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Máel Coluim mac Domnaill (
anglicised Malcolm I) (before 900 –
954) was
king of Scots, becoming king when his cousin
Causantín mac Áeda abdicated to become a monk. He was the son of
Domnall mac Causantín.
In 945
Edmund of Wessex, having expelled
Amlaíb Cuaran (Olaf Sihtricsson) from
Northumbria, devastated
Cumbria and blinded two sons of
Domnall mac Eógain, king of
Strathclyde. It is said that he then "let" or "commended" Strathclyde to Máel Coluim in return for an alliance. What is to be understood by "let" or "commended" is unclear, but it may well mean that Máel Coluim had been the overlord of Strathclyde and that Edmund recognised this while taking lands in southern Cumbria for himself.
The
Chronicle of the Kings of Alba says that Máel Coluim took an army into
Moray "and slew Cellach". Cellach is not named in the surviving genealogies of the
rulers of Moray, and his identity is unknown.
Máel Coluim appears to have kept his agreement with the late English king, which may have been renewed with the new king, Edmund having been murdered in 946 and succeeded by his brother
Edred. Eric Bloodaxe took
York in 948, before being driven out by Edred, and when Amlaíb Cuaran again took
York in 949–950, Máel Coluim raided Northumbria as far south as the
Tees taking "a multitude of people and many herds of cattle" according to the Chronicle. The
Annals of Ulster for 952 report a battle between "the men of Alba and the Britons [of Strathclyde] and the English" against the foreigners, i.e. the Northmen or the
Norse-Gaels. This battle is not reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and it is unclear whether it should be related to the expulsion of Amlaíb Cuaran from York or the return of Eric Bloodaxe.
The Annals of Ulster report that Máel Coluim was killed in 954. Other sources place this most probably in the
Mearns, either at
Fetteresso following the Chronicle, or at
Dunnottar following the
Prophecy of Berchán. He was buried on
Iona. Máel Coluim's sons
Dub and
Cináed were later kings.
