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May 29, 1630 & 1660: Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland

29 Sunday May 2022

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Succession, Royal Titles, This Day in Royal History

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Breda, Charles II of England, Declaration of Breda. Charles I of England, Henri IV of France and Navarre, King of England, King of Scotland and King of Ireland, Restoration, The Convention Parliament

May 29, 1630 & 1660. On this date in 1630 the future Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland is born. On this date in 1660 Charles II enters London on the Restoration of the British monarchy.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria de Bourbon of France, the daughter of King Henri IV of France and Navarre and Marie de Medici.

Charles II had set out for England from Scheveningen, arrived in Dover on 25 May 1660 and reached London on 29 May, his 30th birthday and he was received in London to public acclaim.

Although Charles and Parliament granted amnesty to nearly all of Cromwell’s supporters in the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, 50 people were specifically excluded. In the end nine of the regicides were executed: they were hanged, drawn and quartered, whereas others were given life imprisonment or simply excluded from office for life. The bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw were subjected to the indignity of posthumous decapitations.

The English Parliament granted him an annual income to run the government of £1.2 million, generated largely from customs and excise duties. The grant, however, proved to be insufficient for most of Charles’s reign. For the most part, the actual revenue was much lower, which led to attempts to economise at court by reducing the size and expenses of the royal household and raise money through unpopular innovations such as the hearth tax.

In the latter half of 1660, Charles’s joy at the Restoration was tempered by the deaths of his youngest brother, Henry, and sister, Mary, of smallpox. At around the same time, Anne Hyde, the daughter of the Lord Chancellor, Edward Hyde, revealed that she was pregnant by Charles’s brother, James, whom she had secretly married. Edward Hyde, who had not known of either the marriage or the pregnancy, was created Earl of Clarendon and his position as Charles’s favourite minister was strengthened.

An interesting side note is when to date the start of the reign of Charles II?

Generally the start of his reign is considered when he entered London on May 29, 1660, his 30th birthday.

However, after 1660, all legal documents stating a regnal year did so as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649. Most monarchists do believe that Charles inherited the title of King upon the death of his father in 1649. However, contemporary historians regard the starting of his reign somewhere in 1660.

Another possible starting date for his reign was when the English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return, a message that reached Charles at Breda on May 8, 1660.

In Ireland, a convention had been called earlier in the year, and had already declared for Charles. On May 14, he was proclaimed king in Dublin.

The Parliament of Scotland had already proclaimed Charles II king back on February 5, 1649.

April 6, 1199: Death of Richard I the Lionheart, King of England

06 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by liamfoley63 in Duchy/Dukedom of Europe, Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, Royal Titles, This Day in Royal History

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and Count of Poitiers, and Nantes, and overlord of Brittany, Anjou, Aquitaine and Gascony, Berengaria of Navarre, Duke of Normandy, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, King of England, Lord of Cyprus, Maine, Richard I, the Lionheart

Richard I (September 8, 1157 – April 6, 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period.

Richard was born, probably at Beaumont Palace, in Oxford, England, son of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. As a younger son of King Henry II, he was not expected to ascend the throne.

Henry II and Eleanor’s eldest son William IX, Count of Poitiers, died before Richard’s birth. He was a younger brother of Henry the Young King and Matilda, Duchess of Saxony. He was also an elder brother of Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany; Queen Eleanor of Castile; Queen Joan of Sicily; and John, Count of Mortain, who succeeded him as king.

Richard was the younger maternal half-brother of Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, and Alix, Countess of Blois. Richard is often depicted as having been the favourite son of his mother. His father was Angevin-Norman and great-grandson of William I the Conqueror, King of England and Duke of Normandy.

Richard is known as Richard Cœur de Lion (Norman French: Le quor de lion) or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior. The troubadour Bertran de Born also called him Richard Oc-e-Non (Occitan for Yes and No), possibly from a reputation for terseness.

Richard I, the Lionheart, King of England, Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and overlord of Brittany.

By the age of 16, Richard had taken command of his own army, putting down rebellions in Poitou against his father. Richard was an important Christian commander during the Third Crusade, leading the campaign after the departure of Philippe II of France and achieving considerable victories against his Muslim counterpart, Saladin, although he finalised a peace treaty and ended the campaign without retaking Jerusalem.

Richard probably spoke both French and Occitan. He was born in England, where he spent his childhood; before becoming king, however, he lived most of his adult life in the Duchy of Aquitaine, in the southwest of France.

Early in the 1160s there had been suggestions Richard should marry Alys, Countess of the Vexin, fourth daughter of Louis VII of France and Constance of Castile. The Marriage was meant to sooth the rivalry between the kings of England and France.

Louis VII obstructed the marriage. A peace treaty was secured in January 1169 and Richard’s betrothal to Alys was confirmed.

Following his accession, he spent very little time, perhaps as little as six months, in England. Most of his life as king was spent on Crusade, in captivity, or actively defending his lands in France. Rather than regarding his kingdom as a responsibility requiring his presence as ruler, he has been perceived as preferring to use it merely as a source of revenue to support his armies. Nevertheless, he was seen as a pious hero by his subjects.

Before leaving Cyprus on crusade, Richard married Berengaria of Navarre, Richard first grew close to her at a tournament held in her native Navarre.

Berengaria was the eldest daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre and Sancha of Castile. As is the case with many of the medieval English queens, relatively little is known of her life.

Traditionally known as “the only English queen never to set foot in the country”, she may in fact have visited England after her husband’s death, but did not do so before, nor did she see much of Richard during her marriage.

The wedding was held in Limassol on May 12, 1191 at the Chapel of St George and was attended by Richard’s sister Joan, whom he had brought from Sicily. The marriage was celebrated with great pomp and splendour, many feasts and entertainments, and public parades and celebrations followed commemorating the event.

