Aethelred / Aedh, 1st Earl of Fife - Not the Earl of Fife?

http://stage.geni.com/projects/Earls-of-Fife/30347 Hopefully this works. All invited. Add text!! :-)

> Moncrieffe and Learney & Cairney are not to be found (by me) on the Internet - not even credited by the clan pages. Can you take a moment to explain when they wrote and what their objectivity would have been?

First, Cairney. I have no idea who he is. The imprint is McFarland & Company. Impressive. They're an academic publisher with a very good reputation.

Cairney uses the Introduction to talk about his methodology. The only personal glimpse he gives is to call himself a "student of anthropology". He goes on to say "This book combines genealogical, historical and anthropological information on Irish and Scottish families in one volume. Excellent work has been done on the origins and character of the early tribal populations by British and Irish scholars. Clans and Families bridges the gap between these early tribes and the great clan families of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ..."

A bit later he goes on to say, "Any serious treament of Gaelic history, politics, sociology, anthropology or related fields should take this Gaelic tribalism into central account when dealing with the period preceding 1607 in Ireland and 1746 in Scotland. The reason for this is that throughout the historical period and even into the eighteenth century, Gaelic polity was build upon a framework of tribal groups with their intra- and inter-tribal political relationships.

"Similarly, studies of traditional Gaelic literature which aim to examine its social context should strive to view it in light of its tribal background. Much folklore in the Gaelic oral traditions, inasmuch as it is an expression of cultural realities past and present, is also profitably viewed this way."

There is more, of course, but the basic point is that he delivers on his promise. It's a very well-crafted book, about the early history of Scotland and Ireland and the emergence of individual clan families out of a tribal background. I bought my copy because it was highly recommended by one of my profs as a handy reference for Scottish ethnography.

Sharon, the link you want is http://www.geni.com/projects/Earls-of-Fife/30347

Moving on then to Learney.

Wikipedia says about Learney: "Sir Thomas Innes of Learney GCVO WS (1893–1971) was Lord Lyon from 1945 to 1969, after having been Carrick Pursuivant and Albany Herald in the 1930s. He was a very active Lord Lyon, strongly promoting his views of what his office was through his writings and pronouncements in his Court."

I think this is putting it mildly. He had a legal background and spent his life putting Scottish heraldry on a strong judicial footing, grounded in medieval precedents. He's now the ultimate authority on anything to do with Scottish heraldry. If he said it, it's true, no further citation needed. This is a bit of an overstatement because there are many people now who think he pushed the legal theory too far and swept aside some of the historical context that might have given a different impression of ancient law and practice.

His basic theory was that Scottish practice was Gaelic tribalism overlaid by Norman feudalism. Good enough, but when something is a question of tension between the two he always comes down on the side of feudalism. For him, once a crown charter for lands is granted the succession can only be according to the terms of the grant. Tanistry only if they went through formal processes (or won the battle), and none of those silly tribal elections, no matter how many examples there might be that they actually continued.

His aura of authority doesn't necessarily extend to history and genealogy, although he was a highly competent historian and genealogist. He edited the authoritative Clans, Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands, originally written by Frank Adam. It contains an overwhelming amount of detail. Masterfully collated and arranged, but it's possible to quibble with the detail in a way that's not possible with his heraldic works.

And finally Moncrieffe.

Wikipedia says, "Sir Rupert Iain Kay Moncreiffe of that Ilk, 11th Baronet, CVO, QC (9 April 1919 – 27 February 1985) was a British Officer of Arms and genealogist.... A prominent member of the Lyon Court, Moncreiffe held the offices of Falkland Pursuivant (1952), Kintyre Pursuivant (1953), Unicorn Pursuivant (1955), and (from 1961) Albany Herald. He wrote a popular work about the Scottish clans, The Highland Clans (1967), Simple Heraldry, Cheerfully Illustrated (1953), Simple Custom (1954), and Blood Royal (1956) with Don Pottinger, but his interests also extended to Georgian and Byzantine noble genealogies."

Moncrieffe was an elitist and something of an eccentric, but a good genealogist. Like Learney, his social contacts gave him access to private collections and sources that are not generally available. My impression of him is that he was a very clear and often witty writer and thinker. His strength, in my opinion, is as a systematizer and organizer. His work almost always focuses on the broad outlines and presents the mainstream view of his time. He doesn't seem to go for nuanced analysis nor does he get distracted by details. I've been told that the idea of the lion as symbol of Dalriada and the galley as the symbol of Uppsala was his inspiration but I don't know whether he might have just taken the idea and popularized it.

If you ever get a chance to read Blood Royal or Simple Heraldry, jump at the chance. They are little gems. You'll learn more from them in a one hour reading than you'd get from the mass of detail in much longer works.

A bit of geography helps, too. Caithness is on the extreme northern tip of Scotland, the closest bit of "mainland" to the Orkneys - no wonder it was so often and so long in Norse hands.

The original Moray appears to have been everything south of Caithness, north of the Grampians, and west of the Isles. Since that made for too strong a power base, it was broken up into several smaller domains, including Ross and Sutherland (which is just south of Caithness and the second most *northerly* part of Scotland) as well as a rump "Moray" on the south side of the Firth of Moray.

Atholl and Angus were on the south side of the Grampians and north of the firth of Forth, in the west and east respectively.

Fife was right on the north side of the Firth of Forth, and in some earlier periods was as far south as you could go and still be in Scotland proper - Strathclyde, to the south, having been an independent kingdom and then a bone of contention between the English to the south, the Scots to the north, the Irish to the west, and the Norse wherever they could get an oar in. (The Scots finally got to keep most of it, somewhere between Malcolm II and III, but the southern border remained in flux.)

What I'm getting at here is that there was a respectable mountain range and several other domains between Moray and Fife, so it is rather unlikely that the same person could be ruler of both unless he were the King of Scotland. And Ethelred was certainly never *that* (he was the only son of Malcolm and Margaret who *never* sat on the throne).

