Leaving his queen in the then solitary Castle,
Grime (who, according to Buchanan, began his
reign in the year 996) often pursued the pleasures
of the chase among the wilds of Polmood, in the
probably a remnant of Edwin's departed power,
and from this period begins the authentic history
of Edinburgh and its castle, as from that
time it continued to be almost permanently the
Bertha, her aged father, and infant son, and, burying
them in one grave, heaped above it a rough
tumulus, which still marks the spot.
Full of remorse and fear, the queen died before
the return of Grime, who, after defeating the
Danes, and destroying their galleys, hastened to
this invests the solemn event with a peculiar charm.
The grand-niece of Edward the Confessor, she
had fled from her own country on the usurpation of
Harold, but was wrecked on the Forth, at the place
still called Queensferry. She and her retinue
were hospitably entertained by Malcolm III., who
successor, was deserted in battle by his warriors,
taken captive, and, after having his eyes put out,
died in grief and misery in the eighth year of his
reign.
He was succeeded, in 1004, by Maicolm II.,
who had Lothian formally ceded to him by Eadulf-
Cudel, Earl of Northumberland, who had pre-
Viously exercised some right of vassalage over it,
wife, of Malcolm, in the lines spoken hy Macduff,
Macbeth, Act iv., scene 3 :-
" The queen that bore thee,
Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,
Died every day she lived."
In 1091 William Rufus made war on Scotland,
and, taking the castle of Alnwick by surprise,
wantonly put its garrison to the sword. Malcolm.
coat of arms
