Malcolm II of Scotland

Malcolm II
Painting of King Malcolm II of Scotland who reigned 1005–1034 by Jacob de Wet II
King of Alba
Reignc. 25 March 1005[1]
25 November 1034
PredecessorKenneth III
SuccessorDuncan I
Bornc. 954
Died(1034-11-25)25 November 1034 (aged 79/80)
Glamis Castle, Scotland
Burial
IssueBethóc
Donada
Olith
HouseAlpin
FatherKenneth II of Scotland

Máel Coluim mac Cináeda (Modern Scottish Gaelic: Maol Chaluim mac Choinnich; anglicised Malcolm II; c. 954 – 25 November 1034)[2] was King of Alba (Scotland) from 1005 until his death in the year 1034.[3]. He was one of the longest-reigning Scottish kings of that period.

He was a son of King Kenneth II, and his mother may have been a daughter of a Uí Dúnlainge king of Leinster.[4] Also, The Prophecy of Berchán, (which referred to him as Forranach, "the Destroyer"), says his mother was "a woman of Leinster".[5]

To the Irish annals, which recorded his death, Malcolm was ard Alban, High King of Scotland, but his fellow kings of the geographical area of modern Scotland included the king of Strathclyde, who ruled much of the south-west, various Norse–Gaels kings on the western coast and the Hebrides and his nearest and most dangerous rivals, the kings or "mormaers" of Moray.[6]

Malcolm pursued a strategy of marrying his daughters into these regional dynasties, which helped create stability in his reign, and ensured that he became the grandfather of his successor Duncan I of Scotland, through his daughter Bethóc, and according to some sources, of Macbeth, King of Scotland, (about whom William Shakespeare later wrote the play Macbeth), through his daughter Donalda.

  1. ^ The exact date of succession is unknown, but by tradition, it has been stated to be 25 March. (Dunbar, Sir Archibald Hamilton (1906). Scottish Kings: A Revised Chronology of Scottish History, 1005–1625. D. Douglas. p. 293.)
  2. ^ Skene, Chronicles, pp. 99-100.
  3. ^ Malcolm's birth date is not known, but must have been around 980 if the Flateyjarbók is right in dating the marriage of his daughter and Sigurd Hlodvisson (Sigurd the Stout) to the lifetime of Olaf Tryggvason.Early Sources, p. 528, quoting Olaf Tryggvason's Saga.
  4. ^ Broun 2004.
  5. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, pp. 574-575.
  6. ^ Higham, pp. 226-227, notes that the kings of the English had neither lands nor mints north of the Tees.

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