Um...well, not counting Edward, who was heir-designate but got killed before he had a chance to inherit.

I think you might be missing the main point here. Not surprising because I don't seem to have made the connection explicitly.

The old MacDuff line, if we can call it that, were supposed to have been rulers of Moray. No one supposes that this Aed / Ethelred was a ruler there. Instead he is said to have been ruler of Fife (alone).

By tradition, Scotland (Albany) was anciently divided into 7 kingdoms: Angus, Atholl, Caithness, Mar, Fife, Moray, and Strathearn under a high king (Albany). These kings were originally called "Ri" (king) but later come to be called "Mormaer" (great chief or great steward).

To do medieval Scottish history well, you really need to memorize this list and (as you say) keep the geography in mind. When the old royal lines die out, there might be a succession through daughters, and the dynasts of one kingdom sometimes come to rule another.

This is what is supposed to be going on with the MacDuff story, where you have to keep remembering who is said to rule what by marriage to which heiress.

In the end, though, all the old kingdoms fold and become just earldoms, if that, under the centralized monarchy.

MORAY???? Where does *that* come from?

This is starting to make absolutely *no* sense whatsoever.

I think we've posted that several times now. This is why it's necessary to look at the whole tradition and not just bits and pieces.

The tradition is that the MacDuffs were originally rulers of Moray. Following a little more closely, this is because the general idea is that Lulach's father was a Moray dynast, while his mother Gruoch was the MacDuff heiress. His daughter, who was the heiress of both Moray and MacDuff married Aed / Aethelred, and they were the ancestors of the later MacDuff line.

If you leave out Aed, as I think you would want to do, then you still have the MacDuffs as dynasts of the Dalriada line but as descendants of King Duff, brother of Kenneth II instead of descendants of Malcolm III. Essentially, this cuts the Moray connection through Lulach but leaves the later MacDuffs as somehow the heirs of Gruoch who was the heiress of Moray.

So one said it's easy ;)

A collection of miscellaneous research notes by Curt Hofeman. They include statements by different sources about the death date of Aethelred:

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igmpostem.cgi?op=show&a...

These notes are comments on the database record of Jim Weber at Rootsweb World Connect:

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jwebe...

I thought the older tradition was that the macDuffs were thanes of Fife, and the "Moray" identification arose after some scholars decided that "Shakespeare's Macduff" was a myth and started fishing around for somebody, anybody to explain away the name. Somehow, for some reason, they latched onto the little-known Ethelred, perhaps *because* he is so little-known and disappears from the records so conveniently, while "Aed" of Moray appears just as conveniently a decade or two later.

Is this a valid assumption, or do we have another case of "Of course Josephus Burton Waters must be the same person as (this other) Josephus Waters - there *can't* have been two of him!" But as you well know, there *were* two of him.

You know, if the "Ethelred charter" is as spurious as some of the Edgar charters, the *whole argument* about Ethelred as "Earl of Fife" and "the same person as Aed" goes down the tubes with it.

So is it for real, or is it a forgery?

> I thought the older tradition was that the macDuffs were thanes of Fife

Not quite. The whole thing about Thanes of Fife is from Shakespearean scholarship that highlights the tradition known by Shakespeare that Kenneth MacAlpin, 200 years earlier, created his thanes into mormaers. Pure myth. The reality is that these families were all (probably) old royal families of the different sub-kingdoms, many of replaced eventually by collateral dynasts of Kenneth MacAlpin's own family At least that's what their genealogies show.

The actual tradition we're all struggling with has the old line of MacDuffs as the family of Gruoch. Her father was Boedhe, son of Kenneth III, son of the Dubh (King Duff).

Bethoc, wife of Crinan the Thane, belonged to the same family. Her father was Malcolm II, son of Kenneth II, who was a brother of Dubh.

Many versions describe this family as Mormaers of Moray, others as Mormaers of Fife. This part is a matter of perspective. Gruoch married Gillacomgan, Mormaer (or King) of Moray. Their son Lulach was Mormaer of Moray before becoming King of Albany. So, yes, in the last days of the old line of MacDuffs they were linked with Moray. Then, if Ethelred, said to be a Mormaer of Fife, is also said to have married a daughter of Lulach, and become the ancestor of the later MacDuff Earls of Fife as well as the MacKay Earls of Moray.

> Ethelred charter" is as spurious as some of the Edgar charters

I lost. What Ethelred charter?

From Page 1, this topic:

Full text of the "Ethelred Charter" as printed in Lawrie, "Early Scottish Charters", pp. 11-12:

EDELRADUS vir venerandae memoriae, filius Malcolmi Regis
Scotiae, Abbas de Dunkeldense et insuper Comes de Fyf
contulit Deo Omnipotenti et Sancto Servano et keledeis
de insula Louchleuen cum summa reverentia et honore et
omni libertate et sine exactione et petitione cujusquam
in mundo, episcopi vel regis vel comitis, Admore cum
suis rectis terminis et divisis. Et quia ilia possessio
fuit illi tradita a parentibus suis cum esset in juvenili
aetate idcirco cum majori affectione et amore illam
obtulit Deo et Sancto Servano et praefatis viris Deo
servientibus et ibidem servituris. Et istam collationem
et donationem primo factam confirmaverunt duo fratres
Hedelradi, scilicet David et Alexander, in praesentia
multorum virorum fidedignorum, scilicet Constantini
comitis de fyf viri discretissimi et Nesse et Cormac
filii Macbeath et Malnethte filii Beollani sacerdotum de
Abyrnethyn et Mallebride alterius sacerdotis et Thuadhel
et Augustini sacerdotis keledeorum, Berbeadh rectoris
scolarum de Abyrnethyn et coram cetibus totius universi-
tatis tune de Abyrnethyn ibidem degentibus et coram
Deo Omnipotenti et Omnibus Sanctis. Et ibi data est
plenarie et universaliter ab omnibus sacerdotibus clericis
et laicis, maledictio Dei Omnipotentis et Beatae Mariae
Virginis et Omnium Sanctorum ut Dominus Deus daret
eum in exterminium et perditionem et in omnes illos
quicunque irritarent et revocarent et deminuerent elemosi-
nam de Admore. Omni populo respondente fiat. Amen.