Berengaria of Navarre from History Reimagined

When Richard married Berengaria he was still officially betrothed to Alys, and he pushed for the match in order to obtain the Kingdom of Navarre as a fief, as Aquitaine had been for his father.

Further, Richard’s mother, Eleanor, championed the match, as Navarre bordered Aquitaine, thereby securing the southern border of her ancestral lands.

Richard took his new wife on crusade with him briefly, though they returned separately. Berengaria had almost as much difficulty in making the journey home as her husband did.

After his release from German captivity, he had been imprisoned by Leopold of Austria, Richard showed some regret for his earlier conduct, but he was not reunited with his wife. The marriage remained childless.

In March 1199, Richard was in Limousin suppressing a revolt by Viscount Aimar V of Limoges. Although it was Lent, he “devastated the Viscount’s land with fire and sword”. He besieged the tiny, virtually unarmed castle of Châlus-Chabrol. Some chroniclers claimed that this was because a local peasant had uncovered a treasure trove of Roman gold.

On March 26, 1199, Richard was hit in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt, and the wound turned gangrenous. Richard asked to have the crossbowman brought before him; called alternatively Pierre (or Peter) Basile, John Sabroz, Dudo, and Bertrand de Gourdon (from the town of Gourdon) by chroniclers, the man turned out (according to some sources, but not all) to be a boy.

He said Richard had killed his father and two brothers, and that he had killed Richard in revenge. He expected to be executed, but as a final act of mercy Richard forgave him, saying “Live on, and by my bounty behold the light of day”, before he ordered the boy to be freed and sent away with 100 shillings.

Richard died on April 6, 1199 in the arms of his mother, and thus “ended his earthly day.” Because of the nature of Richard’s death, it was later referred to as “the Lion by the Ant was slain”. According to one chronicler, Richard’s last act of chivalry proved fruitless when the infamous mercenary captain Mercadier had the boy who shot the king flayed alive and hanged as soon as Richard died.

Richard’s heart was buried at Rouen in Normandy, his entrails in Châlus (where he died), and the rest of his body at the feet of his father at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou.

In 2012, scientists analysed the remains of Richard’s heart and found that it had been embalmed with various substances, including frankincense, a symbolically important substance because it had been present both at the birth and embalming of the Christ.

Henry Sandford, Bishop of Rochester (1226–1235), announced that he had seen a vision of Richard ascending to Heaven in March 1232 (along with Stephen Langton, the former archbishop of Canterbury), the King having presumably spent 33 years in purgatory as expiation for his sins.

Richard produced no legitimate heirs and acknowledged only one illegitimate son, Philip of Cognac. He was succeeded by his brother John as King of England and Duke of Normandy.

His French territories, with the exception of Rouen, initially rejected John as a successor, preferring his nephew Arthur. The lack of any direct heirs from Richard was the first step in the dissolution of the Angevin Empire.

King Richard I remains one of the few kings of England remembered more commonly by his epithet, Cœur de Lion or Richard the Lionheart, than his regnal number, and is an enduring iconic figure both in England and in France.

King Richard I was known as a valiant, competent military leader and individual fighter who was courageous and generous. At the same time, he was considered prone to the sins of lust, pride, greed and, above all, excessive cruelty. Ralph of Coggeshall, summarising Richard’s career, deplores that the King was one of “the immense cohort of sinners.”

Titles of British Monarchs: Part I.

19 Tuesday Oct 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal House, Royal Succession, Royal Titles

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Alfred the Great, Æthelstan, John Lackland, King Henry VIII, King James VI of England and Scotland, King of England, King of the English, Kingdom of Great Britain, Lord of Ireland, Royal Titles

This is a list of titles of Kings and Queens of the Kingdoms of Wessex, Anglo-Saxons and England prior to the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain.

After the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain many small kingdoms arose. The Kingdom we will address is the Kingdom of Wessex, also known as the Kingdom of the West Saxons. Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from 519 until England was unified by Æthelstan in 927.

The Anglo-Saxons believed that Wessex was founded by Cerdic and Cynric, but this may be a legend.

Cerdic is described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a leader of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, being the founder and first King of Saxon Wessex, reigning from 519 to 534 AD. Subsequent Kings of Wessex were each claimed by the Chronicle to descend in some manner from Cerdic.

Arms of the Kingdom of England

His origin, ethnicity, and even his very existence have been extensively disputed. However, though claimed as the founder of Wessex by later West Saxon kings, he would have been known to contemporaries as king of the Gewissae, a folk or tribal group. The first king of the Gewissae to call himself ‘King of the West Saxons’, was Caedwalla, in a charter of 686.

The two main sources for the history of Wessex are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List, which sometimes conflict. Wessex became a Christian kingdom after Cenwalh was baptised and was expanded under his rule.

We see the first major title change with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Afred is the only English King with the epitaph “The Great.”

Alfred styled himself King of the Anglo-Saxons from about 886, and while he was not the first king to claim to rule all of the English, his rule represents the start of the first unbroken line of kings to rule the whole of England, the House of Wessex. He was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder.

Edward the Elder (c. 874 – 17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æthelwold, who had a strong claim to the throne as the son of Alfred’s elder brother and predecessor, Æthelred.

Æthelstan (c. 894 – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first wife, Ecgwynn. Modern historians regard him as the first King of England and one of the “greatest Anglo-Saxon kings”. He never married and had no children. He was succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund I.

