By 1031, Macbeth was acting in the capacity of mormaer of Moray at the 'conference of kings' between King Malcolm of Scotland (Macbeth's grandfather) and Cnut, the Danish king of England. When Cnut called upon Malcolm II, two other persons are mentioned at the encounter, "Maelbaethe & Iehmarc (Echmarcach)." They are represented as "other kings." The Isles are west of Scotland and were alternately (and often simultaneously) claimed by the Irish, the Scots, and the Norse such that Maelbaethe was the Macbeth who later became high king, even though he was apparently not ruler in Moray at that time Macbeth's historical wife was Gruoch, who was either a niece of Malcolm II or a granddaughter of Kenneth III. As for which, her father was 'Boite, son of Kenneth' whose grandson was killed by Malcolm II in 1033 by no record of which Kenneth was Boite's father. Gruoch was born of a royal line at odds with Malcolm and presumably the house of Dunkeld, where he had designated his succession. But she also had reason for hostility towards Macbeth, since she had earlier been the wife of Gillacomgain, burned to death by Macbeth or his followers. The marriage took place before Macbeth's succession and was most likely a political union, designed to bring peace between the contending kindreds of Moray. Macbeth had to deal with the thwarted ambitions of Crinan, Duncan's father; in Northumbria, Duncan's son Malcolm was sheltering with his maternal relatives, the powerful Siwards; and he had an uneasy truce with Thorfinn in the north. Crinan (the abbot of Dunkeld) was killed in a battle near Dunkeld, when Macbeth forcibly suppressed a revolt against his over-lordship in 1045.
In 1046 Macbeth appeared to lose control of Lothian to Earl Siward (Shakespeare's 'Sweno'), but this reverse was overcome, and by 1050 Macbeth was secure enough in his kingdom to leave it several months to undertake a journey to Rome with Thorfinn. Malcolm, Duncan's son, had been taken by Earl Siward to the English court, and was a protege of Edward the Confessor. Northumbria was the northernmost English province save Mercia, and it boasted the stronghold city of York. Siward, of Danish descent, was a kinsman of Duncan's wife, and he supported Edward of England in his bid for the crown. Eventually, at Edward's request, he helped Duncan's son Malcolm Canmore defeat Macbeth.
In 1054, Edward sent Siward into Scotland with the intention of driving out Macbeth and installing Malcolm as a client king of Scots, indebted to them both. The opposing forces met near Macbeth's stronghold of Dunsinnen, and Macbeth was 'put to flight', although no source says that Macbeth was killed (or even deprived of his kingship), or even that Siward was victorious. The most likely result was that Macbeth was forced to give land to Malcolm (probably Cumbria, Tayside and Lothian) as a peace settlement when two armies had fought to stalemate. The decisive battle between Macbeth and Malcolm Canmore took place, however, on the plains of Gowrie, west of Dundee. Supported by his kinsman and Macbeth's old nemesis, Sigard of Northumbria, Malcolm brought both a fleet and an army of horse against the Scots.
In July of 1054, the fleet landed at Dundee and took possession of the town, including much booty from a couple of merchant ships that had just arrived. But how did the army of horse join up with the fleet? To reach the plains of Gowrie overland, they would have had to come up through Scottish-held parts of Mercia, past Edinburgh, through Fife, and across the Tay River. Tto get from the river crossing to Dundee, they would have had to ride within a few miles of Scone, the Scottish capital, and skirt a ridge of hills via a rather narrow strip of coastal land. Either Macbeth was not at home, or the Northumbrians chose not to engage him at his stronghold. The Northumbrian annals award the victory to their Earl Siward, stating that Macbeth was "put to flight," and Malcolm Canmore was made king. There are several possibilities. One is that Macbeth retreated to his territories in the north, ruling there while Malcolm Canmore held the south, ruler in fact if not in name. Another is that Malcolm was made king, not of Alba, but of the client kingdom of Cumbria at this time, a position that could have been awarded him as part of a peace settlement at Dundee.
