Note 235 — Chapter I · OF THE EARLS.

Munch (Chronicon Manniæ, p. 46) alludes to the mistake so common among the historians of Scotland to confound the two Malcolms, and to make one of them, as if one Malcolm only (Malcolm II.) reigned from 1004 to 1034. Though this theory has been ingeniously supported from a Norse point of view, it is at variance with the concurrent testimony of the early Scottish Chronicles. The Saga is the only authority for this marriage; but admitting its testimony on this point to be unassailable scarcely necessitates the repudiation of the authority of the Scottish Chronicles on the question of the succession. (Compare Skene’s Highlanders, chap. 5; Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 447; and Fordun (Skene’s edition), text and notes.)