The standard title for all English monarchs from Æthelstan until the time of King John was Rex Anglorum (“King of the English”). In addition, many of the pre-Norman kings assumed extra titles, as follows:

Æthelstan: Rex totius Britanniae (“King of the Whole of Britain”)

Edmund the Magnificent: Rex Britanniæ (“King of Britain”) and Rex Anglorum cæterarumque gentium gobernator et rector (“King of the English and of other peoples governor and director”)

Eadred: Regis qui regimina regnorum Angulsaxna, Norþhymbra, Paganorum, Brettonumque (“Reigning over the governments of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons, Northumbrians, Pagans, and British”)

Eadwig the Fair: Rex nutu Dei Angulsæxna et Northanhumbrorum imperator paganorum gubernator Breotonumque propugnator (“King by the will of God, Emperor of the Anglo-Saxons and Northumbrians, governor of the pagans, commander of the British”)

Edgar the Peaceful: Totius Albionis finitimorumque regum basileus (“King of all Albion and its neighbouring realms”)

Cnut the Great: Rex Anglorum totiusque Brittannice orbis gubernator et rector (“King of the English and of all the British sphere governor and ruler”) and Brytannie totius Anglorum monarchus (“Monarch of all the English of Britain”)

In the Norman period Rex Anglorum remained standard, with occasional use of Rex Anglie (“King of England”). The Empress Matilda styled herself Domina Anglorum (“Lady of the English”).

From the time of King John onwards all other titles were eschewed in favour of Rex or Regina Anglie.(“King of England”).

John Lackland, King of England and Lord of Ireland

John Lackland, son of King Henry II had been given the Lordship of Ireland. Following the deaths of John’s older brothers he became King of England in 1199, and so the Lordship of Ireland, instead of being a separate country ruled by a junior Norman prince, came under the direct rule of the Angevin crown.

English monarchs continued to use the title “Lord of Ireland” to refer to their position of conquered lands on the island of Ireland. The title was changed by the Crown of Ireland Act passed by the Irish Parliament in 1542 when, on Henry VIII’s demand, he was granted a new title, King of Ireland, with the state renamed the Kingdom of Ireland.

Henry VIII changed his title because the Lordship of Ireland had been granted to the Norman monarchy by the Papacy; Henry had been excommunicated by the Catholic Church and worried that his title could be withdrawn by the Holy See. Henry VIII also wanted Ireland to become a full kingdom to encourage a greater sense of loyalty amongst his Irish subjects, some of whom took part in his policy of surrender and regrant.

In 1603 with the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, who left no heirs, the English throne was inherited by James VI, King of Scots. In England he is known as James I of England while in Scotland he is regarded as James VI of Scotland. I like to combine both regal numbers and refer to him as King James I-VI of England, Scotland and Ireland.

In 1604 King James I-VI adopted the title (now usually rendered in English rather than Latin) King of Great Britain. The English and Scottish parliaments, however, did not recognise this title until the Acts of Union of 1707 under Queen Anne (who was Queen of Great Britain rather than king).

Until the Acts of Union of 1707 the official title of the monarch was King/Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Edgar of Wessex becomes King of the English

01 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, Royal Titles, This Day in Royal History

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Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury, Bishop of Worcester, Eadred of England, Eadwig of England, Edgar of England, Edgar of Wesex, Edmund I of England, Glastonbury Abbey, King of England, King of the English, St. Dustan

Edgar (c. 943 – July 8, 975) known as Edgar the Peaceful or Edgar the Peaceable, was King of the English from 959 until his death. He was the younger son of Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury, and came to the throne as a teenager, following the death of his older brother Eadwig. As king, Edgar further consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors, with his reign being noted for its relative stability. His most trusted advisor was Dunstan, whom he recalled from exile and made Archbishop of Canterbury. The pinnacle of Edgar’s reign was his coronation at Bath in 973, which was organised by Dunstan and forms the basis for the current coronation ceremony. After his death he was succeeded by his son Edward, although the succession was disputed.

Early years and accession

Edgar was the son of Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar’s uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, Edmund’s eldest son.

Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar. A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames. Edgar became King of the English upon Eadwig’s death on October 1, 959, aged about 19.

Government

One of Edgar’s first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester and Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury. Dunstan remained Edgar’s advisor throughout his reign. Edgar’s reign was peaceful.

The Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under the reign of Eadred. William Blackstone mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm.

According to George Molyneaux, Edgar’s reign, “far more than the reigns of either Alfred or Æthelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom”. Indeed, an early eleventh century king Cnut the Great states in a letter to his subjects that ”it is my will that all the nation, ecclesiastical and lay, shall steadfastly observe Edgar’s laws, which all men have chosen and sworn at Oxford”.

Benedictine reform

A coin of Edgar, struck in Winchcombe in Gloucestershire (c. 973-975).
The Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the Benedictine Rule to England’s monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald (historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement).

Dead Man’s Plack

In 963, Edgar allegedly killed Earl Æthelwald, his rival in love, near present-day Longparish, Hampshire. The event was commemorated by the Dead Man’s Plack, erected in 1825. In 1875, Edward Augustus Freeman debunked the story as a “tissue of romance” in his book, Historic Essays; however, his arguments were rebutted by naturalist William Henry Hudson in his 1920 book Dead Man’s Plack and an Old Thorn.

Coronation at Bath

Edgar was crowned at Bath and along with his wife Ælfthryth was anointed, setting a precedent for a coronation of a Queen in England itself. Edgar’s coronation did not happen until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). This service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony.

The symbolic coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester. Six kings in Britain, including the King of Scots and the King of Strathclyde, pledged their faith that they would be the king’s liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar’s state barge on the River Dee. Such embellishments may not be factual, and what actually happened is unclear.

Marriages and children

Edgar is known to have had 3 relationships that produced children. His first wife (or consort) was Æthelflæd Eneda (the ‘white duck’), daughter of Ealdorman Ordmaer, who acquired land in Devon. They married sometime before he became king, about 957. Together they had one son:

Edward the Martyr (born c. 962 – died 978)

Wulfthryth of Wilton, who was educated at Wilton Abbey became his second consort. It is disputed whether they married, but Barbara Yorke argues that they did. Edgar removed Wulfthryth from Wilton Abbey, some sources say abducted, in 962 and returned her to Wilton Abbey by 964, she then took vows and became Abbess. Edgar and Wulfthryth had one daughter, who is said to have returned with her mother to the abbey:

Edith of Wilton also known as Saint Edith.