Siward died before the end of 1055, of natural causes. This set back Malcolm's ambitions, and it was three more years until Macbeth's death is confirmed - 'Macbeth, son of Findlaech, high king of Alba, slain by Malcolm, son of Duncan' [Annals of Tigernach]. '..he was killed at Lumphanan and buried on the island of Iona' [Chronicle of the Kings]. He died on August 15th, 1057 - the seventeenth anniversary of his slaying of Duncan. Macbeth's forces seem to have won at Lumphanan, since Malcolm did not succeed to the throne. Macbeth's tanaise and successor was Lulach mac Gillacomgain, his stepson. His short reign (August 1057 to March 1058] came to an end when he was 'slain by Duncan's son, by treachery' (Annals of Tigernach) at Essie in Strathbogie. Scotland's Celtic monarchy died with him. Malcolm III was to reign for thirty five years and be remembered as 'Malcolm Canmore'. He founded a dynasty which extinguished any remnants of the Celtic character of the kingship of the Scots.
The defeat at Dundee was a mortal blow to Macbeth's power in Alba. Three years after his defeat at Gowrie, Macbeth's death is recorded at the hands of Malcolm Canmore outside the tiny village of Lumphanan in northeastern Scotland. Malcolm Canmore had managed to lead a warband up the Strathmore and across the Grampian Mountains, or he had sailed up the coast and sent an expeditionary force inland. There was a running battle, with Macbeth making a last stand outside Lumphanan. There he was killed, and his body was buried with the previous Scottish kings on the Isle of Iona. Macbeth's step-son and nephew, Lulach mac Gillecomgain, appears next in the king lists, but it is likely that he was never actually in control of the southern provinces. He was killed by Malcolm Canmore after only a few months, quite possibly in an ambush. He was posthumously dubbed "Lulach the Foolish." It was the end of the Celtic style of high kingship in Scotland. Malcolm Canmore ruled in the English style, and although the kingship went to his brother Donalbane upon his death, it was subsequently passed back to Malcolm's son and proceeded in patrilineal fashion from then.
One of Máel Coluim's (Malcolm III) earliest actions as king may have been to visit the court of Edward the Confessor to arrange a marriage with the English king's grand-niece Margaret. If such an agreement was made in 1059, it was not kept, and this may explain the Scots invasion of Northumbria in 1061 when Lindisfarne was plundered. Máel Coluim's son Domnall, although not mentioned by the author of the Orkneyinga Saga, is assumed to have been born to Ingebjorg. Máel Coluim's marriage to Ingebjorg may have secured him peace in the north. The Heimskringla tells us that Ingebjorg's 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. Although he had given sanctuary to Tostig Godwinsson when the Northubrians drove him out, Máel Coluim was not involved in the ill-fated invasion of England by Harald Hardraade and Tostig in 1066, which ended in defeat and death at Stamford Bridge, marking the end of the Viking era in England after an invading Norwegian Viking army under King Harald Hardråde defeated the army of the northern earls Edwin of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria at Gate Fulford two miles south of York.
YORK had around forty-five parish churches in 1300. Twenty survive, in whole or in part, a number surpassed in England only by Norwich-a city in East Anglia, which was named after the homeland of the Angles, Angeln in northern Germany in Eastern England, and the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. Some people include Essex - sometimes only the northern part thereof - and a small part of southern Lincolnshire bordering. The Wash and the area is characterised by its flatness, consisting of fenland and reclaimed marshland, though much of Suffolk comprises gently rolling hills and through historic towns such as Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge and Ely to the modern holiday villas of Center Parcs set in Thetford Forest. The Romans had their regional capital at Venta Icenorum on the river to the south which is now at modern day Caistor St Edmund. The ancient city was a thriving centre for trade and commerce in East Anglia in 1004 AD when it was raided and burnt by Swein Forkbeard the Viking. The great immigration of 1567 brought a substantial Walloon community of weavers to Norwich. Norwich has been the home of various dissident minorities, notably the French Huguenot and the Belgian Walloon communities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Primarily through trading connections with mainland Europe, ideas of religious reform and radical politics were introduced to Norwich.
