Donald II, the Wise, MacDrostan
Lived: 876-936
Head of House MacDrostan: 887-936
Earl of Fife: 887-894
Earl of Lothian and Dunbar: 889-894
Earl of Strathearn: 892-894
Duke of Lothian: 894-903
Cupbearer of Scotland: 892-900
Jarl of Lothian: 903-914
Jarl of Albany: 906-914
Chancellor of Norway: 904-914
Hirdman of Norway: 906-914
Petty King of Lothian and Albany: 914-916
King of Scotland: 916-936
Donald MacDrostan is one of the most incredible figures of his era. 10th century chroniclers would dub him ‘the Wise’, partly as a barb at his duplicitousness and partly in praise of the apparent soundness of his judgement. Playing a greater role than any other single figure in the grand struggle between the native nobility and the Norse for control of Scotland, and indeed between the Houses of MacAilpin and MacDrostan, Donald served under four different monarchs from two dynastic regimes before emerging as master of Scotland himself. The founder of the Scotland of the MacDrostans, when he received his pitiful inheritance of Fife in 887 he was still a child.
Upon Donald’s father’s death, the peoples of the British Isles were involved in a tremendous struggle between the Norse Kingdoms that had been founded by the Great Heathen Army two decades before and the Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Christian realms. However, fortunately for the future fortunes of the MacDrostans, Donald’s uncle and regent – Murdoch – had no interest in grand narratives of struggle between the Pagans and Christians. His motivations were far more earthily. As Constantine’s army marched southward into Jorvik following Kenneth’s death, Murdoch sought to firmly establish MacDrostan power over the fertile lands between the Firth of Forth and the Southern Uplands. Establishing a string of forts stretching from Berwick to Stirling whilst the King’s eyes were focussed elsewhere he ensured that it would take an almighty struggle to eject the MacDrostans the region.
Peace finally came to Britain in 890. Whilst Murdoch was securing the Lothians, armies of Scotland, Mercia and latterly Wessex won a string of crushing victories over the Norse. With the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms dividing East Anglia amongst themselves, and the King of Scotland securing Galloway, the war was eventually brought to an end outside York, or Jorvik as the Norse had retitled it. With the Scots ravaging the North of the Viking Kingdom and the Mercians besieging its capital, the Kings of Jorvik and Suðreyjar met with the Archbishop of Cantebury – Cuthbert. In exchange for peace, the two Kings agreed to convert to Christianity and attempt to bring all their fellow Norsemen into the light. For many, it seemed the crisis of the 9th century was at an end.
In Scotland, the end of the war with the Norse was followed a resumption of conflict domestically. The MacDrostan’s seizure of the lands around the Forth had caused a great deal of anger and jealously amongst Scotland’s nobility. With demands that the new territories be divided amongst those who had fought against the Norse the Earls of Strathearn, Athol, Buchan and Ross went to war against the MacDrostans. The conflict lasted until 892 when the successes of the MacDrostans on the field of battle forced King Constantine to interevene and enforce a truce for fear that the MacDrostans might overwhelm the Kingdom. The Earldom of Strathearn was passed over to Donald.
As Donald finally came to replace his uncle at the head of his realm in 894, at the age of 18, he forged an alliance with the King that brought an end to a decade and a half of feuding between the monarchy and the MacDrostans. In exchange for his support, Donald was made the royal Cupbearer and, more importantly, Duke of Lothian giving him a rank second only to the King. Following his appointment as Duke, Donald established his own capital at Stirling – establishing a centre of power that would grow to rival Scone within a short period of time.
The instability suffered by the Norse Kingdoms following the adoption of Christianity by their rulers was far more extreme than that suffered in Scotland at the beginning of the 890s. Taking advantage of this instability, form 894 until Constantine’s death in 898 the scots greatly expanded their Kingdom, with the King of the Isles being expelled from the British mainland the Scots even secured Durham from Jorvik whilst Donald won new lands for his own domain. This was the pinnacle of MacAilpin Scotland. Within a remarkably short period, following Constantine’s death and the ascension his son Gilchrist, MacAilpin power would unravel.
