#malcolm canmore

[gargoylespodcast]

Why this is about Donald Canmore... who appears in Demona #1. Who else could it be about? ;)

[grayjoy15]

@funky-sea-cryptid asked me to draw their Malcolm (she/they, I think?) a while back, so here they are! We used to lean in quite heavily toward the potential Norse culture of Malcolm’s mother Suthen, so I decked them out in a fun Norse dress fit for a king/queen :)

[weavingthetapestry]

“Daughter of the Rising Sun”: The Death of Matilda of Scotland

I am taking a bit of an English history detour this May Day folks, to talk about Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England, who died at Westminster on this day in 1118

Matilda was actually christened Edith and she was the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and his second wife Margaret of Wessex, better known as St Margaret of Scotland. As well as several half-brothers from her father’s first marriage to Ingibiorg Finnsdottir, she had seven full siblings- Edward, Edmund, Aethelred, Edgar, Alexander, Mary, and David. At least three (arguably four) of her brothers eventually became King of Scots, while her sister Mary married the Count of Boulogne and was mother to another Queen Matilda, the wife of Stephen, King of England. 

Like some of her brothers, Edith bore an Old English name, symbolic of her mother’s status as the sister of Edgar Atheling and a representative of the old royal house of Wessex, which had ruled England before the Norman Conquest. This impressive lineage, just as much as her reputed beauty, piety, and learning, was probably a major factor in Henry I of England’s choice of Edith as his bride, despite the claim of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle that she was then, “mistress of but modest means, being then a ward without either parent”. The marriage took place in November 1100, only a few months after Henry succeeded to the English throne. It was at this point that Edith adopted the name Matilda, which might have been more palatable to the Normans.

(In this fifteenth century genealogy of James II of Scotland and his sisters, their paternal and maternal descent was traced back to St Margaret via David, King of Scots, and Matilda, Queen of England. Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.) )

Matilda’s moniker ‘of Scotland’ is also a little bit misleading. Although she was almost certainly born within the bounds of her father’s kingdom, Matilda and her sister Mary were sent away at a young age and the two princesses spent their formative years in nunneries in the south of England. At Romsey Abbey, where their aunt Christina was abbess, and later at Wilton Abbey near Salisbury, the two girls received instruction in reading and writing as well as in Christian piety, and this education seems to have been largely responsible for their later reputations as cultured and devout noblewomen. 

Matilda became known as a literary patron and builder, and she played a leading role in the government of England during her husband’s absences on the continent. She also had a noteworthy, if indirect, impact on the culture of her birth country when she commissioned Turgot, her mother’s former chaplain, to write a biography of the late Queen Margaret, which contributed to the growth of that queen’s “cult”. She also appears to have been an important early influence in the life of her youngest brother David, who became king of Scots a few years after her death, and whose reign would do much to shape Scotland’s development as a mediaeval kingdom. 

In England Matilda presided over a cultured and cosmopolitan court, whilst simultaneously maintaining an almost saintly reputation for personal piety and chastity. Numerous contemporary writers described her in glowing terms, in excess even of the usual praise lavished on kings and queens. For William of Malmesbury, whose “Gesta Regum Anglorum” is supposed to have been written at Matilda’s request, she was:

“Singularly holy; by no means despicable in point of beauty; a rival of her mother’s piety; never committing any impropriety”

In his “Historia Anglorum”, composed after Matilda’s death, Henry of Huntingdon included a short poem on her “refinement and superiority”. Meanwhile the mid-twelfth century Cistercian writer Ailred of Rievaulx, who had served at the court of Matilda’s brother David I of Scotland commented that:

“Anyone who wants to write about her wonderful renown and her strength of mind, how assiduous and devoted she was at the divine offices and holy vigils, how humble she was, especially considering her great power, will show us another Esther in our own time.”

The twelfth-century Hyde chronicler also showered the late Queen with praise, describing her as:

“a truly incomparable woman, in whose lifetime England flourished and, at whose death, England’s flower was cut off and all its beauty was taken away by her.”

Pages could be filled with this sort of lavish eulogy, but it must be admitted that Matilda was not entirely uncontroversial. Even William of Malmesbury criticised her habit of giving too generously to strangers, to the detriment of her tenants, and he attributed this to an all too human desire for fame and praise as much as her natural charity. 

Matilda’s reputation also suffered several decades after her death due to the perceived irregularity of her marriage to Henry I. Since she had spent much of her youth in nunneries, there was some doubt as to whether or not she had taken the veil, and if she had, then her marriage would have been a sinful sham, with corresponding implications for the legitimacy of her children- and therefore the English succession. This issue was debated prior to her marriage and Matilda herself testified that, although her aunt had forcibly compelled her to wear the veil, “to save my body from the raging lust of the Normans”, she had never taken vows and had angrily trampled on the veil in private. Eventually, Bishop Anselm of Canterbury declared in favour of the marriage and personally officiated at Henry and Matilda’s wedding. 