Note that this is a modern transcription of a handwritten "fair copy" deposited at the Priory of St. Andrew's, Scotland. Arguments have been made that errors have crept in for various reasons, and even that the entire thing is a forgery.

On the face of it the original, and perhaps even the "fair copy", must be dated no later than 1107: reference to "two brothers of Ethelred, that is, David and Alexander". Alexander succeeded to the throne in 1107 on the death of his brother Edgar, but this is not noted in the charter.

The "mis-ordering" of names (David and Alexander, instead of the known birth and regnal order Alexander and David) has been used as an argument that the charter was not authentic; on the other hand, when they were still all princes the name order was less critical.

Another suspect point is the very fulsomeness with which the donation is described: "cum summa reverentia et honore et
omni libertate et sine exactione et petitione cujusquam
in mundo, episcopi vel regis vel comitis," "cum majori affectione et amore", and so forth. Other charters of the same period are more matter-of-fact and generally include a formulaic "quid pro quo" involving the donor's spiritual well-being and the souls of his ancestors - clauses which are not found here.

The biggest problem, of course, is the reference to Ethelred as "et insuper Comes de Fyf", when one of the witnesses is Constantine Earl of Fife. Explanations have included 1) a misstatement for "formerly", meaning that Ethelred *was* Earl of Fife at one point but Constantine *is* the current Earl; 2) misinterpretation of the clause and accidental omission of Constantine *as* Earl of Fife, meaning Ethelred making the donation with Constantine's assent (the property was in Fife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Leven_(Kinross)); 3) an erroneous expansion of an abbreviation in the original that should have been read as "in the county of Fife" (probably referencing the location of Dunkeld Abbey, as if it required it); 4) the whole thing is a later forgery.

Of the lot I rather favor option 2, a mistranslation/misreading that resulted in Constantine's name being omitted from the header. The Prince-Abbot of Dunkeld was an important personage, but he was *not* a king and *not* entitled to give away properties in someone else's territory without the agreement of that somebody.

I. Edelrad, or Ethelred (the name is found with both spellings), the third son of King Malcolm Canmore, was undoubtedly the first Earl of Fife.(3-2) He is so designed in a grant of land made by him to the Culdees of Loch Leven. This grant appears in two versions, the shorter of which probably follows the original,(4-2) while the notice in the Register of St. Andrews is evidently of later date. In both forms Ethelred describes himself as 'son of Malcolm, King of Scotland, Abbot of Dunkeld, and also (_et insuper_) Earl of Fyf.'

A difficulty has been found in the description of this grant as given in the Register of the Priory of St. Andrews. It is the presence of two Earls of Fife, Ethelred and Constantine, existing apparently at the same period, but the solution of the puzzle is simple. The Latin memorandum of Ethelred's grant was written a considerable time after the grant was made, and the scribe adds that Ethelred's charter was confirmed by his brothers, David and Alexander, i.e. after 1107. It is to this confirmation that Earl Constantine was a witness.

Nothing further is known of Ethelred, and he apparently died before 1098, when his next brother Edgar became King. Lord Hailes says of him 'he became a churchman,'(1-3) forgetting for the moment that Ethelred's being Abbot of Dunkeld did not make him an ecclesiastic in the sense of not being a layman. He was a great lay-abbot, as was Crinan, the progenitor of the great race of Celtic Kings of Scotland.

Scots Peerage, IV:
https://archive.org/stream/scotspeeragefoun04pauluoft#page/2/mode/2up

Notice the very different solution here to the problem of Athelred and Constantine being apparently Earls of Fife at the same time.

Notice also that this is likely to be the source for the idea Ethelred died in 1098. He must have died then, or about then, or he should have succeeded to the throne, assuming that he was the 3rd son.

Rev.William Lockhart collected quite a bit of information about Ethelred, published in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1892). His reason for thinking Ethelred was the 3rd son is the kind of argument we're all familiar with.

NOTICES OF ETHELRED, EARL OF FIFE, AND ABBOT OF DUNKELD, AND HIS PLACE IN THE ROYAL FAMILY OF SCOTLAND IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. By The Rev. WILLIAM LOCKHART, A.M., F.S.A. Scot., Minister or Colinton Parish, Midlothian.

Writers on Scottish history and antiquities seem to give little or no attention to Ethelred, one of the sons of Malcolm (III.) Canmore and Queen Margaret, and brother to Edgar, Alexander I. and David, kings of Scotland. And neither do these same writers altogether agree as to the exact place which he held in the Royal Family of Scotland in the latter half of the eleventh century. Probably this is in some measure to be accounted for by the fact that the period in question is comparatively barren in historical records, and, moreover, from the circumstance that, like Prince Leopold (Duke of Albany), belonging to the present Royal House, and the late lamented Duke of Clarence and Avondale, Ethelred died in youth, or at all events in early manhood, and before he had had time to make for himself such a mark in the history of Scotland as his father and three illustrious brothers have done. At the same time, there are certain circumstances connected with the life of this young Scottish prince that ought not to be overlooked, and that entitle him to some degree of notice among the other historical characters of the period, whilst for the sake of truth and accuracy, his exact place in the family of Malcolm III. ought, if possible, to be more clearly ascertained and determined.