About 964/965 Edgar married again, his third relationship, to Ælfthryth, widow of Æthelwald, Ealdorman of East Anglia, Edgar’s adopted brother. Ælfthryth was the daughter of Ealdorman Ordgar and his wife, a member of the royal family of Wessex. Legend has it that Edgar heard of Ælfthryth’s great beauty and sent Æthelwald to arrange marriage for him (Edgar) but Æthelwald instead married her himself. In retaliation Æthelwald was killed ‘in a hunting accident’ and Edgar married her as he had wanted. It is not known if this is true or simply romantic fiction. Edgar and Ælfthryth had two sons:

Edmund Atheling (born c. 966 – died c.970)

Æthelred the Unready (born c. 968 – d. 23 April 1016)

After the death of Edward the Martyr in 978, Æthelred was not yet old enough to rule on his own and Ælfthryth acted as regent.

Death

Edgar died on July 8, 975 at Winchester, Hampshire. He was buried at Glastonbury Abbey. He left two sons, his successor Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by Æthelflæd, daughter of ealdorman Ordmaer, and Æthelred, the younger, the child of his wife Ælfthryth. Edgar also had a possibly illegitimate daughter by Wulfthryth, who later became abbess of Wilton. She was joined there by her daughter, Edith of Wilton, who lived there as a nun until her death. Both women were later regarded as saints.

September 16, 1701: Death of King James II-VII of England, Scotland and Ireland.

16 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Abdication, Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Death, Royal Genealogy, Royal Mistress, Royal Succession, Royal Titles, This Day in Royal History

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1763 Test Act, Anne Hyde, Duke of Albany and York, English Civil War, Glorious Revolution of 1688, James II-VII, King of England, King of Ireland, King of Scotland, Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Marie Beatrice d'Este of Modena, Titus Oates

James II-VII (October 14, 1633 – September 16, 1701) was King of England and Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII, from February 6, 1685 until he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland; his reign is now remembered primarily for struggles over religious tolerance. However, it also involved the principles of absolutism and divine right of kings, and his deposition ended a century of political and civil strife by confirming the primacy of Parliament over the Crown.

James, the second surviving son of King Charles I and his wife, Henrietta Maria de Bourbon of France, the youngest daughter of Henri IV of France (Henri III of Navarre) and his second wife, Marie de’ Medici, and named after her parents was born at St James’s Palace in London on October 14, 1633. Later that same year, he was baptised by William Laud, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury.

James was educated by private tutors, along with his older brother, the future King Charles II, and the two sons of the Duke of Buckingham, George and Francis Villiers. At the age of three, James was appointed Lord High Admiral; the position was initially honorary, but became a substantive office after the Restoration, when James was an adult. He was designated Duke of York at birth, invested with the Order of the Garter in 1642, and formally created Duke of York in January 1644.

Civil War

King Charles I’s disputes with the English Parliament grew into the English Civil War. James accompanied his father at the Battle of Edgehill, where he narrowly escaped capture by the Parliamentary army. He subsequently stayed in Oxford, the chief Royalist stronghold, where he was made a Master of Arts by the University on November 1, 1642 and served as colonel of a volunteer regiment of foot.

When the city surrendered after the siege of Oxford in 1646, Parliamentary leaders ordered the Duke of York to be confined in St James’s Palace. Disguised as a woman, the 14-year old escaped from the Palace in 1648 with the help of Joseph Bampfield, and crossed the North Sea to The Hague.

When Charles I was executed by the rebels in 1649, monarchists proclaimed James’s older brother king. Charles II was recognised as king by the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of Ireland, and was crowned at Scone in 1651. Although he was proclaimed king in Jersey, Charles was unable to secure the crown of England and consequently fled to France and exile.

Like his brother, James sought refuge in France, serving in the French army under Turenne against the Fronde, and later against their Spanish allies. In the French army James had his first true experience of battle where, according to one observer, he “ventures himself and chargeth gallantly where anything is to be done”. Turenne’s favour led to James being given command of a captured Irish regiment in December 1652, and being appointed Lieutenant-General in 1654.

After the collapse of the Commonwealth in 1660, Charles II was restored to the English throne. Although James was the heir presumptive, it seemed unlikely that he would inherit the Crown, as Charles was still a young man capable of fathering children. On December 31, 1660, following his brother’s restoration, James was created Duke of Albany in the Peerage of Scotland, to go along with his English title, Duke of York. Upon his return to England, James prompted an immediate controversy by announcing his engagement to Anne Hyde, the daughter of Charles’s chief minister, Edward Hyde.

In 1659, while trying to seduce her, James promised he would marry Anne. Anne became pregnant in 1660, but following the Restoration and James’s return to power, no one at the royal court expected a prince to marry a commoner, no matter what he had pledged beforehand. Although nearly everyone, including Anne’s father, urged the two not to marry, the couple married secretly, then went through an official marriage ceremony on September 3, 1660 in London.

Their first child, Charles, was born less than two months later, but died in infancy, as did five further sons and daughters. Only two daughters survived: Mary (born April 30, 1662) and Anne (born February 6, 1665). Samuel Pepys wrote that James was fond of his children and his role as a father, and played with them “like an ordinary private father of a child”, a contrast to the distant parenting common with royalty at the time.

James’s wife was devoted to him and influenced many of his decisions. Even so, he kept mistresses, including Arabella Churchill and Catherine Sedley, and was reputed to be “the most unguarded ogler of his time”. Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that James “did eye my wife mightily”. James’s taste in women was often maligned, with Gilbert Burnet famously remarking that James’s mistresses must have been “given him by his priests as a penance.” Anne Hyde died in 1671.