Turning against the spirit of compromise his father had come to accept in the years after his death to Kenneth in the 880s, Gilchrist quickly move to consolidate the crown’s power at the expense of the nobility. The almost inevitably result of this policy was a widespread noble revolt spearheaded by Donald. With the support of the strong majority of nobles, Donald felt secure in victory – forcing Gilchrist to flee from Scone to the West Coast of Scotland. However, Gilchrist’s family connections in Ireland, and a healthy treasury, allowed him to call upon a large army of allied and mercenary Irish soldiers who made short work of the Scottish rebels. By the summer of 900 Donald had been imprisoned by the King in his Palace at Scone.
With the country still recovering from the Civil War the great Viking warlord Harold Fairhair landed with an army five thousand strong at the mouth of the River Dee in the Earldom of Buchan during the spring of 901. Initially making swift progress he marched South-West on the Scottish capital of Scone. There he suffered a stinging defeat – escaping utter oblivion only by evacuating his forces across the Tay into Fife.
In the confusion that gripped Scone in the face of Harold’s advance towards the capital, Donald made an ill-fated attempt to escape the King’s custody – perhaps to raise the flag of rebellion in collaboration with the invaders, perhaps simply to take advantage of the opportunity to return to his own lands. Regardless of his reasoning, Donald’s escape attempt failed and he found himself removed from his comfortable ‘imprisonment’ and thrown into the King’s dungeons. When Harold was defeated near Scone it seemed that Donald’s days were numbered.
Both Donald’s life and Harold Fairhair’s invasion were to be saved by the arrival of some 3,000 warriors from Norway in December 901. Having been forced to flee into Fife, Harold had based his army around the natural harbours of St Andrews as he awaited reinforcements. Unaware that new troops were en-route from Norway, Gilchrist patiently waited for the arrival of allied war bands from Ireland before striking towards Harold. By then it was too late. The reinforced Viking army crushed Gilchrist at the Battle of St Andrews – forcing him to flee into the Scottish interior and opening the country to his advance. Later that year Donald was freed from Gilchrist’s dungeons by the Norse, and in return for his allegiance to the war effort against his King he was allowed to retain his lands. Donald’s betrayal of his countrymen in their time of need would forever be identified as the ‘original sin’ of the MacDrostan dynasty – a stain that could never be wholly removed.
The war eventually reached its conclusion in mid-903 when the few unconquered Earls of the extreme North-West of the Kingdom abandoned Gilchrist and swore allegiance to Harold. The defeated King would continue to claim to be the King of Scotland from his court in Durham for several years to come, yet it was clear to all that there was a new King in Scotland – Harold Fairhair. Less than a year after Gilchrist was abandoned by his last allies a new rebellion broke out as Scots nobles sought to restore their deposed King and throw out the Norwegian incomers. However, Donald’s refusal to join the rebels, and indeed his decision to take up arms alongside the Norwegians ended any hope of success. Within just a few months the rebels had been crushed, with Donald’s prestige amongst the Norse rising dramatically.
The ‘Jarl’ of Lothian was richly rewarded for his loyalty by his new King. Harold made Donald his Chancellor and granted him authority over Gowrie (where the former seat of the Scottish monarchy – Scone – lay). After spending around two years at the Norwegian court in Bergen, Donald was sent back to Scotland. Even after their defeat in 904 the Scots nobility had proven restless and Harold was keen to use his Donald as his enforcer. In 906, Donald was made Jarl of Albany (giving him authority over the Earl of Athol) and was appointed as head of the ‘royal army’ in Scotland as one of the King’s ‘Hirdmen’. Donald was, for all intents and purposes, the regent of the Norwegian King in Scotland.
After Harold’s death in 908 he was succeeded by his daughter, Yrsa. Around a year after Yrsa’s coronation the Norwegian North Sea Empire reached the pinnacle of its power. With Gilchrist surrendering his claim to the Scottish crown for a life of religious solitude in Ireland, the Norwegians ruled over a realm stretching from Scandinavia, to Frisia, Iceland and a greater Scotland.
