warriors united; and, from the rapidity of their progress, it should seem as if Donaldbane had been expecting the opportunity. Donaldbane is accused of inimical intentions against his brother's family. Hence the investment of the castle during that mourning time, when the inmates were protected by the sanctity of sorrow. The dense fogs which enveloped the rock suggested or afforded the means of escape. Two of Malcolm's sons refused to abandon their country and their people. Edmund passed over to his father's brother, Donaldbane, hailed and accepted as King. Ethelred returned (as we conjecture) to his Abbey of Dunkeld, and disappears from history. The other children gathered round their maternal uncle, the Atheling Edgar; and, protected and guided by him, they all reached England in safety.

The children of Malcolm and Margaret were all ultimately adopted, so to speak, by Anglo-Norman England. The Princesses were, in the first instance, placed considerately and kindly under their aunt Christina at Romsey. Edith resumed the monastic garb. It was generally supposed that she had taken the vows; or that, if not actually professed, she was equally bound in conscience. People seemed determined to believe that during her infancy she had been offered by her parents to the service of the altar. This supposition was entirely unfounded, and was afterwards disproved by canonical process and legal evidence: nevertheless, it is probable that her aunt the abbess insisted upon the supposition as though it were true. Edith was very beautiful. She inherited her mother's talent, her mother's warm affection, sweetness, patience, piety, and profited by all the cultivation, both intellectual and moral, that Margaret had bestowed. Therefore, 1 The Hebrides.

notwithstanding her supposed profession, suitors presented themselves, courting the poor damsel of high degree. William de Warenne, earl of Surrey, sought her hand. The Earl made his application to Rufus: Edith, if considered as a royal ward, could not be espoused without the royal assent. Another suitor offered, a pleasant and attractive lover, Henry Beauclerc, who at all times in his life

“ En nobles dames et en belles,

Et en corteises damiselles,
Tourna son deduit et s'entente.”

Edith was sufficiently attractive to warrant the assumption that Henry loved her, according to his sort of love. . . .

But her monastic seclusion, or some other obstacle, opposed his views, and no further did the courtship proceed till a more fortunate or unfortunate day, when, under the name of Matilda, she espoused the Anglo-Norman king.1

THE CRUSADES.

(From "History of Latin Christianity," by DEAN MILMAN.)

THE sanctity of the Holy Land, the scene of the Saviour's life and death, untraceable in the first records of the religion, had grown up, as the faith became the mistress of the whole inward nature of man, of the imagination as well as the moral sentiment,—into almost a part of the general, if undefined, creed.

...

. . . It might seem an inevitable consequence of the Incarnation of the Godhead in human nature, that man should lean, as it were, more strongly on this kindred and comprehensible Saviour, than on the same Saviour when retired into his remoter Divinity. Everything which approximated the human Saviour to the heart and understanding was cherished with deep reverence. Even in the coldest and most unimaginative times the traveller to the Holy Land seems to enjoy a privilege enviable to the Christian, who, considering its natural effects on

1 Abridged from chap. vii. vol. iv.