The first thing, then, that calls for notice, in connection with Ethelred, is the fact that he was the only one of all the six sons of Malcolm and Margaret that had a title of nobility conferred upon him by his father— as monarch of Scotland—namely, Earl of Fife. And this title of "Earl," which probably(1-105) came into existence about this time both in Scotland and England, or shortly before this in England, was the highest title of nobility then existing, and in the case of England continued to be so for nearly three centuries, until, indeed, in 1337, Edward III. conferred the title of "Duke of Cornwall" upon his son, the Black Prince.(2-105)

The Earl or _Comes_ of the present day is the third in the order of the British Peerage, coming after a Marquis, which is second, and before a Viscount, which is fourth. But although it is a title of nobility, and descends in regular succession to the male heirs of its possessor, yet it confers no official authority or power upon the person possessing it. It was different, however, with the earldoms of England, and no doubt also with those of Scotland in the eleventh, and probably also in the three following centuries. "In early feudal times, titles independent of office did not exist. The Earls or _Comites_ of those days, therefore, were actual officers, each having supreme authority in his own earldom or 'county' under the crown, each one of them also deriving from his earldom a certain fixed revenue, the possession of which was at once an apanage of his official dignity as Earl and the evidence of his lawful and recognised title to it" (_Encyc. Brit._, vol . vii. p. 595). This being the case, Ethelred, as Earl of Fife, would, in all probability, exercise a certain official authority over the whole county of Fife, and would, moreover, derive certain revenues from it. And since Dunfermline, the then royal residence of Malcolm and his family, was situated within this district of Scotland, the earldom which Ethelred possessed must be regarded as in all probability the earliest of the kind, and one of the most important, if not the most important, of Scottish titles in the eleventh century. It is quite possible that there may have been a Macduff Earl of Fife also for some time in this or the following century—although Mr Robertson, in his _Scotland under her Early Kings_, speaks of such as "Macduff, Earl of Fife, of the fabulists," and sets it down as a "myth" (vol. i. p. 124, note)—because titles at that time were often bestowed and probably sometimes withdrawn in the most arbitrary manner. And, indeed, in a Charter in the _Register of the Priory of St Andrews_ (p. 115), which will be subsequently referred to, there is mention made of "Constantino, Earl of Fife, a most discreet man." Nevertheless, there can be no doubt of Ethelred's possession of the title, however short the period may have been in which it was held by him, and the very fact that he was thus honoured by his father above all his brothers—two of whom were probably older than himself—not only shows the esteem and regard in which he must have been held by his parents, but proves him to have been a person of considerable ability and of marked importance in the country at that time.(1-106)

But there was another important office held by Ethelred of an ancestral description, and implying in it the possession of large territories in the centre of Scotland, and that was the Abbacy of Dunkeld. This did not necessarily constitute Ethelred "a churchman," as is alleged by Lord Hailes, because at that time and afterwards, in consequence of the decaying state of the Celtic Church, or from some other cause, abbacies were often held by laymen, who drew the revenues and appointed churchmen to perform the ecclesiastical offices.(1-107) Indeed, the abbacy of the Monastery of St Andrews was many years before this held by Constantine II., one of the early and most celebrated kings of Scotland, who in old age (943 A.d.) laid down the sceptre which he had vigorously grasped for forty years, and retired into this Monastery, where, in all probability, he ended his days; not, however, before the veteran leader had once more unsheathed the sword, and, in company with Olave Sitricson, the Dane, "swept the patrimony of St. Cuthbert to the distant borders of the Tees" (Robertson, _Early Kings_, vol. i. p. 73).(2-107) Moreover, in the eleventh century the Abbacy of Dunkeld was held by Crinan, who married Bethoc or Beatrice, an elder daughter of Malcolm II., King of Scotland, and thereby became the founder of the Atholl line of kings and the father of that Duncan who was murdered by Macbeth, of the house of Moray, and whom Shakespeare by his genius has immortalized. Malcolm III. (Canmore) was one of the sons of this Duncan, so that Ethelred had had conferred upon him, in all probability by his royal father, an office which his own grandfather had held, and held until he was killed in battle, fighting against Macbeth in the interest of his young grandehildren, Duncan's sons. And thus this young Scottish prince, Ethelred, stands prominently before us, not merely as Abbot of Dunkeld, but as enjoying one of the earliest of Scottish earldoms, if indeed not the very earliest, and possessing extensive territories and a rank of nobility of which that age knew nothing higher.

But although it would probably be wrong to designate Ethelred as "a Churchman," there can be no doubt that he was piously inclined, and that he possessed in a very marked degree those devout and reverential feelings which formed so conspicuous a feature in the character of his sainted mother, as well as in that of some of his royal brothers. According to a record in the Register of the Priory of St Andrews (_Regist., Prioratus S. Andreæ_, p. 115, 1093-1107 A.D.), Ethelred gives a grant of certain lands to the Keledei of Loch Leven in the following terms, viz.:—

"Edelradus, a man of venerated memory, son of Malcolm, King of Scotia, Abbot of Dunkeld and likewise Earl of Fyf, gave to God the Omnipotent, and St Servanus and the Keledei of the island of Louchleven, with the utmost reverence and honour, and with every freedom, and without any exaction or demand whatever in the world from bishop, king, or earl, Ardmore, with its rightful boundaries and divisions; and seeing that this possession was given him by his parents while he was yet in boyhood, he with the more affection and love immolates it to God and St Servanus and those men serving God there; and this collation and donation, when first made, was confirmed by the two brothers of Edelradus, David and Alexander, in the presence of several men worthy of credit, such as Constantine, Earl of Fyf, a most discreet man,(1-108) and Nesse; and Cormac, son of Macbeath, and Malnethte, son of Beollan, priests of Abernethy; and Mallebride, another priest; and Thuadhel and Augustinus, a priest, who were Keledei, and Berbeadh, rector of the schools of Abernethy; and before the rest of the whole community of Abernethy then living there, and before God the Omnipotent and all saints."(2-108)

But not only did Ethelred give this grant of lands to a religious house in Kinross-shire, but, according to a clause in the first and more subsequent charters in the Chartulary of Dunfermline Abbey, he was the founder of the church and parish of Hales, now Colinton, in the county of Midlothian, a district of country which some years before this formed part of the ancient Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, and subsequently of a united England, for Ethelred gave the lands of Hales to the Church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline; and this grant, which ultimately merged in the Abbot and Convent of that place, was held by them as superiors until about the year 1560. And thus this young Scottish prince seems not only to have held high offices in his father's kingdom, but to have been the possessor of extensive territories on both sides of the Firth of Forth, and more especially on the north side of it.

