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Crinnan back to other characters

Crinnan, Mormaer of Atholl and Abbot of Dunkeld, the father of the slain Duncan and grandfather to Malcolm and Donalbain, the sons of Duncan, for some reason was overlooked when the throne was to be vacated by the death of Malcolm II.
Perhaps this was a touch of devilment on the part of the old King for it was he who named Duncan to be his successor much to the anger of the Moray faction. Duncan was not a good ruler nor a good general as he led the men of Scotland to five defeats before he was caught just outside Elgin by Thorfinn and once more suffered defeat but this time it was at the price of his own life. Some sources say that Macbeth actually killed Duncan, some say Thorfinn, but whoever, Macbeth of Moray, the enemy of Atholl was elected to the throne of Scotland.Crinnan sent his two grandsons south to Northumbria out of harms way while he himself withdrew to his Abbey at Dunkeld to try to come to terms with all that had happened. His son was dead, his aspirations to see the house of Atholl at the very centre of Scottish life in tatters and his grandsons being brought up in a land that they, the Atholl clan, had hoped to incorporate into Scotland.


  Time was needed not just to strengthen his own domain from the manpower losses in all the fruitless battles lost by Duncan, but time to teach and build Malcolm and Donalbain for the revenge which, if he had anything to do with it, would surely happen. To cut the chances of both boys being killed by some assassin in Northumbria, Donalbain was secreted back into Atholl for his further education in the art of warfare and where he was to remain until destiny called.  
 
In the year 1045, Crinnan,who must have assumed help from the south, rose up in open rebellion against Macbeth. After some campaigning, but with no help coming, Crinnan was confronted just outside Dunkeld, north of Perth, by Macbeth in person, at the head of a mixed army of Scots and Danes. That day Atholl lost its Mormaer and a great many of its other sons for Crinnan lay dead on the battlefield amidst the bodies of his men.
This was the only internal revolt in all Macbeth's seventeen year reign, for any other problems he had were resolved on enemy territory.

Crinnan wasn't to see it but his grandson Malcolm did reap veangance on the house of Moray some years later by defeating Macbeth and killing him at Lumphannan outside Banchory near Aberdeen. The strength of Moray was to be gradually broken down as a direct policy of Malcolm and his successors never to rise again.

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