It is, at
all events, certain that the Scottish kings in no sense governed Lothian
till after the battle of Carham in 1018, when Malcolm and the
Strathclyde monarch Owen, defeated the Earl of Northumbria and added
Lothian to his dominions. This conquest was confirmed by Canute in 1031,
and, in connection with the confirmation, the Chronicle again speaks of
a doubtful homage which the Scots king "not long held", and, again, the
Chronicle, or one version of it, adds an impossible statement--this time
about Macbeth, who had not yet appeared on the stage of history. The
year 1018 is also marked by the succession of Malcolm's grandson,
Duncan, to the throne of his kinsman, Owen of Strathclyde, and on
Malcolm's death in 1034 the whole of Scotland was nominally united under
Duncan I.[33] The consolidation of the kingdom was as yet in the future,
but from the end of the reign of Malcolm II there was but one Kingdom of
Scotland. From this united kingdom we must exclude the islands, which
were largely inhabited by Norsemen. Both the Hebrides and the islands of
Orkney and Shetland were outside the realm of Scotland.
The names of Macbeth and "the gentle Duncan" suggest the great drama
which the genius of Shakespeare constructed from the magic tale of
Hector Boece; but our path does not lie by the moor near Forres, nor
past Birnam Wood or Dunsinane. Nor does the historian of the relations
between England and Scotland have anything to tell about the English
expedition to restore Malcolm.
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