Ethelred appears also as taking an active part during the last and touching scenes of his mother's life, and especially after she was dead. He was evidently with her in the Castle of Edinburgh when she was dying, and when his father and eldest brother Edward were slain in Northumberland. For it was Edgar, and not as some say Ethelred, who brought the sad tidings of his father's defeat and death, and the death of his eldest brother Edward, to the sick-chamber of his mother, and therefore he must either have been with the army, or in some situation not far off where he could learn tidings of the result of the battle. Ethelred, on the other hand, must have been with his mother all the time in the sick-chamber of Edinburgh Castle, and, according to Wynton, after her death, and during the so-called usurpation of Donald Bane, he conveyed her lifeless body secretly out of the western gate of the castle, taking, as is said, the advantage of a fog, on to Dunfermline, and in all probability he died soon afterwards, and was buried not at St Andrews, as some seem to say, but at Dunfermline, in the same resting-place where the bodies of his father and mother and eldest brother were laid. The following are Wynton's lines in regard to the hurried removal of the remains of Queen Margaret by her son Ethelred, from Edinburgh Castle to Dunfermline:—

"Hyr swne Ethelrede, queue thys felle
That wes hys modyr Here than by
Gert at the west yhet prewaly
Have the core furth in a myst
Or mony of hyr endying wyst;
And wyth that body thai past syne
But ony lat til Dwnfermelyne.
Before the Rwde Awtaro wyth honoure
She was laid in Haly Sepulture."
—Wynton's _Oryg. Cron. of Scot._, vol. ii. pp. 271-2.

But now the question naturally arises, what was the exact place of Ethelred in the family of Malcolm Canmore? Was he second, third, or youngest son? John of Fordun, who wrote in the fourteenth century, places Ethelred _third_ in the list of Malcolm's sons (_Skenes Fordun_, vol. i. p. 214), and says, referring to the time when Edgar ascended the throne of Scotland, that Malcolm's three elder sons, among whom was Ethelred, were not then living, and that (vol. i. p. 223) "he finds nothing written where Ethelred died or was buried, except that some assert he was buried in St Andrews Church at Kilrimont" (St Andrews). Sir James Balfour, Lord Lyon King of Arms in Scotland to Charles I. and Charles II., says of Ethelred (_Historical Works_, vol. i. p. 2):—"This year also (1093) died the _second_ son of K. Malcolm, Ethelred, Earle of Fyffe, and was interred in the Old Church of St Andrews in Kilrimont, because he was a great benefactor to that _Monastery_." Lord Hailes (Sir David Dalrymple), in his _Annals of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 49, places Ethelred second in the list of Malcolm's sons, although in a note (page 50), accounting for the names of the children, he places him _third_. Mr E. W. Robertson in his _Scotland under her Early Kings_, vol. i. p. 151, classifies Ethelred as _second_ among the sons of Malcolm and Margaret, giving him his titles of Abbot of Dunkeld and Earl of Fife, and in a note at page 124 of the same volume, he sets down, as already mentioned, the Maeduff, Earl of Fife, of the fabulists, as a _myth_, whilst at page 156 he acknowledges that it was Ethelred who removed the lifeless body of his mother from Edinburgh Castle to her last resting-place in the Church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline.(1-110) Then, again, Henderson, in his _Annals of Dunfermline_, page 20, classifies Ethelred as the _youngest_ son of Malcolm and Margaret, and at page 37 he states that Ethelred seems to have died about the year 1117 (!) in England while on a visit to his sister Matilda, Queen of England. The same annalist, who at page 38 of his work declares that "Ethelrede was married," and "had at least three sons named Edwy, Alfred, and Edward," confounds the son of Malcolm with a king of England of the same name, and an ancestor of his mother's; and the same writer who, as above mentioned, had said that Ethelred died in the year 1117, at page 720 of his work, inconsistently indicates that Ethelred was buried at Dunfermline about 1096.(1-111) This last statement, however, is probably not far from the truth.

Mr Tytler's _History of Scotland_ does not go back to the period when Ethelred lived, for it commences with the reign of Alexander III. Mr Skene(2-111) says little of Ethelred, and indicates that he is not heard of more after his brother Edgar ascended the throne of Scotland, whilst Mr Hill Burton, the latest of Scottish historians, does not seem to notice Ethelred at all.

It is necessary, therefore, in the interests of truth and accuracy, to correct as far as possible these and probably other conflicting statements, and to indicate what seem to be the facts concerning the place which this young and interesting Scottish prince occupied in the family of Malcolm (III.) Canmore.

There can be no doubt that Malcolm and Margaret had six sons and two daughters as a result of their marriage. The eldest, Edward, who according to the _Saxon Chronicle_ (p. 199), and Simeon of Durham (p. 218), fell dead on the battlefield on the 13th November 1093, in the twenty-second year of his age, in that battle on the Alne in Northumberland, where the King, his father, was slain, although, according to Fordun (iv. c. 25), he was mortally wounded in the retreat of the Scottish army on that occasion, and died at Edward-Isle in the forest of Jedwood (Jedburgh), on the 15th November 1093, and was buried at Dunfermline before the altar in the Church of the Holy Trinity there. Another son, Edmund, is said to have died as a penitent recluse at Montague, a Clugniac Priory in Somersetshire in England, whither he had gone in disgrace for the part he is supposed to have taken in the so-called usurpation of Donald Bane, his father's brother.(1-112) The other sons were Ethelred, Earl of Fife and Abbot of Dunkeld, Edgar, Alexander, and David, the last three of whom occupied in succession the Scottish throne. The daughters were Editha, the elder, who married Henry I., King of England, and who, out of compliment to her husband's mother, subsequently changed her name to Matilda, and whose memory was long revered by the English people as "the good Queen Maud." The other daughter, Mary, after the marriage of Matilda, became the wife of Eustace, Count of Boulogne, "by whom she left an only child, also named Matilda, the heiress of her father's earldom, which she brought as her dowry to Stephen of Blois, afterwards King of England" (Robertson, _Early Kings_, vol. i. p. 153).

