Suthen (of Northumbria?)

(Wife of king Duncan I of Scotland)

Date of Birth: Unknown
Place of Birth: Unknown

Date of Death: Unknown
Place of Death: Unknown

Father: Unknown (See Commentary)

Mother: Unknown

Spouses: Donnchad mac Crínáin (Duncan I), king of Scotland, d. 15 August 1040.

Children:

Máel Coluim mac Donnchada (Malcolm III "Canmore"), king of Scotland, d. 13 November 1093. [KKES 284]

The sources do not state whether or not Suthen was the mother of Duncan's other children, and it is unknown whether or not Suthen was Duncan's only wife. See the page on Duncan I for more details.

Commentary

Possible relative: Siward, earl of Northumbria.

Suthen's name is known only from one of the Scottish king lists ("Regnal List I"), which gives the name of the mother of Malcolm III in an interlined addition [KKES 284]. ESSH 1: 596 cites the late fourteenth century Scottish historian John of Fordun [iv, 44] as stating that Duncan had married a kinswoman of Siward of Northumbria. Given Siward's support of Malcolm, that is plausible enough, but there does not appear to be any justification for attempts to define a more specific relationship between Suthen and Siward.

Bibliography

ESSH = Alan Orr Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1922, reprinted Stamford, 1990). [Contains English translations of many of the primary records]

KKES = Marjorie Ogilvy Anderson, Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland (Edinburgh, Totowa, NJ, 1973).

Compiled by Stewart Baldwin