Yrsa’s Empire was built upon foundations of sand. In early 910 Norway went to war with the King of Denmark, later that year the recently subjugated Christian population of Frisia rose in revolt whilst in 911 rebellion broke out in Scotland. Having been crushingly defeated in 904 and then kept in line Donald MacDrostan, the nobility of Scotland was in no position to launch another revolt. However, under the leadership of a claymore wielding giant named Radulf a popular insurrection spread rapidly from Gowrie to set all Scotland North of the Tay alight. With Yrsa rejecting Donald’s request for assistance from Norway, and Radulf gaining ground, Donald made a bold move by declaring war against the Queen of Norway. The anti-Viking sentiment Radulf had tapped into proved extremely potent, faced with the realistic possibility of being swept away by the revolt, Donald had attempted to outflank him and claim leadership of the rebellion against the Norwegians. Defeating both Radulf’s army and what forces Yrsa could muster to send to Norway – Donald achieved independence in 914 as the ‘King’ of Lothian and Albany.
With popular pressure weighing heavily upon his shoulders, Donald tore apart his truce with the Norwegians as he invaded the lands of the old Brythonic Kingdom of Strathclyde. After a second victory over the Norwegians in 916 he seized the vacant Scottish throne, sitting upon the Stone of Destiny he was crowned King Donald II of Scotland. The MacDrostans had established a steely grip over the Scottish throne that they would not loosen for centuries.
After 916 an uneasy peace reigned within the Kingdom of Scotland, a peace that was not reflected in the other realms of Britain. With Frisia breaking free and the war with Denmark coming to an end, the Norwegians were eventually able to deploy a sizeable army to Scotland that was capable of preventing the loss of the Outer Hebrides and the Jarldom of Moray even as the remains of their domains in Scotland frayed around the edges. To the South, the Mercians continued to push further North as their aimed to destroy the Viking Kingdom of Jorvik once and for all – reclaiming York and annexing Lancaster.
In 923 Scotland’s peace was ended as Donald sent his armies to conquer the scattered remains of Norse Northumbria as well as Argyll in the barren West of Scotland. His wars against these minor lords rapidly escalated as Yrsa sent a Norwegian army across the North Sea to support her fellow Norse rulers and Murdoch McAilpin crossed over from Ireland at the head of an army committed to restoring his dynasty in Scotland. The war was an unmitigated triumph for Donald. In the South-West, Murdoch’s army was shattered and the claimant himself killed in a single battle at Dunragit whilst the Norwegians proved utterly incapable of standing in the war of the Scottish armies as they swept through Northumbria and Argyll. When the Norwegians agreed to peace in late 924, Scotland had been significantly expanded.
The latest truce with the Norwegians was, yet again, short lived. In 926 the Earl of Ross, a Scottish Catholic, rose in rebellion against his Pagan masters. Seeing an opportunity to expel the Norse from the British mainland for good, Donald invaded Moray in support of the rebellion. This latest, and final, war to expel Norwegian rule from Scotland would be the grandest of all as the Kings of Denmark and Sweden sent armies to Scotland in an effort to break Donald’s power. Over the course of the next five years the Scots would face several large scale invasions – each eventually fought off following desperately severe losses as the last Norse lords in the Hebrides and the mainland were ejected. Donald II’s victory in this last great war amounted to his crowning achievement as King of Scotland, with the Viking attempt to conquer mainland Britain shattered.
Although a brief war was fought against the Christianised Norse lord of the Isle on Mann in 933 following the assassination of the King’s brother, the final years of Donald’s reign were largely peaceful. The man who had done more than any other Scot to facilitate Norwegian rule in Scotland had also gone on to lead the Scots to total victory against their Norse enemies. In doing so he had seen Scotland rise to become one of three great Christian Kingdoms, along with Mercia and Wessex, which dominated the British Isles.
Shortly after his 60th birthday, in 936, Donald II, the Wise, passed away – bequeathing to his son a powerful Kingdom. Although Scotland, and the House MacDrostan in particular, remained surrounded threats and potential enemies – both had taken tremendous strides forward during the incredible lifetime of Donald MacDrostan.