Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/55

 1286 A.D.] him fell his son and heir Eadward. The ancient British kingdom of Cumbria was severed in twain, the northern half, from Solway to Clyde remaining part of Scotland, the southern half becoming permanently annexed to the realm of England. Thus the frontier between England and Scotland was drawn along very nearly the same line it occupies at this day, though, as will be shown hereafter, it has often been violently disturbed. Caithness and Orkney were still Norse territory, and over the Western Isles and Galloway the Scottish monarch exercised no more than a nominal, or at least intermittent, rule.

But Malcolm's newly knit kingdom was to lose after his death even the semblance of unity which he had conferred on it. Donald Ban, Malcolm's brother, reigned for six months, to be dispossessed by Duncan, Malcolm's eldest son by Queen Ingibiorg, who also reigned six months. Duncan was slain in the Mearns by the forces of his half-brother Eadmund, and his uncle, Donald Ban, who then shared the throne between them, and reigned for three years, 1094-97. They were in turn deposed by Eadgar Aetheling in favour of another of Malcolm Canmore's sons, Eadgar, who reigned over the kingdom of Scotland, under the limitations above described, for nine years, 1097-1107. Donald and Eadward were both imprisoned for life, the former, for his better security, being deprived of sight. Dying in 1107, Eadgar bequeathed to his brother Alexander the ancient and independent kingdom of Alban or Scotia proper, while to his younger brother David he left Lothian and all that remained