Fergus of Galloway's revolt against Malcolm IV, 1160
Who Fought
Malcolm IV of Scotland commanded three separate military expeditions into Galloway. No further detail on numbers or composition is given in the sources.
History & Significance
Malcolm IV (Medieval Gaelic: Máel Coluim mac Eanric; Scottish Gaelic: Maol Chaluim mac Eanraig), nicknamed Virgo, "the Maiden" (between 23 April and 24 May 1141 – 9 December 1165) was King of Scotland from 1153 until his death. He was the eldest son of Henry, Earl of Huntingdon and Northumbria (died 1152) and Ada de Warenne. The original Malcolm Canmore, a name now associated with his great-grandfather Malcolm III (Máel Coluim mac Donnchada), he succeeded his grandfather David I, and shared David's Anglo-Norman tastes.
Called Malcolm the Maiden by later chroniclers, a name which may incorrectly suggest weakness or effeminacy to modern readers, he was noted for his religious zeal and interest in knighthood and warfare. For much of his reign, he was in poor health and died unmarried at the age of twenty-four.
Earl Henry, son and heir of King David I of Scotland, had been in poor health throughout the 1140s. He died suddenly on 12 June 1152. His death occurred in either Newcastle or Roxburgh, both located in those areas of Northumbria which he and his father had attached to the Scots crown in the period of English weakness after the death of Henry I of England. Unlike in the case of the English king, who had been left without male heirs after the death of his only legitimate son in the shipwreck of the White Ship, the King of Scots, David I, did not lack for immediate heirs upon the death of Earl Henry. This was because Earl Henry had left behind three sons to carry forward the lineage of his father.
Malcolm, the eldest of Earl Henry's sons, was only eleven years old when he became heir apparent. Nonetheless, he was sent by his grandfather on a circuit of the kingdom, accompanied by Donnchad, Mormaer of Fife, and a large army. Donnchad had been styled rector, perhaps indicating that he was to hold the regency for Malcolm on David's death. These preparations were timely, because King David survived his son by less than a year, dying on 24 May 1153 at Carlisle. Malcolm was inaugurated as king on 27 May 1153 at Scone at age twelve. Donnchad, who duly became regent for the young Malcolm, ensured that the inauguration took place before the old king was even buried. This might appear unseemly, but there was good reason for the haste. Malcolm was not without rivals for the kingship. Donnchad himself died a year later, in 1154.
The Orkneyinga Saga claims "William the Noble", son of William fitz Duncan, was the man whom "every Scotsman wanted for his king". As William fitz Duncan married Alice de Rumilly c.1137, young William could only have been a youth, perhaps a child, by 1153. There is no evidence to suggest that William ever made any claims to the throne, and he died young, in the early 1160s, leaving his sizable estates to his three sisters. Of William Fitz Duncan's other sons, Bishop Wimund had already been blinded, emasculated and imprisoned at Byland Abbey before King David's death, but Domnall mac Uilleim, first of the Meic Uilleim, had considerable support in the Province of Moray. Another contender, imprisoned at Roxburgh since about 1130, was Máel Coluim mac Alaxandair, an illegitimate son of Alexander I. Máel Coluim's sons were free men in 1153. They could be expected to contest the succession and did so.
The ground they fought on
The site of Fergus of Galloway's revolt against Malcolm IV, 1160 lies on Unnamed Igneous Intrusion, Late Silurian To Early Devonian, bedrock that formed in the Early Devonian. The rock here is felsic-rock.
Roger of Hoveden records that Malcolm IV, freshly returned from the siege of Toulouse where he had at last been knighted, faced revolt at Perth and then conducted three military campaigns into Galloway in 1160, ultimately forcing Fergus, Lord of Galloway, to abandon his lordship and retire to the abbey of Holyrood, where he died the following year.
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