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176 Gaelic Society of Inuerness.
becamo acquaintod witli liiin, and in graphic style painted his
charactor for future ages. M'Heth's sons were associated in all
his undcM-takings with their great uncle Somerled, until he was
killed at Jlenfrew in llG-i. They apjmrently settled, married and
brought uj) heirs to the ancestral hate in Argyleshire, while
TIarald, Earl of Orkney, put away Afreka, daughter of Duncan,
Earl of Fife, liis first wife, in order to marry their sister. The
M'lleths only claimed at the utmost the Earldom of Moray,
but another claimant appeared on the .scene about 1180, who
claimed the throne of Scotland. This was Donald Ban, who called
himself the son of William, son of Duncan, that so-called Jilius
nothus (bastard son) of Malcolm Ceainimoi'e, who reigned as king
for a few months. Contemporary authorities never hint King
Duncan was illegitimate—that was a tiction invented in after times
l)y monkish chroniclers devoted to the descendants of St Margaret,
who usurped the rights of the elder liranch of Ceannmore's house.
Malcolm Ceannmore was undoubtedly married, several years before
he ever saw the Saxon Margaret, to Ingibiorg, widow of his cousin,
Earl Thortinn, and there is no good reason for doubting that by
her he became the father of Duncan, and also of a fair-haired Donald,
who died in early youth. Duncan at his death left an umloubtedly
legitimate son, called in Gaelic Uilleam Mac Dhonnacliaidh, and
in Noi-man William Fitz Duncan. William was a young lad when
his father died, and was jjrobably then a hostage at the English
Court. He became, when well advanced in yeai's, the husband of
Alicia Rumile, the Norman heiress of the strong castle, and great
lordship of Skipton in Craven. They had one son, the Boy of
Egremont, who wa.s drowned in the Strid. Craven history tells
nothing about Willian\ Fitz Duncan before he became Lord of
Skipton. His father, King Duncan, was killed in 1094, and it was
not till thirty-six years after that date that William married the
Norman heiress. 'Jliere is strong reason to believe that he lived
in his native land, while his uncle, Alexander the Fierce, filled the
throne of Gaelic Scotland. All things considered, it is very probable
that William Fitz Duncan had a wife and children before he
married the Lady of Skipton, when both he and she were no
longer very young. Be that as it may, after William the Lyon
had done homage to Ifenry Plantagenet for all liis realm, the
claimant, Duncan Ban Mac William, was accei)ted by the Gaelic
people of the North, and of Argyle and the islands, as the true
heir to the Albanic throne, and he reigned as actual ruler on this
side of the Grampians for .seven years, before King William, by a
mighty eilbrt and help from the Normans of England, managed to