Nevertheless, decades later in 1139, when Stephen of Blois was fighting Matilda of Scotland’s daughter, the “Empress” Matilda, for the English throne, a papal hearing was convened at which Stephen publicly claimed that the Empress was illegitimate and that her parents’ marriage had not been valid. In her seminal study of Matilda of Scotland’s career, Lois L. Huneycutt theorises that this posthumous assault on Matilda’s reputation may have stymied any chance that she would be canonised, as her mother later was. Nonetheless her image did survive Stephen’s reign and her virtues continued to be extolled for centuries after her death, with later chroniclers in England and Scotland alike commemorating her as “Good Queen Maud”.

(A depiction of Henry I and Matilda in an early fourteenth century genealogy of the English kings. Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.)

Matilda’s contemporary popularity is particularly evident in the reported reaction to her death. On 1st May 1118, after seventeen and a half years as Queen of the English, she died in the palace of Westminster, her chief residence. She was probably only in her late thirties, but the exact cause of her death is unknown. We do know that she was widely mourned, especially by the English clergy. 

Setting aside the laudatory eulogies of various twelfth century chroniclers, an account of her funeral obsequies also survives in the so-called Warenne or Hyde chronicle. This chronicle was apparently composed c.1157, but probably drew on older sources and eyewitness accounts, and its description of Matilda’s funeral demonstrates the power of the queen’s reputation. Although her husband King Henry was apparently absent in Normandy at the time of her death, the Hyde Chronicler states that her funeral was extremely well-attended:

“almost all of England’s bishops, nobility, abbots, priors, and indeed the innumerable common masses, assembled for her crowded funeral, and with many tears they attended her burial. At the urging of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, all offered for her soul with utmost devotion an infinite multitude of masses, prayers, alms, and other benefits.”

The bishop of Salisbury then handed around the metaphorical collection plate in Matilda’s memory, and the money poured in. This seems to have been a remarkable piece of fundraising- the Hyde chronicler claimed that the total value of all gifts was enough to pay for 47,000 masses, 9,000 psalters and 80 trentals, and to sustain hundreds of paupers.

Matilda was to be buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the tombs of Edward the Confessor and his wife Queen Edith, and her body was interred on the east side of the altar as the “daughter of the rising sun”.* Several clerics who had been close to the queen spent thirty days praying and standing vigil beside her grave, where her husband Henry I later established a perpetual tomb light. Matilda’s youngest brother David also provided for an annual memorial service to be held in her honour, while the clergy of Exeter cathedral seem to have sung masses to mark the anniversary of her death for a time. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly given her personal sanctity, her tomb was reportedly the site of several miracles, although, unlike her mother, Matilda was never officially recognised as a saint. Her body was still a valuable relic however, and soon after her death an unseemly squabble broke out between the monks of Westminster Abbey and the priory of the Holy Trinity in Aldgate. The priory of the Holy Trinity was a house of Augustinian canons, which Matilda had founded in 1108. The canons claimed that the queen had expressed a wish to be buried there, and not in Westminster, and they accused the monks of Westminster of taking possession of her corpse without warrant, and hastily burying her in abbey before anyone could stop them. Eventually the dispute was settled by Henry I who, “when he learnt that the last wish of the queen had not been carried out, was exceedingly angry, and gave nothing to the monks who had hoped for a gift.” The English king showed favour to the canons of Aldgate by granting them a foundation charter, but Matilda’s body remained at Westminster, though unfortunately her tomb has since disappeared. The inscription on the tomb apparently changed several times over the years, but the original is supposed to have read (in translation):

“Here lies the distinguished Queen Matilda the Second,

Who surpassed both young and old in her time.

Pattern of morals and beauty of life,

She was for all.”

Matilda was survived by her two children- William Adelin (whose byname probable derived from the Old English “Aetheling” indicating his eligibility to succeed as king), and Matilda, who was first married to the Holy Roman Emperor (thereby gaining the title “Empress”, which she wore for the rest of her life) and then Geoffrey “Plantagenet”, Count of Anjou. William only outlived his mother by a couple of years, as he perished along with hundreds of others in the disastrous sinking of the White Ship near Barfleur on 25th November 1120. Although Henry I then had his leading vassals swear an oath which recognised his daughter the Empress Matilda as his heir, after his death the kingdom nonetheless descended into civil war when his nephew, Stephen of Blois, claimed the throne.** 

The ensuing conflict between Stephen and Matilda, now known as “the Anarchy”, continued for nearly twenty years until the Empress Matilda’s son succeeded Stephen on the throne, becoming Henry II of England and the first monarch of the royal house later called the Plantagenet dynasty. Thus through her grandson, Matilda of Scotland was the ancestor of every subsequent English monarch, as well as a distant ancestor of many Scottish monarchs. Although several twelfth-century chroniclers were particularly concerned with her genealogical importance, as the link between the old pre-Conquest kings of England and their Norman and Angevin successors, Matilda was also an important figure in her own right and her career stands out as a particularly successful example of mediaeval queenship.

