The Death of Duff, King of Scotland

After the death of King Indulf, the kingdom passed to Duff, the son of Malcolm. At the beginning of his reign, he appointed Culen, the son of King Indulf, as the ruler of Cumberland and sent him to the Hebrides, which were then in a state of strife and disorder, to curb the frequent robberies committed there. For young warriors from the nobility, having gathered around themselves a great multitude of followers, had made the common people their tributaries, imposing a monetary fine on each family in addition to the usual quartering. Yet Culen dealt with these warriors no more harshly than with the rulers of the island themselves, who were supposed to curb such violence. He decreed that henceforth, those whose negligence allowed such outrages to occur should make restitution to the people and also pay a fine to the king. This command struck such terror into the idle and worthless young men that many of them crossed over to Ireland and earned their living there by day labor. While this was acceptable to the people, it was equally offensive to the noble allies of those who had been exiled and to many of the younger generation, who had grown accustomed to such an idle way of life.

These men, at all their meetings and gatherings, at first secretly and then openly in the presence of many who approved of them, began to openly revile their king. It was claimed that he had scorned the nobility and had been seduced and misled by the advice of wicked priests; that he had humiliated people of noble birth and forced them into servile labor; that he had promoted the lowest dregs of the people to the highest honors; in short, he had turned everything upside down.

They further added that if things continued in this manner, either the nobility would have to move to other countries or, alternatively, they would have to choose a new king who could rule the people according to the ancient laws by which the kingdom had reached its current height of greatness, having begun from such humble beginnings. Amid these troubles, the king was struck by a new and unusual illness, the cause of which was not apparent. When all remedies had been tried in vain, a rumor spread, from an unknown source, that he had been bewitched. The suspicion arose either from some signs of his illness or because his body had wasted away and dried up due to constant sweating. His strength was so undermined that the physicians, summoned from near and far, did not know what to do to help him. When no usual causes of the illness were found, they immediately attributed it to a hidden cause.

While everyone was preoccupied with the king's illness, news finally arrived that at Forres, a fortress in Moray, nightly gatherings and conspiracies against him were taking place. The report was accepted as true, for nothing contradicted it. Therefore, several trusted messengers were sent to Donald, the governor of the castle, whom the king trusted even in his most important affairs, to ascertain the truth of the matter. From a confession made by a prostitute, whose mother had been suspected of witchcraft, he uncovered an entire conspiracy. For the young girl had let slip a few days earlier some words concerning the illness and death of the king. When she was seized and brought to torture, at the very first sight of the torture, she immediately revealed what had been plotted against the king's life. After this, several soldiers were sent, who found the girl's mother and several other women melting a wax image of the king over a slow fire. Their plan was that as the wax gradually melted, so too would the king, sweating drop by drop, waste away; and when no more wax remained, his breath would leave him, and he would die immediately. When the wax image was broken and the witches punished, in that same month, as some say, the king was freed from his illness. I relate these things as I have heard them from our ancestors; what to think of this kind of witchcraft, I leave to the judgment of the reader, warning only that this tale is not found among our ancient chronicles. Meanwhile, fear of the king subsided, as it was hoped that he would soon die; many robberies and murders were committed everywhere. Duff, having regained his strength, began to pursue the robbers through Moray, Ross, and Caithness and destroyed many of them in several skirmishes when the opportunity arose; but he brought the leaders of the robbers to Forres to punish them in that fortress as solemnly as possible.

There, Donald, the governor of the fortress and castle, began to plead with the king for the pardon of some of his relatives who were in the gang. However, having been refused, he fell into the greatest indignation, as if he had been grievously insulted. His mind was entirely occupied with thoughts of revenge, for he believed that his services to the king were so great that the king should not refuse anything he asked. Moreover, Donald's wife, finding that some of her relatives were also subject to the general punishment, further inflamed her already indignant husband with cunning and malicious outpourings, urging him to seek the king's death. She argued that, since he was the governor of the castle, the life and death of the king were in his power, and having this power, he could not only end the matter but also conceal it when it was done. And so, when the king, tired and exhausted by his affairs, was sleeping more soundly than usual, and his retinue, having been plied with drink by Donald, also lay in a deep sleep, he sent in assassins, of whom no one knew.

And after they had killed the king, they carried him out so skillfully by a back door that not a drop of blood was spilled. Thus, he was buried two miles from Kinloss Abbey, in a secluded spot under a small bridge. Green turf was laid over him so that there would be no sign that the earth had been disturbed.

This seems to me a more truthful account than what others write: that, having diverted the course of a river, they threw his body into a pit at the bottom, and when the water was returned to its channel, his grave, such as it was, was hidden.

Moreover, the perpetrators of this bloody deed were removed by Donald, for there is a belief, handed down from our ancestors, which still persists among the common people, that "blood will flow from a dead body for many days after a person has been killed, just as if he had been killed only recently, if the murderer is present."

A day later, when the rumor spread that the king had been killed and that his entire bed was stained with blood, Donald, as if struck by the horror of the deed, rushed into the king's bedroom and, as if mad with rage and thirst for revenge, killed the guards appointed to the king's retinue. After this, he conducted a thorough investigation everywhere: could anyone discover the dead body? The others, being struck by the terrible villainy and also fearing for their own lives, each returned to their homes.

Thus, this good king was horribly and inhumanely murdered in the prime of his life, after he had ruled for four years and six months. And the estates, as soon as they could, gathered to elect a new king.

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The Death of Duff, King of Scotland

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