Now, it will be observed that none of all the six sons of Malcolm and Margaret were named after any of the ancestors of their father, the Scottish King. None of them had Celtic or Pictish names given to them, and, indeed, from this time forth, an entirely new set of names was to appear on the roll of Scottish monarchs, indicating another of the many changes which Malcolm and Margaret introduced into the civil and ecclesiastical state of Scotland. Whether in this, as in other matters, Malcolm yielded to the powerful influence of his wife, or whether Saxon and Southern influences swayed the mind of the monarch, at all events it is the fact that none of all his children by Margaret were named after any of Scotland's ancient kings, but most of them after the names of ancestors of their illustrious and Saxon mother. Going back, then, in regular order on the ancestors of Margaret, we see a principle, evidently laid down and followed by the parents, which enables us to determine at once the exact place of Ethelred in the family of Malcolm Canmore, and to corroborate the places of the others in the same family. Edward, who was undoubtedly the eldest, was evidently named after Margaret's own father, who, in the year 1017, became an exile, first in Sweden and afterwards in Hungary, from whence he returned at the call of Edward the Confessor, with Agatha, his wife, and his three children, Edgar (Atheling), Margaret, and Christina, in 1057, and died soon afterwards.(1-113) Edmund, the second child, was evidently named after Margaret's grandfather, Edmund (II.) Ironside, who was King of England in the year 1016. And so, upon the principle already alluded to, Ethelred would come next, as third in order of the sons, and would accordingly fall to be named after Margaret's great-grandfather, Ethelred II., King of England from the year 978 to 1016, and who was nicknamed "the unready."(2-113) Edgar naturally follows as the fourth son, being named after Margaret's great-great-grandfather, Edgar, King of England, born in the year 943, and king from 959 to about 975. Here, however, the principle stops, for the fifth son, Alexander, was named, it is supposed, after Pope Alexander II. (1061-1073 A.D.), whilst David, the youngest son, it is said, had his name given him after the Royal Psalmist.

We may reasonably, therefore, come to the conclusion that Ethelred, Earl of Fife and Abbot of Dunkeld, was the _third_ son of Malcolm (III.) Canmore and his Queen, Margaret, thus agreeing with what is said by Fordun, and what is indicated by Lord Hailes, and also by Mr E. W. Robertson.

(1-105) Lord Kames, in his essay on the _Introduction of the Feudal Law into Scotland_, observes that—"It is uncontroverted that it was Malcolm Canmore who introduced the titles of Earl and Baron."

(2-105) "The 'Earl' of England was identical with the 'Comte' or 'Compte' of France, and so long as Norman French continued to be spoken in the country, the English 'Earls' were styled Counts as well in England as on the Continent. These powerful barons represented and succeeded the Saxon Thanes, who were earldormen, their own title evidently having been derived from the Earl of Scandinavia" (_Encyc. Brit._, vol. vii. p. 595).

(1-106) "Fife appears to have been the latest earldom held by the old Scottish tenure, and its earls, like the earls of Atholl—a branch of the reigning family—never appear in the ranks of the King's enemies. Indeed, they may be looked upon in early times as premier Earls of Scotland, with certain privileges attaching to their dignity, to account for which the legend of Macduff was probably framed; though it is not impossible that the earldom, with its prominent position and privileges, was granted to the _historical_ Duff or Dufagan as a reward for his assistance in restoring the sons of Malcolm to the throne" (Robertson, _Early Kings_, vol. i. p. 324). Dufagan, or Duff, Earl of Fife, is "a witness of the foundation charter of Scone, in the time of Alexander the First (1107-1124 A.D.), his immediate successors being Constantine and Gillcmichael Macdulf" (_ibid._, p. 124). There is a Duncan who is Earl of Fife in the reign of David (1124-1153 A.D.) (_ibid._, 226), and an Earl Malcolm of Fife during the reign of William the Lion (1165-1214 A.D.) (_ibid._, p. 427 and 430), and the title was still in existence in the reign of Alexander III. (1249-1286 A.D.) (_ibid._, vol. ii. p. 66). Duff, or Dufagan, is both an ancient and honourable Scottish name. There was a Duff, son of Malcolm I., King of Scotland, who occupied the throne of that country from 962-967. A.D. The present family of Duff, however, now united through its chief—the Duke of Fife—with the Royal Family of Great Britain, does not seem to trace its lineage further back than 1404, whilst the former title of Earl of Fife appears only to have been acquired in the year 1759.

(1-108) Innes, Ap. 3. An Abbot was not at this time (943 A.D. ) strictly an ecclesiastical dignitary. The office appears to have been held by the next in consideration to the head of the family in whose province or kingdom the monastery was situated.

(2-108) There were three Constantines among the ancient kings of this country. First, Constantine, a _Pictish_ king, who reigned from 789 to 820 A.D. Then Constantine I., who reigned from 863-867 A.D. over what became the kingdom of Scotland in 843. Then Constantine II., who reigned from 900-943 A.D.

(1-109) Mr Skene (_Celtic Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 62) explains the circumstance of two Earls of Fife being mentioned in this deed, by supposing that Ethelred was Earl of Fothrif and Constantine Earl of Fyfe, the two divisions of ancient Fife.

(2-108) The witnesses here mentioned, in addition to Constantine and Nesse, seem to consist of two secular priests, and three out of a body of Keledei who are named, two of whom are priests, and the lector, Ferleighin, or man of learning of the Irish and Celtic churches.

(1-110) In Appendix A, vol. ii. p. 186, Mr Robertson places Ethelred _third_ in the list of Malcolm's sons.