James’s time in France had exposed him to the beliefs and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church; he and his wife, Anne, became drawn to that faith. James took Catholic Eucharist in 1668 or 1669, although his conversion was kept secret for almost a decade as he continued to attend Anglican services until 1676.

Growing fears of Roman Catholic influence at court led the English Parliament to introduce a new Test Act in 1673. Under this Act, all civil and military officials were required to take an oath (in which they were required to disavow the doctrine of transubstantiation and denounce certain practices of the Roman Church as superstitious and idolatrous) and to receive the Eucharist under the auspices of the Church of England.

James refused to perform either action, instead choosing to relinquish the post of Lord High Admiral. His conversion to Roman Catholicism was thereby made public. King Charles II opposed James’s conversion, ordering that James’s daughters, Mary and Anne, be raised in the Church of England.

Nevertheless, he allowed James to marry Maria Beatrice d’Este of Modena, a fifteen-year-old Italian princess and the second but eldest surviving child of Alfonso IV, Duke of Modena, and his wife, Laura Martinozzi, was born on October 5, 1658 in Modena, Duchy of Modena, Italy.

James and Maria were married by proxy in a Roman Catholic ceremony on September 20, 1673. On November 21, Maria arrived in England and Nathaniel Crew, Bishop of Oxford, performed a brief Anglican service that did little more than recognise the marriage by proxy. Many British people, distrustful of Catholicism, regarded the new Duchess of York as an agent of the Papacy. James was noted for his devotion. He once said, “If occasion were, I hope God would give me his grace to suffer death for the true Catholic religion as well as banishment.”

Exclusion Crisis

In 1677, King Charles II arranged for James’s daughter Mary to marry the Protestant Prince Willem III of Orange, son of Charles and James’s sister Mary and her husband Prince Willem II of Orange. James reluctantly acquiesced after his brother and nephew had agreed to the marriage. Despite the Protestant marriage, fears of a potential Catholic monarch persisted, intensified by the failure of Charles II and his wife, Catherine of Braganza, to produce any children.

A defrocked Anglican clergyman, Titus Oates, spoke of a “Popish Plot” to kill Charles and to put the Duke of York on the throne. The fabricated plot caused a wave of anti-Catholic hysteria to sweep across the nation.

James inherited the thrones of England, Ireland, and Scotland from his elder brother Charles II after he died on February 6, 1685 with widespread support in all three countries, largely based on the principles of divine right or birth. Tolerance for his personal Catholicism did not apply to it in general and when the English and Scottish Parliaments refused to pass his measures, James II-VII attempted to impose them by decree; it was a political principle, rather than a religious one, that ultimately led to his removal.

In June 1688, two events turned dissent into a crisis; the first on June 10, was the birth of James’s son and heir Prince James Francis Edward, threatening to create a Roman Catholic dynasty and excluding his Anglican daughter Mary and her Protestant husband Willem III of Orange.

The second was the prosecution of the Seven Bishops for seditious libel; this was viewed as an assault on the Church of England and their acquittal on June 30, destroyed his political authority in England. Anti-Catholic riots in England and Scotland now made it seem that only his removal from the throne could prevent a civil war.

Leading members of the English political class invited Willem III of Orange to assume the English throne; after he landed in Brixham on November 5, 1688, James’s army deserted, and he went into exile in France on December 23. In February 1689, a special Convention Parliament held that the king had “vacated” the English throne and installed Willem and Mary as joint monarchs, who thereafter ruled jointly as William III and Mary II. This Act established the principle that sovereignty derived from Parliament, not birth.

James landed in Ireland on March 14, 1689 in an attempt to recover his kingdoms. Although the English Parliament had decided to give the throne to William & Mary jointly, the Scottish Parliament was undecided as to would be the next King of Scotland. However, in April a Scottish Convention followed that of England by finding that James had “forfeited” the throne and offered it to William III and Mary II. Incidentally, in Scotland William was known as King William II of Scotland.

After his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, James returned to France, where he spent the rest of his life in exile at Saint-Germain, protected by his first cousin,, King Louis XIV of France and Navarre.

In March 1701, James II suffered a stroke while hearing mass at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, leaving him partially paralysed. Fagon, Louis XIV’s personal physician, recommend the waters of Bourbon-l’Archambault, to cure the King’s paralysis. The waters, however, had little effect, and James II died of a seizure on 16 September 1701.

Louis XIV, contravening the Peace of Ryswick and irritating King William III, declared James Francis Edward, King of England, Ireland and Scotland as James III-VIII. Maria acted as nominal regent for her minor son. She presided over his regency council, too, although she was uninterested in politics. Before his death, James II expressed his wish that Maria’s regency would last no longer than their son’s 18th birthday.

Often portrayed by his opponents as an absolutist tyrant, since the 20th century some historians have praised him for advocating religious tolerance, while more recent scholarship has attempted to find a middle ground between those views.

William I the Conqueror as King of the English. Part V.

07 Tuesday Sep 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Duchy/Dukedom of Europe, Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe

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Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of the Normans, King of England, King of the English, Language, Norman Invasion, William the Conqueror, Writ

Language

One of the most obvious effects of the conquest was the introduction of Anglo-Norman, a northern dialect of Old French with limited Nordic influences, as the language of the ruling classes in England, displacing Old English. Norman French words entered the English language, and a further sign of the shift was the usage of names common in France instead of Anglo-Saxon names. Male names such as William, Robert, and Richard soon became common; female names changed more slowly.

The Norman invasion had little impact on placenames, which had changed significantly after earlier Scandinavian invasions. It is not known precisely how much English the Norman invaders learned, nor how much the knowledge of Norman French spread among the lower classes, but the demands of trade and basic communication probably meant that at least some of the Normans and native English were bilingual. Nevertheless, William the Conqueror never developed a working knowledge of English and for centuries afterwards English was not well understood by the nobility.

