It was not intended however by Coepatrio and hie associates that Scotland should serve them merely as a place of refuge. A powerful confederacy was immediately formed against the English king, in which they and their proteg6 Edgar were associated with the men of Northumberland and Sweyn Estridsen the king of Denmark. The united forces of these several powers stormed the castle of York on the 22nd of October 1089, and put the Norman garrison to the sword; on which, according to some authorities, Edgar Atheling was a second time actually proclaimed king. But the approach of William soon compelled him to fly for his life, and he again took refuge in Scotland. Here ho appears to have remained inactive till the year 1073, when be was again induced to engage iu a scheme for annoying the English king at the instigation of Philip king of France, who invited him to come to that country, promising to give him some place of strength from which he might attack either England or Normandy. Edgar on this sot out with a few ship.; but he was wrecked in a storm on tho coast of Northumberland, from which ho with difficulty made his escape fur the third time to Scotland, in a state of almost complete destitution. He was now advised by his brother-lrelaw Malcolm to make his peace with William ; and that king having received Ilia overtures favourably, he proceeded to England, where William gave him an apartment in his palace, and a daily allowance of a pound of silver for his support. In this state of dependence he remained for acme years; but at length he seams to have gone over to Normandy, where, after the death of the Conqueror, his son Duke Robert made the Saxon a grant of domd lands. The grant however for dome reason which does not appear, was soon resumed, and the Atheling was compelled, fur the fourth time, to betake himself to Scotland in 1091. In tho end of the same year it is related that a peace was effected by the good offices of Edgar and Duko Robert between 3Ialoolin and William Ilufus, when their armies had met and were ready to engage, In Lothene or Loidie (that is, most probably, the part of Scotland now called Lothian, then considered BB a part of England). On this occasion Edgar was reconciled to the English king, and he again took up his abode at the court of William. In January 1092 however Duke Robert and he suddenly withdrew together to Normandy; and not long after Malcolm and William were again at war. The Scottish king fell in a conflict with an English force commanded by Robert de Moubray near Alnwick on the 13th of November 1093; his eldest son Edward was slain with him; and his queen, the sister of Edgar Atheling, died three days after, having only survived to learn the loss of her husband and her son. Imme
diately after this we read of Edgar securing the children of his deceased brother-in-law and sister from the attempts of their uncle, Donald Bane, who had usurped the Scottish throne, and conveying them to a place of safety in England, a circumstance that would apparently imply that he bad himself returned to that country from Normandy, and once more secured the protection of the English king. Here he seems to have continued during the remainder of the reign of Rufus. In 1097 he is recorded to have raised, with the approbation and aid of that king, a body of troops, and marched with them into Scotland, where he drove Donald Bane from the throne, and placed on it his nephew Edgar, the son of Malcolm. One account makes him to have immediately after this joined his old friend Robert duke of Normandy in tho Holy Land, with a force of 20,000 men, collected from all parts of England and Scotland ; but this part of his story is neither well supported nor very probable in itself. It is certain how ever that on the breaking out of the war between Henry I. and his brother Robert, a few years after the accession of the former to the English throne, Edgar was found on the side of Robert, although the recent marriage of his sister to Henry might be supposed to have attached him to the interests of that prince. He was one of the prisoners taken by Henry at the decisive battle of Tinchebrai on the 27th of September 1106, in which Robert finally lost his dukedom and his liberty. The victor however treated the Saxon prince with more lenity or contempt than he showed in his treatment of his own brother. Soon after being brought to England, Edgar was restored to liberty ; and some accounts state that he subsequently visited Palestine. But the remainder of his history is very obscure. Maims bury only informs ns, without specifying any date of his decease, that he died in England after having lived to a good old age, without ever having been married or having had any issue, leaving behind him the character of a weak but inoffensive and well•intentioned man. He has certainly the distinction of being about the most insipid here of anything like romance on record, and the narrative of his life may be quoted as a curious instance of the interest that will be sometimes awakened by the position and fortunes of an individual however personally insignificant