(A very grumpy-looking Matilda, Henry I, and their two children William and Matilda as depicted in a late thirteenth century genealogical role. Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.)

Extra notes and sources can be found under the cut.

Notes:

*This is how the original is translated in the full edition of the Hyde chronicle as translated by Elisabeth van Houts and Rosalind Love here. However in an extract translated by the same scholars in this anthology, this line is given as the more puzzling “daughter of the east”.

** Interestingly, Stephen’s wife was also called Matilda, and she was the daughter of the Count of Boulogne and Mary of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland’s younger sister. This made Matilda of Boulogne and the Empress Matilda first cousins, through their mothers.

And lastly yes I know the image of Westminster at the top is not how it would have looked in the early twelfth century, since it was extensively remodelled by Henry III, and Matilda’s tomb apparently has no memorial there, but I thought it was still appropriate.

Selected Bibliography:

- “Chronicle of the Kings of England”, by William of Malmesbury, translated by J.A. Giles (1847)

- “The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy”, by Orderic Vitalis, translated by Thomas Forester (1854)

- “The History of the English People, 1000-1154”, by Henry of Huntingdon, translated by Diana Greenway. An older translation of the Historia Anglorum, made by Thomas Forester in 1853, can be consulted here.

- Ailred of Rievaulx’s “Genealogy of the Kings of the English” as translated by Jane Patricia Freeland in “Aelred of Rievaulx: the Historical Works”, ed. Marsha L. Dutton

- Turgot’s “Life of St Margaret, Queen of Scotland”, translated by William Forbes Leith

- The account of Matilda’s funeral contained in the Hyde Chronicle can be read in translation in “Medieval Writings on Secular Women”, edited by Patricia Skinner. This excerpt was translated by the same scholars who translated the full edition of the chronicle, Elisabeth van Houts and Rosalind Love, but the two translations differ slightly. I used the full edition for any quotations but I have provided the excerpt here in case anyone wanted to read a version that was online.

- “Cartulary of Holy Trinity Aldgate”, ed. G.A.J. Hodgett. This is a collection of documents associated with Holy Trinity preserved in a 15th century MS.

- Various chronicles in “Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers”, ed. A.O. Anderson, but especially versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

- “Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship”, by Lois L. Huneycutt (2003)

[funky-sea-cryptid]

yes he’s a horrible person and an arsonist and a little shit but have you considered that he’s my skrunkly and i like drawing him?

[ancientcitylullaby]

Medieval Scottish kings at the grocery store

Kenneth III: Brings his son Bodhe shopping with him. Buys exclusively organic. Buys a ton of oranges and juices them himself at home.

Malcolm II: Trips people and then steals their groceries. Opens bottles of gatorade, takes a sip, then puts them right back on the shelf. Almost always loses at least one of his grandkids in the store, probably on purpose.

Duncan I: Probably sent Suthen/Sybilla to do the shopping while he takes a nap. On the rare occasion he does go to the store, he gets into a fight with Thorfinn Sigurdsson over the last box of lucky charms.

Macbeth: Buys local and always donates to the food bank (listen, historical Macbeth was actually a pretty good guy). Pays extra attention to the grocery list his wife gave him, so not to get roasted when he comes home with the wrong stuff.

Lulach: Goes to the store to get the things Macbeth forgot. otherwise he always buys some candy to split with his friends, the precious baby

Malcolm III Canmore: Marches into the store like he’s on a mission, brings Macduff with him, makes Macduff push both of his shopping carts because a king can’t rule on an empty stomach, eats a granola bar without paying for it.

Donald III (Donalbain): Buys way too much oatmeal because he’s just so Scottish. Edmund MacMalcolm is always with him despite not being his kid or anything. Also buys some fruit snacks cause his daughter likes them.

Duncan II: Rants to the cashier about how his family ignores him. brings around his baby William FitzDuncan and gets too much attention from middle aged women because of it.

Edgar: rams his shopping cart into Donalbain’s and pretends he tripped. Is probably doing the shopping for William Rufus. Pays entirely in coins because that’s how Rufus pays him.

Alexander I: Acts pretty calm except for the time he bodyslammed Oengus of Moray into the salad bar. wears a massive cross necklace and sprays all the food with holy water before he purchases it.

David I: Always tries to tell the grocery store workers how to do their job. Once tried to speak French to the guy selling bread, thinking it’s going to impress people. Also only pays with coins.

[grayjoy15]

Cornflower - Malcolm

[scotianostra]

Forteviot Village Perthshire

Forteviot was rebuilt by the first Lord Forteviot, Chairman of Dewar's distillery, between 1925 and 1927 with attractive cottages and wide lawns laid out to a design by James Miller in the style of an English garden city. Forteviot is, however, much older than it seems. It was the ancient capital of the Pictish kingdom of Fortrenn and a favourite residence of Kenneth MacAlpin and Malcolm Canmore. Its church dates from 1778 and its village hall was opened by Sir Harry Lauder. Kenneth MacAlpin died here in 860