The later earldom of Northumbria was bounded by the River Tees in the south and the River Tweed in the north (broadly similar to the modern North East England) and was recognised as part of England by the Anglo-Scottish Treaty of York in 1237.
The Fens are an area of former wetlands in the counties of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk in eastern England. The region lies west and south of The Wash. The fenman's way of life was different from that of others so outsiders were sometimes suspicious of him. The aristocratic Hereward Leofricsson, later called Hereward the Wake, who was raised on the fen margin, opposed the loss of his inheritance to the Norman incomers in around the yeare 1070.
Although the south of England submitted quickly to Norman rule, resistance continued, especially in the North for six more years until 1072. Harold's illegitimate sons attempted an invasion of the south-west peninsula. Uprisings occurred in the Welsh Marches (an area along the border of England and Wales) and at Stafford. Separate attempts at invasion by the Danes and the Scots also occurred. William's defeat of these led to what became known as The Harrying of the North (Sometimes called Harrowing) in which Northumbria was laid waste as revenge and to deny his enemies its resources. Principally, the counties belonging to the Welsh Marches are Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire (all English counties) and Monmouthshire (once an English county, but now in Wales). The western half of Gloucestershire (England), as well as Flintshire and Wrexham (Wales) are also sometimes included.
The First Battle of Langensalza was fought on June 9, 1075 between forces of German King Henry IV and several rebellious Saxon noblemen on the River Unstrut near Langensalza. The battle was a complete success for Henry, resulting in the subjugation of Saxony shortly before the Investiture Controversy commenced. Prior to the Investiture Controversy, the appointment of church officials, while theoretically a task of the Church, was in practice performed by secular authorities. Since a substantial amount of wealth and land was usually associated with the office of bishop or abbot, the sale of Church offices- a practice known as simony and considered a sin by the Church. The crisis began when a group within the church, members of the Gregorian Reform, decided to address the sin of simony by restoring the power of investiture to the Church. The Gregorian reformers knew this would not be possible so long as the Emperor maintained the ability to appoint the Pope, so the first step was to liberate the papacy from control by the Emperor. An opportunity came in the 1050s when Henry IV became Emperor at a young age. Enforcing these declarations was a different matter, but fate was on the side of Gregory VII. The German aristocracy was happy to hear of their king's deposition. They would use the cover of religion as an excuse for a continuation of the rebellion started at the First Battle of Langensalza in 1075 and the seizure of royal powers and tended to build localized fiefdoms to break away from the empire.
The last serious resistance came with the Revolt of the Earls in 1075. It is estimated that one fifth of the people of England were killed during these years by war, massacre, and starvation. The revolt was caused by the king's refusal (in his absence - he had been in Normandy since 1073) to sanction the marriage between Emma (daughter of William Fitzosbern, 1st Earl of Hereford and Adelissa de Tosny) and Ralph de Guader in 1075. In William's absence, Ralph, his new brother-in-law Roger de Breteuil, 2nd Earl of Hereford, and Waltheof, 1st Earl of Northumberland began the revolt, but it was plagued by disaster. Roger de Breteuil, who was to bring his force from the west to join Ralph de Guader, was held in check at the River Severn by the Worcestershire fyrd which the English bishop Wulfstan brought into the field against him. Ralph in the meantime encountered a much superior force under the warrior bishops Odo of Bayeux and Geoffrey de Montbray (the latter ordered that all rebels should have their right foot cut off) near Cambridge and retreated hurriedly to Norwich, hotly pursued by the royal army. Leaving his wife to defend Norwich Castle, he sailed for Denmark in search of help, and eventually returned to England with a fleet of 200 ships under Cnut the Great and Hakon of Norway, which failed to do anything effective. Canute the Great (994/995-November 12, 1035) was king of England, Denmark and Norway, celebrated for commanding the waves of the sea to assure his people that he was not a god. Winchester was formerly the capital of England, during the 10th and early 11th centuries, and the capital of Wessex before that. Roger was tried before the Great Council, deprived of his lands and earldom, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment; but he was released, with other political prisoners, at the death of William I in 1087.
