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Rh immigration of Saxons, and soon after of Normans, whom William had either disgusted by his tyranny or defrauded of their wages, while Malcolm, who needed such subjects, received them with welcome, and gave them broad lands; and from these refugees the chief nobility of Scotland were afterwards descended. The latter country became of course very closely connected with the struggles of the English against the Norman ascendency, while Malcolm by his marriage was bound to support the pretensions of his brother-in-law to the crown of England. But Edgar was no match for William, and, in an attempt that he made in Northumberland and Yorkshire with the aid of a Danish armament, he was so effectually defeated, that he was obliged a second time to flee to Scotland. How Malcolm, who was considered as the head of this coalition, failed to invade England when his aid was most expected, does not clearly appear, but he thereby escaped the evils of an ill-concerted and most disastrous enterprise. Two years after (in 1070) he crossed the border with an army, but found the northern counties so wasted by the previous war, that after a hasty incursion into Northumberland and Yorkshire, he was obliged to retreat. But brief as this inroad was, and unaccompanied with battle, it was not without its share of the horrors of war, for Malcolm commanded his soldiers to spare only the young men and women, who accordingly were carried into Scotland, and there sold as slaves. So great was the number of these unhappy captives, that according to Simeon of Durham, there was not a village, and scarcely even a hovel in Scotland without them. And yet those English who escaped the visitation, in many cases seem to have envied their fate, for such was the general desolation which their own Norman sovereign had inflicted, that they repaired in crowds to Scotland, and sold themselves into slavery, to avoid certain death from famine or the sword.

Had William the Conqueror not been otherwise occupied, a swift retaliation would have been certain; but from the dangerous revolts of the English, he found no leisure for the purpose till 1072, when he entered Scotland with such an army as the undisciplined forces of Malcolm were unable to meet. The whole of the Norman cavalry, in which William's principal strength consisted, and every foot soldier that could be spared from garrison, were mustered for the purpose, while his advance on land was supported by a fleet that sailed along the coast. He marched as far as the Tay, the Scots giving way as he approached; but in their retreat they laid waste the country in the hope of driving him back by famine. In this way, Malcolm Canmore anticipated the wise plan of defence that was afterwards so successfully adopted by Bruce and Wallace. He also refused to deliver up those English and Norman nobles who had fled to him for protection. At last, William, finding "nothing of that which to him the better was"—nothing in the shape of booty or even of subsistence, was obliged to abandon his purposes of a complete conquest of Scotland, and content himself with terms of agreement. These, which were ratified between him and Malcolm at Abernethy, consisted in the latter giving hostages, and doing homage to William, as his liege lord. But for what was this homage rendered? Not for Scotland certainly, the greater part of which was still untouched, and which William would soon be obliged to leave from sheer hunger. It appears that this homage was merely for the lands of Cumberland and part of the Lothians, which Scotland had formerly held of the English crown, but which feudal acknowledgment Canmore had withheld, as not judging the Norman to be the lawful king of England. Now, however, he prudently