A Short History of Scotland | Page 5

case, St Margaret's
biographer, who had lived at her Court, whether or not he was her
Confessor, Turgot, represents the Saint as subduing the savagery of
Malcolm, who passed wakeful nights in weeping for his sins. A lover
of books, which Malcolm could not read, an expert in "the delicate, and
gracious, and bright works of women," Margaret brought her own
gentleness and courtesy among a rude people, built the abbey church of
Dunfermline, and presented the churches with many beautiful golden
reliquaries and fine sacramental plate.
In 1072, to avenge a raid of Malcolm (1070), the Conqueror, with an
army and a fleet, came to Abernethy on Tay, where Malcolm, in
exchange for English manors, "became his man" for them, and handed
over his son Duncan as a hostage for peace. The English view is that
Malcolm became William's "man for all that he had"--or for all south of
Tay.
After various raidings of northern England, and after the death of the
Conqueror, Malcolm renewed, in Lothian, the treaty of Abernethy,
being secured in his twelve English manors (1091). William Rufus then
took and fortified Carlisle, seized part of Malcolm's lands in
Cumberland, and summoned him to Gloucester, where the two Kings,
after all, quarrelled and did not meet. No sooner had Malcolm returned
home than he led an army into Northumberland, where he was defeated
and slain, near Alnwick (Nov. 13, 1093). His son Edward fell with him,
and his wife, St Margaret, died in Edinburgh Castle: her body, under
cloud of night, was carried through the host of rebel Celts and buried at
Dunfermline.
Margaret, a beautiful and saintly Englishwoman, had been the ruling
spirit of the reign in domestic and ecclesiastical affairs. She had
civilised the Court, in matters of costume at least; she had read books to
the devoted Malcolm, who could not read; and he had been her
interpreter in her discussions with the Celtic-speaking clergy, whose
ideas of ritual differed from her own. The famous Culdees, originally
ascetic hermits, had before this day united in groups living under
canonical rules, and, according to English observers, had ceased to be
bachelors. Masses are said to have been celebrated by them in some
"barbarous rite"; Saturday was Sabbath; on Sunday men worked. Lent
began, not on Ash Wednesday, but on the Monday following. We have

no clearer account of the Culdee peculiarities that St Margaret reformed.
The hereditary tenure of benefices by lay protectors she did not reform,
but she restored the ruined cells of Iona, and established hospitia for
pilgrims. She was decidedly unpopular with her Celtic subjects, who
now made a struggle against English influences.
In the year of her death died Fothadh, the last Celtic bishop of St
Andrews, and the Celtic clergy were gradually superseded and replaced
by monks of English name, English speech, and English ideas--or
rather the ideas of western Europe. Scotland, under Margaret's
influence, became more Catholic; the celibacy of the clergy was more
strictly enforced (it had almost lapsed), but it will be observed
throughout that, of all western Europe, Scotland was least overawed by
Rome. Yet for centuries the Scottish Church was, in a peculiar degree,
"the daughter of Rome," for not till about 1470 had she a Metropolitan,
the Archbishop of St Andrews.
On the deaths, in one year, of Malcolm, Margaret, and Fothadh, the last
Celtic bishop of St Andrews, the see for many years was vacant or
merely filled by transient bishops. York and Canterbury were at feud
for their superiority over the Scottish Church; and the other sees were
not constituted and provided with bishops till the years 1115 (Glasgow),
1150,--Argyll not having a bishop till 1200. In the absence of a
Metropolitan, episcopal elections had to be confirmed at Rome, which
would grant no Metropolitan, but forbade the Archbishop of York to
claim a superiority which would have implied, or prepared the way for,
English superiority over Scotland. Meanwhile the expenses and delays
of appeals from bishops direct to Rome did not stimulate the affection
of the Scottish "daughter of Rome." The rights of the chapters of the
Cathedrals to elect their bishops, and other appointments to
ecclesiastical offices, in course of time were transferred to the Pope,
who negotiated with the king, and thus all manner of jobbery increased,
the nobles influencing the king in favour of their own needy younger
sons, and the Pope being amenable to various secular persuasions, so
that in every way the relations of Scotland with the Holy Father were
anomalous and irksome.
Scotland was, indeed, a country predestined to much ill fortune, to
tribulations against which human foresight could erect no defence. But
the marriage of the Celtic Malcolm with the English Margaret, and the

friendly arrival of great nobles from the south, enabled Scotland to