After 1081, Gregory VII called on his allies the Normans, who were in southern Italy, and they rescued him from the Germans in 1085. The Normans managed to sack Rome in the process, and when the citizens of Rome rose up against Gregory he was forced to flee south with the Normans and died there soon after. The Investiture Controversy would continue on for several decades as each succeeding Pope tried to fight the investiture by stirring up revolt in Germany. Henry IV was succeeded upon death in 1106 by his son Henry V, who was also unwilling to give up investiture. From the start of his reign, Henry had suffered numerous setbacks in Saxony. A policy of building castles, continued from the time of his father, implemented by the King fostered resentment among multiple groups. Henry had already had to put down a rebellion led by Otto of Nordheim and Magnus Billung (1070–1071). In 1075 Otto of Nordheim, together with the count palatine in Saxony and Bishop Burckhardt of Halberstadt openly declared their hostility, using Henry's violations of the Gerstungen treaty as an excuse. They gained many Saxon and Thuringian freedmen, but many nobles and peasants did not join. As harsh as the terms were, the complete victory Henry gained at Langensalza convinced them to accept. In a humiliating gesture, the rebel bishops, nobles and peasants walked between the ranks of the King's army and submitted to him. The King then convened a meeting of princes at Goslar on Christmas to determine the future of Saxony; he ended up freeing Otto of Nordheim and making him his viceroy to Saxony.
When William Rufus became king of England after his father's death, Máel Coluim did not intervene in the rebellions by supporters of Robert Curthose which followed. In 1091, however, William Rufus confiscated Edgar Ætheling's lands in England, and Edgar fled north to Scotland. In May, Máel Coluim marched south, not to raid and take slaves and plunder, but to besiege Newcastle, built by Robert Curthose in 1080. This appears to have been an attempt to advance the frontier south from the River Tweed to the River Tees. The threat was enough to bring the English king back from Normandy, were he had been fighting Robert Curthose. In September, learning of William Rufus's approaching army, Máel Coluim withdrew north and the English followed. Unlike in 1072, Máel Coluim was prepared to fight, but a peace was arranged by Edgar Ætheling and Robert Curthose whereby Máel Coluim again acknowledged the overlordship of the English king.
In 1092, the peace began to break down. Based on the supposition that the Scots controlled much of modern Cumbria, it had been supposed that William Rufus's new castle at Carlisle, and his settlement of English peasants in the surrounds, was the cause. However, it is unlikely that Máel Coluim did control Cumbria, and the dispute instead concerned the estates granted to Máel Coluim by William Rufus's father in 1072 for his maintenance when visiting England. Máel Coluim sent messengers to discuss the question and William Rufus agreed to a meeting. Máel Coluim travelled south to Gloucester, stopping at Wilton Abbey to visit his daughter Edith and sister-in-law Cristina. Máel Coluim arrived there on 24 August 1093 to find that William Rufus refused to negotiate, insisting that the dispute be judged by the English barons. This Máel Coluim refused to do, and returned immediately to Scotland.
Máel Coluim was accompanied by Edward, his eldest son by Margaret and probable heir-designate (or tánaiste) Even by the standards of the time, the ravaging of Northumbria by the Scots was seen as harsh. While marching north again, Máel Coluim was ambushed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, whose lands he had devastated, near Alnwick on 13 November 1093. There he was killed by his god-sib Arkil Morel, steward of Bamburgh Castle. Edward died in the same fight. Margaret, we are told, died soon after receiving the news of their deaths.