Máel Coluim's Gaelic personal name could indicate that he was maternally descended from the royal Alpínid dynasty of Alba, which would have in turn endowed him with a claim to the Scottish throne.

The fact that Siward died in 1055, and Mac Bethad retained authority in Alba, suggests that Máel Coluim was quickly overcome.

The more northerly lands of the realm seem to have been conquered by Máel Coluim mac Donnchada, King of Alba sometime between 1058 and 1070, and it is uncertain whether an independent Kingdom of Strathclyde still existed by the time of this conquest.

[3] He was likely closely related to—and possibly descended from—Owain Foel, King of Strathclyde,[4] a monarch attested in 1018 assisting the Scots against the Northumbrians at the Battle of Carham.

[27] Another possibility,[28] suggested by the account of events given by both Chronicon ex chronicis[29] and Gesta regum Anglorum, is that Siward installed Máel Coluim as King of Alba.

[6] Although nothing is known of Máel Coluim's possible reign in Alba, there is reason to suspect that he would have probably functioned as an English puppet, with little support from the Scottish aristocracy.

[45] As a result of this Scottish monarch's capture in the course of the uprising, English lordship over Scotland was conceded by the Scots, with conclusion of the Treaty of Falaise in 1174.

[46] The conditions imposed upon the Scots date to the very time the scribe compiled his account of 1054, and it is possible these concessions inspired the Melrose monks to concoct an eleventh-century royal precedent for twelfth-century Scottish subservience.

[54] For example, the twelfth-century Historia ecclesiae Eboracensis records that two Bishops of Glasgow—a certain Johannes and Magsuen, whose names could be evidence that they were Cumbrians—were consecrated by Cynesige, Archbishop of York.

[57] This cross may, therefore, corroborate the consecrational claims of Historia ecclesiae Eboracensis,[58] which could in turn indicate that Siward and (the senior Northumbrian cleric) Cynesige were indeed exerting influence over the Cumbrians.

[58] Pressure from external forces north of the Solway Firth—such as the contemporaneous expansion of the Gall Gaidheil—could have meant that the Cumbrian leadership allowed the southerly territories fall under Siward's authority.

In 1070, for example, Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria is recorded to have led an invasion into Scottish-controlled territory in an effort to counter certain devastating Scottish raids into England.

[77] The fact that Historia regum Anglorum questions the legitimacy of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada's possession of Cumbreland could reveal that the compiler of this source regarded the region as rightfully Northumbrian.