(1-111) "Before this altar (the Holy Cross Altar), the remains of St Margaret were interred, and near to it one of her sons (Ethelrede), whose remains were discovered in 1847, when the flooring of the Auld Kirk was being levelled and repaired" (Henderson, _Annals of Dunfermline_, p. 761).

(2-111) _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 370.

(1-112) Duncan II., who lived for a considerable time at the English Court after the death of William the Conqueror, and who reigned over Scotland for a short time in the year 1094, was the son of Malcolm (III.) Canmore by Ingebiorge, widow of Thorfin Sigurdson, and he (Duncan) was treacherously slaughtered at Monachedin on the banks of the Bervio, where a rude stone is said to mark the supposed place of his death (Robertson, _Early Kings_, vol. i. p. 158). Lord Hailes (_Annals_, vol. i. p. 53) states that Duncan was assassinated by Malpedir, Earl of Mernes, or rather Malpeter Machoen, Mormaor of Maerne.

(1-113) It is said that Margaret's father, Edward, and his brother, Edmund, were sent as infants to Stephen, King of Hungary, in the year 1017, where Edmund died in youth; and therefore, since Edward returned in the year 1057, he must have lived for forty years in Hungary, where, no doubt, he would be married, and where Margaret, Queen of Scotland, would be born and brought up. This seems to indicate that Margaret, although a Saxon by race, was yet a Hungarian by birth, and that she must have seen and known little of England and its people.

(2-113) There were several monarchs among the ancient kings of England named Ethelred. First, the son of Rollo, King of Northumbria, 774-778 and 790-793 A.D.; Ethelred, King of East Anglia, 749-757 A.D.; and another Ethelred, from 761-789 A.D.; whilst ruling over the united Saxon kingdom there was, in 866, an Ethelred (I.), brother of Alfred the Great, and In 978 Ethelred (II.), "the unready." [Ref: _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Session 1891-1892, Vol. XXVI, 112th Session vol. ii, 3rd Series, Edinburgh 1892, pp. 104-113]

https://books.google.com/books?id=Y-Q-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA104&lpg...

Let's review the succession wars, shall we?

Malcolm III *and* his designated heir Edward are killed at Alnwick in November 1093.
Malcolm's brother Donald Bane gets himself declared king, November 1093.
Duncan (II), *actual* oldest son of Malcolm III, kicks "Donald III" off the throne, 1094. But he gets himself killed a few months later.
Donald III makes a comeback as co-ruler with Malcolm's second(?) son Edmund, 1094-97.
Edgar Atheling (brother of Queen Margaret) invades Scotland and puts his nephew Edgar - *not* Ethelred - on the throne, 1097 (Edgar put in his claim in early 1095 but needed military force to make it good). Donald and Edmund were deposed, Donald was blinded and imprisoned, and Edmund was carted off south and forced into a monastery.

Edgar was not the next in line by primogeniture - that would have been Duncan's son William. Ethelred theoretically came next, but was for some reason discounted (unless he *was* dead by this time - but then what of that charter?). So it was "Game of Thrones" in real life.

Are the profiles for all of these people in the correct places on the tree atthe mo, Maven?

I think we're going to have to accept that while there are Geni managers who feel the Ethelred = Earl of Fife option is possible, and is bolstered by that doc; then we must accept that there is insufficient hard data to disprove the possibility, and they have a right to keep it that way.
Ergo - on Geni he must remain Earl of Fife.

I found your "Cairney", Justin. He's Dr. Christopher Cairney, Assistant Chair, Department of English, Middle Georgia State University, Macon, GA, USA. Publications include:
(1999) Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland, an Ethnography of the Gael, 550-1750. Westminster MD: Willow Bend Books (Originally published by McFarland and Co., London).
University webpage and contact info: http://www.mga.edu/directory/people.aspx?pers=83&persName=Cairn...
Personal webpage: http://www.cairneys.org/

Regarding the "Book of Deer" (which I mentioned several times), Wikipedia describes it thusly: The Book of Deer (Leabhar Dhèir in Gaelic) (Cambridge University Library, MS. Ii.6.32) is a 10th-century Latin Gospel Book with early 12th-century additions in Latin, Old Irish and Scottish Gaelic. It is noted for containing the earliest surviving Gaelic writing from Scotland.
The origin of the book is uncertain, but it is reasonable to assume that the manuscript was at Deer, Aberdeenshire, Scotland when the marginalia were made. [snip]
There are seven Scottish Gaelic texts written in blank spaces surrounding the main items. These marginalia include an account of the founding of the monastery at Deer by St Columba and St Drostan, records of five land grants to the monastery, and a record of an immunity from payment of certain dues granted to the monastery. There is also a copy of a Latin deed granted to the monastery by David I of Scotland protecting the monastery from "all lay service and improper exaction." The Gaelic texts were written by as many as five different hands. These represent the earliest surviving use of Gaelic in Scotland and are important for the light they shed on the development of Gaelic in Scotland. [snip]
Provenance[edit]
The manuscript derives its name from the monastery of Deer, mentioned in the Gaelic texts and the Latin Charter of King David I. Unfortunately, the foundation at Deer has left no other trace of its existence, although a Cistercian monastery, founded nearby in 1219, owned some of the lands mentioned in the Gaelic texts. The manuscript came to Cambridge University Library in 1715 when the collection of John Moore, Bishop of Ely, was purchased by King George I and presented to the University. Prior to this is it is likely that the book was in the possession of Thomas Gale, the headmaster of St Paul's School, London.[1] It is not known how the manuscript came to be in the library of Bishop Moore, but some suspect it may have been looted during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the late 13th century to early 14th century.

Lawrie knew about it and quoted the (translated) marginalia at the start of "Early Scottish Charters" - with annotations in the back of the book. (See below.)

The marginalia can also be found (in a different translation) at the CELT project: http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G102007/

Edition history (from above):

Manuscript sources
Cambridge University Library, MS. I.i.6.32, a small octavo of 43 folios.

Editions
Whitley Stokes, Godilica, or Notes on the Gaelic Manuscripts preserved at Turin, etc. Calcutta 1866, 47–63. Introduction, texts, translations, linguistic discussion and glossarial index.