Immigration and intermarriage

An estimated 8000 Normans and other continentals settled in England as a result of the conquest, although exact figures cannot be established. Some of these new residents intermarried with the native English, but the extent of this practice in the years immediately after Hastings is unclear. Several marriages are attested between Norman men and English women during the years before 1100, but such marriages were uncommon. Most Normans continued to contract marriages with other Normans or other continental families rather than with the English. Within a century of the invasion, intermarriage between the native English and the Norman immigrants had become common. By the early 1160s, Ailred of Rievaulx was writing that intermarriage was common in all levels of society.

Historiography

Debate over the conquest started almost immediately. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, when discussing the death of William the Conqueror, denounced him and the conquest in verse, but the king’s obituary notice from William of Poitiers, a Frenchman, was full of praise. Historians since then have argued over the facts of the matter and how to interpret them, with little agreement. The theory or myth of the “Norman yoke” arose in the 17th century, the idea that Anglo-Saxon society had been freer and more equal than the society that emerged after the conquest. This theory owes more to the period in which it was developed than to historical facts, but it continues to be used to the present day in both political and popular thought.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, historians have focused less on the rightness or wrongness of the conquest itself, instead concentrating on the effects of the invasion. Some, such as Richard Southern, have seen the conquest as a critical turning point in history. Southern stated that “no country in Europe, between the rise of the barbarian kingdoms and the 20th century, has undergone so radical a change in so short a time as England experienced after 1066”. Other historians, such as H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, believe that the transformation was less radical.

In more general terms, Singman has called the conquest “the last echo of the national migrations that characterized the early Middle Ages”. The debate over the impact of the conquest depends on how change after 1066 is measured. If Anglo-Saxon England was already evolving before the invasion, with the introduction of feudalism, castles or other changes in society, then the conquest, while important, did not represent radical reform. But the change was dramatic if measured by the elimination of the English nobility or the loss of Old English as a literary language. Nationalistic arguments have been made on both sides of the debate, with the Normans cast as either the persecutors of the English or the rescuers of the country from a decadent Anglo-Saxon nobility.

William I, the Conqueror, as King of the English. Part IV.

18 Wednesday Aug 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Bishop of Rome and the Catholic Church, Duchy/Dukedom of Europe, Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe

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Administration, Governmental Systems, King of England, King of the English, William I of England, William the Conqueror, Winchester

Elite replacement

A direct consequence of the invasion was the almost total elimination of the old English aristocracy and the loss of English control over the Catholic Church in England. William systematically dispossessed English landowners and conferred their property on his continental followers. The Domesday Book meticulously documents the impact of this colossal programme of expropriation, revealing that by 1086 only about 5 percent of land in England south of the Tees was left in English hands. Even this tiny residue was further diminished in the decades that followed, the elimination of native landholding being most complete in southern parts of the country.

Natives were also removed from high governmental and ecclesiastical office. After 1075 all earldoms were held by Normans, and Englishmen were only occasionally appointed as sheriffs. Likewise in the Church, senior English office-holders were either expelled from their positions or kept in place for their lifetimes and replaced by foreigners when they died. By 1096 no bishopric was held by any Englishman, and English abbots became uncommon, especially in the larger monasteries.

English emigration

Following the conquest, many Anglo-Saxons, including groups of nobles, fled the country for Scotland, Ireland, or Scandinavia. Members of King Harold Godwinson’s family sought refuge in Ireland and used their bases in that country for unsuccessful invasions of England. The largest single exodus occurred in the 1070s, when a group of Anglo-Saxons in a fleet of 235 ships sailed for the Byzantine Empire. The empire became a popular destination for many English nobles and soldiers, as the Byzantines were in need of mercenaries. The English became the predominant element in the elite Varangian Guard, until then a largely Scandinavian unit, from which the emperor’s bodyguard was drawn. Some of the English migrants were settled in Byzantine frontier regions on the Black Sea coast, and established towns with names such as New London and New York.

Governmental systems

Before the Normans arrived, Anglo-Saxon governmental systems were more sophisticated than their counterparts in Normandy. All of England was divided into administrative units called shires, with subdivisions; the royal court was the centre of government, and a justice system based on local and regional tribunals existed to secure the rights of free men. Shires were run by officials known as shire reeves or sheriffs. Most medieval governments were always on the move, holding court wherever the weather and food or other matters were best at the moment; England had a permanent treasury at Winchester before William’s conquest.

One major reason for the strength of the English monarchy was the wealth of the kingdom, built on the English system of taxation that included a land tax, or the geld. English coinage was also superior to most of the other currency in use in northwestern Europe, and the ability to mint coins was a royal monopoly. The English kings had also developed the system of issuing writs to their officials, in addition to the normal medieval practice of issuing charters. Writs were either instructions to an official or group of officials, or notifications of royal actions such as appointments to office or a grant of some sort.

William I the Conqueror as King of the English. Part III.

13 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Duchy/Dukedom of Europe, Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe

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Duke of Normandy, Government, House of Normandy, King of England, King of the English, Letters Patent, William of Normandy, William the Conqueror, Writ

Administration

After 1066, William did not attempt to integrate his separate domains into one unified realm or Kingdom with one set of laws. His seal from after 1066, of which six impressions still survive, was made for him after he conquered England and stressed his role as king, while separately mentioning his role as Duke. When in Normandy, William acknowledged that he owed fealty to the King of the Franks, but in England no such acknowledgment was made – further evidence that the various parts of William’s lands were considered separate.

The administrative machinery of Normandy, England, and Maine continued to exist separate from the other lands, with each one retaining its own forms. For example, England continued the use of writs, which were not known on the continent. Also, the charters and documents produced for the government in Normandy differed in formulas from those produced in England.

