The Good, the Bad and the Unready Read Online Free PDF Page A

this was clearly not so when his wife was around.
    Malcolm’s second love, as with most kings of the time, was fighting, and during his reign he led no fewer than five invasions into the northern part of England. In one of these expeditions it was said that ‘old men and women were slaughtered like swine for a banquet.’ After comparatively timid military responses from the English monarchs Edward the CONFESSOR and Harold the LAST OF THE SAXONS , Malcolm faced much tougher opponents in William the CONQUEROR and William RUFUS , to whom he eventually ceded Cumberland and by whose forces he was ultimately ambushed and killed. It has been suggested that Malcolm was nicknamed ‘Canmore’ because he was a ‘great chief. This appears not to have been the case all the time.
    Little if any research has been conducted on whether the nickname actually refers to a physical attribute rather than a character trait – it could be that Malcolm simply had a really big head.
    Fulk the Black see COLOURFUL CHARACTES
    Halfdan the Black see COLOURFUL CHARACTES
      Black Agnes
    Agnes, countess of Dunbar and March, c.1312–69
    In 1338 Edward the BANKRUPT sent William Montague, the earl of Salisbury, to capture Dunbar Castle in East Lothian. It looked to be a comparatively simple task since the earl of Dunbar was away, fighting an English army in the north. But Edward and Salisbury had not anticipated the heroic spirit of the countess, whom the English later dubbed ‘Black Agnes’ for her complexion, hair colour and defiance.
    For nineteen weeks Salisbury attacked, and for nineteen demoralizing weeks he was repulsed. In her stout defence of the castle Agnes employed the tactic of mockery. She had her kitchen staff, for example, visibly ‘dust’ the ramparts with handkerchiefs after every bombardment, and on one occasion she sent Salisbury a fresh loaf of bread and a bottle of wine as a commentary on his attempts to starve her into submission.
    A particularly low point for the English must have been when Salisbury menacingly wheeled an arch-roofed war-engine called a ‘testudo’ towards the walls. The testudo, itself nicknamed ‘the Sow’, was the pride and joy of Salisbury’s men and had seen much success in earlier sieges. But in Agnes the Sow found its match. The countess quickly ordered her colleagues to heave a massive rock from the ramparts on to the battering ram below, and smashed it into kindling. As those manning the war-engine ran for their lives, she is recorded as shouting gleefully, ‘Behold the litter of English pigs.’
    Salisbury eventually slunk away admitting defeat, cursing the countess’s constant vigilance and complaining that:
    She kept a stir in tower and trench,
That brawling, boisterous Scottish wench,
Came I early, came I late
I found Agnes at the gate.
      Charles the Black Boy see Charles the MERRY MONARCH
    James the Black Douglas
    James Douglas, Scottish nobleman, 1286–1330
    James Douglas, who was also known as ‘the Good Sir James’, supported and served Robert the BRUCE , both before and after Robert gained the Scottish throne. James’s exploits, particularly in cross-border warfare, earned him considerable territory in the Border region as well as the nickname ‘the Black Douglas’, attributed to him both for his dark colouring and for his ruthlessness in battle. Such was his reputation for mercilessness that women in the northern counties would discipline their children by warning that ‘the Black Douglas’ would come and get them if they did not behave. There are suggestions – sadly groundless – that his epithet actually stems from a military trick he employed to capture Roxburgh Castle in 1314, when he disguised his troops as black cows.
    Edward the Black Prince
    Edward, prince of Wales, 1330–76
    Edward’s contemporaries knew him as either ‘Edward IV, anticipating incorrectly his succession to the throne, or ‘Edward of Woodstock’ after his place of birth. The title ‘the