Cosmo Innes, Facsimiles of the National Library of Scotland, 1, Southampthon 1867, nos. 1 and 18. Discussions, texts, translations and facsimiles; some readings/translations incorrect.

J. Stuart, The Book of Deer, Edinburgh, The Spalding Club, 1869, clxix =95 pp. and 22 plates. Discussion of entire MS, with edition of the entire Latin Gospel texts and Gaelic notes, with translation and facsimilies of the illuminated pages, the Gaelic texts, and some of the Gospels. Introduction. Translations taken from Stokes, with a few minor modifications.

Whitley Stokes, Godelica; Old and Early Middle Irish Glosses, Prose, and Verse, London 1872, pp. 106–121, a reprint of No. 1, with small changes.

Alexander MacBain, 'The Book of Deer', Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 11 (1885) 137–166. Introduction, texts and literal translations, historical and linguistic notes, glossary-index. A number of improvements on Stokes' texts (contractions italicised) and translations, some deteriorations and a few misprints.

Translations
Saturday Review, 8 December 1860, 734f. with commentary and the Latin text of no.VII (David I's Charter) but not the Gaelic texts. Unsigned. Probably written by Whitley Stokes.

A. O Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500–1286, II (Edinburgh 1922) 174–83. Fresh translations, with valuable historial notes. A few mistranslations, and the treatment of a number of names is still unsatisfactory.

Articles and other secondary literature
Cosmo Innes, Scotland in the Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1860) pp. 321–325. This postscript to the book mentions the discovery of the MS and contains a translation of text no. 1 and of one or two other sentences. Some names are misread, some translations are inaccurate;the source of the translations is not stated.

John Strachan, The Study of Scottish Gaelic, in: Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness 19 (1893), 13ff. Edition and discussion of part no. 1, pp. 15–20.

Joseph Robertson, Illustrations of the Topography and Antiquities of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, IV, 545–550 (Aberdeen, the Spalding Club, vol. 32, 1862). Reprint of Stokes' translation, 'with a few verbal alterations', and the text of no. VII.

T. O. Russell, 'The Book of Dier', in: Celtica 1 (March 1901), 43f. Texts based on Stokes, containing a number of extra errors or misprints, and inaccurate translations.

R. S. Kemp, 'The Book of Deer', in: Transactions of the Scottish Ecclesiological Society 8 (1925), 164ff. Discussion, but not texts/translations.

Donald Mackay, 'New Light on the Book of Deer', in: Scotish Gaelic Studies 5 (1938), 50. A brief note on an early reference to the MS.

J. Fraser, 'The Gaelic Notitiae in the Book of Deer', in: Scottish Gaelic Studies 5 (1938), 51–66. Texts from photostats of the originals; translation and some valuable textual and linguistic notes. The translations are the best yet published. In the texts there are some curious misreadings or misprints, chiefly where no-one has misread the MS before.

Kenneth Jackson, 'Some remarks on the Gaelic Notitiae in the Book of Deer', in: Ériu 16 (1952), 86–98. Notes on the spelling, language, and date.

A. Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters prior to 1153 (Glasgow, 1905), nos. 1, 95, 97, 107, 223, and pp. 219ff., 337ff., 346ff., 424ff. Translations (sometimes incorrect, with misreadings of some names), and notes.

W. J. Watson, Rosg Gà;idhlig (2nd ed., Glasgow, 1929), pp. 184–92 and 249–251; texts (including no. VII), translations into Scottish Gaelic, a few notes, and facsimiles of fos. 3a and 3b. The texts were the best so far, but include some errors.

J. F. Tocher (ed), The Book of Buchan (Peterhead, The Buchan Club, 1910), pp. 106–114. Text and tranlsations from J. Stuart; facsimile of fo. 3a; some commentary.

G.W. S. Barrow, in: Scottish Studies 6 131ff. Discusses land-holding units like 'dabhach'.

The edition used in the digital edition
The Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer (The Osborn Bergin Memorial Lecture 1970). Kenneth Jackson (ed), First edition Cambridge University Press Cambridge [UK] (1972)

Let's see, profiles. This whole megillah started with the merging of two profiles for Malcolm III, 'Canmore', King of Scots.

Brother Donald Ban aka "Donalbain": Donald III "Bane", King of Scots

Wife #1: Ingibjörg Finnsdóttir
Son 1: Duncan II, King of Scots
Son 2: Malcolm mac Malcolm
Son 3: Donald mac Malcolm

Wife #2: Saint Margaret, Queen of Scots

Edward was the first son and designated heir, there is NO doubt about that, and he cannot have been born before c. 1070 at the earliest. Edward mac Máel Coluim

Edmund was probably second (some think he was junior twin to Edward), since Donald Bane picked him for a co-ruler on his second round: Edmund mac Máel Coluim, Prince of Cumbria

Ethelred HAS to be a son of Queen Margaret, as no one else north of the Tweed would have called *any* son after an Anglo-Saxon king, period end of sentence, which means he HAS to come after Edmund. Whether he comes before or after Edgar is a judgment call, but he's no later than fourth son of Margaret. And "After 1065" *will not do* - please make it "after 1070". Ethelred, Lay Abbot of Dunkeld

Edgar the Atheling (I edited out some gross errors): http://www.geni.com/profile/edit_basics/6000000000441407153

William FitzDuncan: William fitz Duncan, Mórmaer of Moray (I think that birth date is a Bad Guess, as he was an adult by c. 1107. But he might have been sub-adult and therefore a poor bet in 1095-97. (And anyway, Edgar spoke up first.)

> I found your "Cairney", Justin.

Thanks! My guess was that he'd be a professor, just from the tone of the book and the academic publisher. My guesses were anthropology, sociology, and English. I was very surprised not to find a "C. Thomas Cairney", so decided he must be retired or chose a different career.

https://www.geni.com/projects/Earls-of-Fife/30347