In common law, a writ (Anglo-Saxon gewrit, Latin breve) is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court. Warrants, prerogative writs, and subpoenas are common types of writ, but many forms exist and have existed.

The writ was a unique development of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy and consisted of a brief administrative order, authenticated (innovatively) by a seal. Written in the vernacular, they generally made a land grant or conveyed instructions to a local court. In the beginning, writs were the document issued by the King’s Chancellor against a landowner whose vassal complained to the King about an injustice, after a first summon by the sheriff to comply had been deemed fruitless.

William the Conqueror took over the system unchanged, but was to extend it in two ways: first, writs became mainly framed in Latin, not Anglo-Saxon; second, they covered an increasing range of royal commands and decisions. Writs of instruction continued to develop under his immediate successors, but it was not until King Henry II that writs became available for purchase by private individuals seeking justice, thus initiating a vast expansion in their role within the common law. Writs could take two main forms, ‘letters patent’, which were open for all to read, and ‘letters close’ for one or more specified individuals alone.

William took over an English government that was more complex than the Norman system. England was divided into shires or counties, which were further divided into either hundreds or wapentakes. Each shire was administered by a royal official called a sheriff, who roughly had the same status as a Norman viscount. A sheriff was responsible for royal justice and collecting royal revenue. To oversee his expanded domain, William, as King of the English, was forced to travel even more than he had as Dule of Normandy.

He crossed back and forth between the continent and England at least 19 times between 1067 and his death. William spent most of his time in England between the Battle of Hastings and 1072, and after that, he spent the majority of his time in Normandy.

Government was still centred on William’s household; when he was in one part of his realms, decisions would be made for other parts of his domains and transmitted through a communication system that made use of letters and other documents. William also appointed deputies who could make decisions while he was absent, especially if the absence was expected to be lengthy. Usually, this was a member of William’s close family – frequently his half-brother Odo or his wife Matilda. Sometimes deputies were appointed to deal with specific issues.

William continued the collection of danegeld, a land tax. This was an advantage for William, as it was the only universal tax collected by western European rulers during this period. It was an annual tax based on the value of landholdings, and it could be collected at differing rates.

Most years saw the rate of two shillings per hide, but in crises, it could be increased to as much as six shillings per hide. Coinage between the various parts of his domains continued to be minted in different cycles and styles. English coins were generally of high silver content, with high artistic standards, and were required to be re-minted every three years.

Norman coins had a much lower silver content, were often of poor artistic quality, and were rarely re-minted. Also, in England, no other coinage was allowed, while on the continent other coinage was considered legal tender. Nor is there evidence that many English pennies were circulating in Normandy, which shows little attempt to integrate the monetary systems of England and Normandy.

Besides taxation, William’s large landholdings throughout England strengthened his rule. As King Edward’s heir, he controlled all of the former royal lands. He also retained control of much of the lands of Harold and his family, which made the king the largest secular landowner in England by a wide margin.

Malcolm III, King of Scots: Part II

01 Thursday Apr 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Death, Uncategorized

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Arnesson., Edward the Confessor, Henry I of England, Ingibiorg, King of England, King of Scots, Malcolm III of Scotland, Royal Marriage, The Orkneyinga Saga

Marriage to Ingiborg

One of Malcolm’s earliest actions as king was to travel to the court of Edward the Confessor in 1059 to arrange a marriage with Edward’s kinswoman Margaret, who had arrived in England two years before from Hungary. If a marriage agreement was made in 1059, it was not kept, and this may explain the Scots invasion of Northumbria in 1061 when Lindisfarne was plundered. Equally, Malcolm’s raids in Northumbria may have been related to the disputed “Kingdom of the Cumbrians”, reestablished by Earl Siward in 1054, which was under Malcolm’s control by 1070.

The Orkneyinga saga reports that Malcolm III married the widow of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Ingibiorg, a daughter of Finn Arnesson. Although Ingibiorg is generally assumed to have died shortly before 1070, it is possible that she died much earlier, around 1058. The Orkneyinga Saga records that Malcolm and Ingibiorg had a son, Duncan II (Donnchad mac Maíl Coluim), who was later king. Some Medieval commentators, following William of Malmesbury, claimed that Duncan was illegitimate, but this claim is propaganda reflecting the need of Malcolm’s descendants by Margaret to undermine the claims of Duncan’s descendants, the Meic Uilleim. Malcolm’s son Domnall, whose death is reported in 1085, is not mentioned by the author of the Orkneyinga Saga. He is assumed to have been born to Ingibiorg.

Malcolm’s marriage to Ingibiorg secured him peace in the north and west. The Heimskringla tells that her father Finn had been an adviser to Harald Hardraade and, after falling out with Harald, was then made an Earl by Sweyn Estridsson, King of Denmark, which may have been another recommendation for the match. Malcolm enjoyed a peaceful relationship with the Earldom of Orkney, ruled jointly by his stepsons, Paul and Erlend Thorfinnsson. The Orkneyinga Saga reports strife with Norway but this is probably misplaced as it associates this with Magnus Barefoot, who became king of Norway only in 1093, the year of Malcolm’s death.

Marriage to Margaret

Although he had given sanctuary to Tostig Godwinson when the Northumbrians drove him out, Malcolm was not directly involved in the ill-fated invasion of England by Harald Hardraade and Tostig in 1066, which ended in defeat and death at the battle of Stamford Bridge. In 1068, he granted asylum to a group of English exiles fleeing from William of Normandy, among them Agatha, widow of Edward the Confessor’s nephew Edward the Exile, and her children: Edgar Ætheling and his sisters Margaret and Cristina. They were accompanied by Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria. The exiles were disappointed, however, if they had expected immediate assistance from the Scots.

