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The House Of Dunkeld |
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Edgar
1097-1107
King Edgar of Scotland was the second son of Malcolm Canmore and St.Margaret. He had been born around 1074 and given a Saxon name in honour of Margaret's brother, Edgar Atheling, the Saxon candidate for the English throne. William Rufus, the King of England, had confiscated Edgar's English lands in 1091, to which his father, Malcolm III had reacted by raiding the north of England.
Known to the Scots as Etgair mac Mael Cholium, on the death of his father and the usurpation of his uncle Donald Bane, Edgar had fled south to the relative safety of the English court. With the aid of William Rufus, Edgar lead an army into Scotland in 1097, dethroning his uncle. He bears the distinction of being the first King of Scotland to be of mixed Gaelic and Anglo-Saxon blood.
During Edgar's reign many Normans were to settle in southern Scotland. They brought Norman feudalism with them as well as the system of primogeniture which replaced the traditional Scots pattern of inheritance. Edgar abandoned Dunfermline and made Edinburgh Castle his base.
In common with all the sons of St. Margaret, Edgar was highly pious, had been brought up religiously and was a generous benefactor of the church. St. Aelred of Rievaulx spoke highly of him, even comparing him to Edward the Confessor.
The marriage of the King's sister, Edith, to Henry I, cemented peace with England. Edgar himself never married and had no issue, prior to his death, he divided his realm between his brothers. The eldest of these, Alexander, was to inherit the throne while his younger brother David was to receive Lothian and Strathclyde.
King Edgar died on 8th January, 1107, at Edinburgh Castle and was buried at Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, which was to become the mausoleum of Scotland's Kings. He was succeeded by his brother Alexander I.