Wymund the Saxon, as the Bishop is generally called, was incited by an unworthy ambition to claim the crown of Scotland, then worn by David I. Assuming the name of Malcolm Macbeth, he gave out that he was the son of Angus, Earl of Moray, recently slain at the battle of Strickathrow, and who was the heir of Macbeth's son and successor, Leelach. Obtaining a number of large boats, he repeatedly attacked the neighbouring islands, finding numerous intrepid and desperate adventurers ready to follow him for love of adventure and plunder. He soon made his name widely known and feared, and Somerled, Lord of the Isles, was induced to bestow upon him the hand of his daughter, who bore him a son, Donald Macbeth. Knights and men-at-arms were despatched to foil his invasions of the mainland, but by availing himself of forest and mountain fastnesses, he avoided his more powerful enemies, escaping by his boats when hard pressed. Many of the bishops paid him black-mail, but one tough old prelate, a man after his own heart, met him in open field, axe in hand, and smote him to the earth, and defeated and scattered his following. Wymund escaped, however, and soon took the field again.
Ultimately David pacified the claimant by a grant of lands, and Wymund returned to the Isle of Man, or, according to William of Newbridge, to the Abbey of Furness, where his severities so enraged the monks that they fell on him, bound him, and destroyed his sight and virility. He was then handed over to King David, who shut him up in Roxburgh Castle, but, after some years, transferred him to Byland Abbey, where his stories of adventure by land and sea long delighted the good fathers.
Somerled, endeavouring to maintain the claim of Wymund's son, was slain in battle near Renfrew, by the Lord High Steward and the Earl of Angus. The wicked and vexatious claims of Wymund were terminated in 1164 by the capture and imprisonment of his son.
The necessities of the times justified many of the prelates in assuming arms, and Wymund must be regarded as an exceptional character, neither true priest nor bishop. Nevertheless several of the English bishops appear to have been quite willing to make arms a profession, while others, as Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, combined the ecclesiastical and baronial offices, employing both in the furtherance of their personal ambition. When the Conqueror arrested his ambitious half-brother, it will be remembered that he arrested him not as the churchman, but as the Earl of Kent.