Note 110 — Chapter IV · Kenneth the Second—971–995.

As Kenneth was the contemporary of the Anglo-Saxon Edgar, it is not to be supposed that he has escaped the claims of the Norman writers, and accordingly, at a time when he was harrying Cumberland, he figures in their pages as an attendant at the court of Edgar at Chester, forming one of a a crew of eight “underkings,” who in token of humble submission rowed the king’s barge in a triumphal procession on the Dee. During another visit to the English court at Lincoln, a crafty suggestion of the Scottish king about the difficulty and trouble of defending Lothian, is rewarded by the gift of the province as a feudal fief, to be held by various acts of homage, amongst others on condition of carrying the crown on all state occasions, whilst manors are provided to cover the expenses of the royal vassal on his progresses towards the southern court! It is curious to remark the tone of increasing feudalism pervading the fabrications of each succeeding century. The composers of the fictions about Kenneth and Edgar, which are only to be found in the later chroniclers connected with St. Albans, have been even more than usually imaginative, and their transparent fabrications remain as a warning to the impartial historian to look with mistrust upon all claims connected with such a tissue of anachronism and fable. V. Appendix L, pt. 1.