Note 170 — Chapter VI · The Line of Atholl Restored.

Sim. Dun. de Gestis, Chron. Sax., and Flor. Wig., ad an. 1091. Orderic also gives an account of this expedition—as usual a gossiping mixture of truth and absurdity. Malmsbury (l. 4, sec. 311) says that “William performed nothing worthy of his greatness, whilst he lost many of his men and baggage-horses.” Wendover, from his frequent literal transcriptions of Malmsbury, must have had this passage before him when he wrote “venientes igitur rex et frater ejus Robertus in Angliam, acies duxerunt in Scotiam, unde Malcolmus nimio terrore percussus homagium regi fecit Anglorum, et fidelitatem juravit,” (vol. ii., p. 37). In a similar manner “that most authentic and valuable volume, the Book of Abingdon,” (?) expands the short sentence in which Simeon describes the abortive invasion of Scotland by Robert in 1080—“Cum pervenisset ad Egglesbreth nullo confecto negotio reversus, etc.”—into the following inflated narrative:—“Verum rex illi Lodoniis occurrens cum suis, pacisci potius quam præliari delegit. Perinde ut regno Angliæ principatus Scotiæ subactus foret, obsides tribuit. Quo pacto inito Regis filius cum exercitu ad patrem hilaris repedavit” (Vide Appendix Q). When the comparative failures of Robert and William in 1080 and 1091 are thus misrepresented—failures which were notorious, and admitted to be so by the contemporary English chroniclers—what degree of confidence can be attached to the inflated descriptions of the successes of the earlier English kings, which are to be found in the same authorities? We can only judge by results.