In 1069 the exiles returned to England, to join a spreading revolt in the north. Even though Gospatric and Siward’s son Waltheof submitted by the end of the year, the arrival of a Danish army under Sweyn Estridsson seemed to ensure that William’s position remained weak. Malcolm decided on war, and took his army south into Cumbria and across the Pennines, wasting Teesdale and Cleveland then marching north, loaded with loot, to Wearmouth.

There Malcolm met Edgar and his family, who were invited to return with him, but did not. As Sweyn had by now been bought off with a large Danegeld, Malcolm took his army home. In reprisal, William sent Gospatric to raid Scotland through Cumbria. In return, the Scots fleet raided the Northumbrian coast where Gospatric’s possessions were concentrated.

Late in the year, perhaps shipwrecked on their way to a European exile, Edgar and his family again arrived in Scotland, this time to remain. By the end of 1070, Malcolm had married Edgar’s sister Margaret (later known as Saint Margaret).

The naming of their children represented a break with the traditional Scots regal names such as Malcolm, Cináed and Áed. The point of naming Margaret’s sons—Edward after her father Edward the Exile, Edmund for her grandfather Edmund Ironside, Ethelred for her great-grandfather Ethelred the Unready and Edgar for her great-great-grandfather Edgar and her brother, briefly the elected king, Edgar Ætheling—was unlikely to be missed in England, where William of Normandy’s grasp on power was far from secure.

Whether the adoption of the classical Alexander for the future Alexander I of Scotland (either for Pope Alexander II or for Alexander the Great) and the biblical David for the future David I of Scotland represented a recognition that William of Normandy would not be easily removed, or was due to the repetition of Anglo-Saxon royal name—another Edmund had preceded Edgar—is not known. Margaret also gave Malcolm two daughters, Edith, who married Henry I of England, and Mary, who married Eustace III of Boulogne.

March 26, 1031: Birth of Malcolm III, King of Scots. Part I.

26 Friday Mar 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, From the Emperor's Desk, Kingdom of Europe, This Day in Royal History

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Duncan I, Edward the Confessor, Henry I of England, King of England, King of Scots, Malcolm Canmore, Malcolm III

Malcolm III (c. March 26, 1031 – November 13, 1093) was King of Scots from 1058 to 1093. He was later nicknamed “Canmore” (“ceann mòr”, Gaelic for “Great Chief”). Malcolm’s long reign of 35 years preceded the beginning of the Scoto-Norman age. Henry I of England and Eustace III of Boulogne were his sons-in-law, making him the maternal grandfather of Empress Matilda, William Adelin and Matilda of Boulogne. All three of them were prominent in English politics during the 12th century.

Malcolm’s kingdom did not extend over the full territory of modern Scotland: the north and west of Scotland remained under Scandinavian rule following the Norse invasions. Malcolm III fought a series of wars against the Kingdom of England, which may have had as its objective the conquest of the English earldom of Northumbria. These wars did not result in any significant advances southward. Malcolm’s primary achievement was to continue a lineage that ruled Scotland for many years, although his role as founder of a dynasty has more to do with the propaganda of his youngest son David I and his descendants than with history.

Malcolm’s father Duncan I became king in late 1034, on the death of Malcolm II, Duncan’s maternal grandfather and Malcolm’s great-grandfather. According to John of Fordun, whose account is the original source of part of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Malcolm’s mother was a niece of Siward, Earl of Northumbria, but an earlier king-list gives her the Gaelic name Suthen.

Other sources claim that either a daughter or niece would have been too young to fit the timeline, thus the likely relative would have been Siward’s own sister Sybil, which may have translated into Gaelic as Sutherland.

Duncan’s reign was not successful and he was killed in battle with the men of Moray, led by Macbeth, on August 15, 1040. Duncan was young at the time of his death, and Malcolm and his brother Donalbane were children. Malcolm’s family attempted to overthrow Macbeth in 1045, but Malcolm’s grandfather Crínán of Dunkeld was killed in the attempt.Soon after the death of Duncan his two young sons were sent away for greater safety—exactly where is the subject of debate. According to one version, Malcolm (then aged about nine) was sent to England, and his younger brother Donalbane was sent to the Isles.

Based on Fordun’s account, it was assumed that Malcolm passed most of Macbeth’s seventeen-year reign in the Kingdom of England at the court of Edward the Confessor. Today’s British royal family can trace their family history back to Malcolm III via his daughter Matilda as well as his son David I, an ancestor of Robert the Bruce and thus also the Stewart/Stuart kings.According to an alternative version, Malcolm’s mother took both sons into exile at the court of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney, an enemy of Macbeth’s family, and perhaps Duncan’s kinsman by marriage.

An English invasion in 1054, with Siward, Earl of Northumbria in command, had as its goal the installation of one “Máel Coluim, son of the king of the Cumbrians”. This Máel Coluim has traditionally been identified with the later Malcolm III.

This interpretation derives from the Chronicle attributed to the 14th-century chronicler of Scotland, John of Fordun, as well as from earlier sources such as William of Malmesbury. The latter reported that Macbeth was killed in the battle by Siward, but it is known that Macbeth outlived Siward by two years. A. A. M. Duncan argued in 2002 that, using the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry as their source, later writers innocently misidentified “Máel Coluim” with the later Scottish king of the same name.

Duncan’s argument has been supported by several subsequent historians specialising in the era, such as Richard Oram, Dauvit Broun and Alex Woolf. It has also been suggested that Máel Coluim may have been a son of Owain Foel, British king of Strathclyde perhaps by a daughter of Malcolm II, King of Scotland.

In 1057 various chroniclers report the death of Macbeth at Malcolm’s hand, on 15 August 1057 at Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire. Macbeth was succeeded by his stepson Lulach, who was crowned at Scone, probably on 8 September 1057. Lulach was killed by Malcolm, “by treachery”, near Huntly on April 23, 1058. After this, Malcolm became king, perhaps being inaugurated on April 24, 1058, although only John of Fordun reports this.

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