Note 147 — Chapter V · The Line of Atholl.

Tigh. An. Ult. Chron. Sax. 1054. Neither the contemporary Irish annalist, nor the two MSS. of the Chronicle which describe the expedition of Siward, allude to any cause for it, or note any result beyond the immense booty obtained. They never mention the name of Malcolm or of the Confessor, and the MS. Cot. Tib., B I, expressly adds that Macbeth escaped from the battle. It remained for the writers of the Anglo-Norman era to confound the events of two separate years for their own purposes, and to represent Siward as the slayer of Macbeth and the restorer of Malcolm to the throne of Scotland, at the command of Edward the Confessor, though the Northumbrian earl died three years before the accession of the Scottish prince. The ever ready pen of the Prior of Belvoir, to a literal transcription of Florence, adds the words “de se tenendum,” to complete the feudality of the transaction; the addition resting on grounds quite as good as the rest of the story, which almost seems to have been adapted upon the events which occurred forty years later, in the days of Malcolm Ceanmore’s sons, Edward standing in the place of Rufus, Siward in that of the Atheling, and Macbeth playing the part of Donald Bane.