and the marriage of Malcolm III, known as Canmore, to Margaret, the sister of Edgar the AEtheling, gave her husband an excuse for interference in England.  We, accordingly, find a long series of raids over the border, of which only five possess any importance.  In 1069-70, Malcolm (who had, even in the Confessor’s time, been in Northumberland with hostile intent) conducted an invasion in the interests of his brother-in-law.  It is probable that this movement was intended to coincide with the arrival of the Danish fleet a few months earlier.  But Malcolm was too late; the Danes had gone home, and, in the interval, William had himself superintended the great harrying of the North which made Malcolm’s subsequent efforts somewhat unnecessary.  The invasion is important only as having provoked the counter-attack of the Conqueror, which led to the renewal of the supremacy controversy.  William marched into Scotland and crossed the Forth (the first English king to do so since the unfortunate Egfrith, who fell at Nectansmere in 685).  At Abernethy, on the banks of the Tay, Malcolm and William met, and the English Chronicle, as usual, informs us that the King of Scots became the “man” of the English king.  But as Malcolm received from William twelve villae in England, it is, at least, doubtful whether Malcolm paid homage for these alone or also for Lothian and Cumbria, or for either of them.  There is, at all events, no question about the villae.  Scottish historians have not failed to point out that the value of the homage, for whatever it was given, is sufficiently indicated by Malcolm’s dealings with Gospatric of Northumberland, whom William dismissed as a traitor and rebel.  Within about six months of the Abernethy meeting, Malcolm gave Gospatric the earldom of Dunbar, and he became the founder of the great house of March.  No further invasion took place till 1079, when Malcolm took advantage of William’s Norman difficulties to make another harrying expedition, which afforded the occasion for the building of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  The accession of Rufus and his difficulties with Robert of Normandy led, in 1091, to a somewhat belated attempt by Malcolm to support the claims of the AEtheling by a third invasion, and, in the following year, peace was made.  Rufus confirmed to Malcolm the grant of twelve villae, and Malcolm in turn gave the English king such homage as he had given to his father.  What this vague statement meant, it was reserved for the Bruce to determine, and the Bruces had, as yet, not one foot of Scottish soil.  The agreement made in 1092 did not prevent Rufus from completing his father’s work by the conquest of Cumberland, to which the Scots had claims.  Malcolm’s indignation and William’s illness led to a famous meeting at Gloucester, whence Malcolm withdrew in great wrath, declining to be treated as a vassal of England.  The customary invasion followed, with the result that Malcolm was slain at Alnwick in November, 1093.