Edward's Earl of Northumbria, Siward, leads a…

Edward's Earl of Northumbria, Siward, leads a very large invasion of lowland Scotland in 1054. (Duncan's widow and Malcolm's mother, Suthed, was Northumbrian-born; it is probable but not proven that there was a family tie between Siward and the future Malcolm III).

The origin of Siward's conflict with the Scots is unclear.

According to the Libellus de Exordio, in 1039 or 1040, the Scottish king Donnchad mac Crínáin attacked northern Northumbria and besieged Durham.

Mac Bethad within a year had deposed and killed Donnchad.

The failed siege occurred a year before Siward attacked and killed Earl Eadulf of Bamburgh, and though no connection between the two events is clear it is likely that they were linked.

The Annals of Lindisfarne and Durham, written in the early twelfth century, relate under the year 1046 that "Earl Siward with a great army came to Scotland, and expelled king Mac Bethad, and appointed another; but after his departure Mac Bethad recovered his kingdom".Historian William Kapelle thought that this was a genuine event of the 1040s, related to the Annals of Tigernach entry for 1045 that reported a "battle between the Scots" which led to the death of Crínán of Dunkeld, Donnchad's father; Kapelle thought that Siward had tried to place Crínán's son and Donnchad's brother Maldred on the Scottish throne.

Another historian, Alex Woolf, argued that the Annals of Lindisfarne and Durham entry was probably referring to the invasion of Siward in 1054, but misplaced under 1046.

A bloody battle, known variously as the "Battle of the Seven Sleepers" or the "Battle of Dunsinane,” is fought somewhere in Scotland north of the Firth of Forth during the invasion of 1054, a battle The tradition that the battle actually took place at Dunsinane has its origins in later medieval legend.

The earliest mention of Dunsinane as the location of the battle is in the early fifteenth-century by Andrew of Wyntoun.

The Annals of Ulster report three thousand Scots and fifteen hundred English dead, which can be taken as meaning very many on both sides.

Siward’s eldest son, Osbjorn, and a son-in-law are among the dead.

Macbeth, leading the Scottish troops, is himself wounded; Siward retreats to England.

The result of the invasion is that one Máel Coluim, "son of the king of the Cumbrians" (not to be confused with Máel Coluim mac Donnchada, the future Malcolm III of Scotland) is restored to his throne, i.e., as ruler of the kingdom of Strathclyde.

It may be that the events of 1054 are responsible for the idea, which appears in Shakespeare's play, that Malcolm III was put in power by the English.