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CELTIC SCOTLAND
Edinburgh : Printed by Thomas and Archibald Condabh
DAVID DOUGLAS.
LONDON • SIMPKIN, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO., LIM.
CAMBRIDGE MACMILLAN AND BOWES.
GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SON.S.
SC OTLAND
with thc-
ANCIENT DIVISIONS
(If THE l.AKl).
RachJjm.
^rcvixuxs S: Earldoms thus ROSS IKfitricts 1 L o rn
Sf^TUand Line ,_ t _„-«_-.
Thx Seven Pn^vinee* art, tinted.
LonffiiuBe West 4: ^Tvuv Greaiwich.
J.BarOwlfimtw SSitC"
CELTIC SCOTLAND
A HISTORY OF
0lncient ^Iban
BY
WILLIAM F. SKENE, D.C.L., LL.D.
HISTORIOGKAPHKR-ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND.
Volume III. LAND AND PEOPLE.
SECOND EDITION.
■■***«•*-« wr^"*
EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS 1890
All Rights reserved
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
A NEW edition of this the third and last volume of Celtic Scotland having now been called for, the author is glad to have this opportunity of correcting any mistakes of the press which have occurred in it. As this volume deals with the early land tenures and social condition of the Celtic inhabitants of Scotland, in which a number of obsolete terms and old Celtic Avords occur, it is peculiarly liable to mistakes of this kind, and the author has revised the text in this view with great care, but he does not find that he has any material alteration to make in the views he has ex pressed, or the conclusions he has come to, as these are, in fact, the outcome of years of careful research into this very o])scure subject.
Edinburgh, 27 Inverleith How, 1th July 1890.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
This A^olume completes the task which the author set before himself of illustrating the history of Scotland during the Celtic period, when it bore the name of Alban, and of endeavouring to dispel those fables which have hitherto obscured it. Like the other volumes, this third volume forms in itself a substan- tive work. Its title is ' Land and People,' and its subject, ' The early land tenures and social condition of the Celtic inhabitants of Scotland' (vol. i. p. 28). The real history of a country may be said only truly to commence when we come to deal with the social and political organisation of its population. The ethnology of the nations which compose it — the history of its kings, their reigns, and the various wars in which they engaged — the extension or re- striction of the frontiers of their kingdom — the intro- duction of Christianity and the establishment of a Christian Church, are all great landmarks and im- portant features of its history ; but 'still they are merely the outward bulwarks of the kingdom as a whole, and present it to us in its external relations only. Till we know something of the distribution within the country of the various races which formed
PEEFACE.
its population, their relative growth and decay, their social organisation, and the extent to which its peculiar features were preserved, and influenced and coloured the future condition of the entire population formed by the amalgamation of its various elements, we know little of its real history.
To supply, at least to some extent, this informa- tion is the main purpose of the present volume, which the author fears has been very inadequately carried into effect, and its publication has been from unavoid- able causes delayed much beyond the period when it ought to have appeared. It was commenced two years ago, when its progress was interrupted partly owing to his illness, under the depressing influence of which part of the volume has indeed been written, but mainly because the publication of the fourth volume of the Ancient Irish Laws, which was to con- tain tracts relating to the early land tenure in Ireland, had likewise been unavoidably delayed, and the author felt that, without consulting these tracts, he could not satisfactorily treat of the old tribal system from which the ancient Celtic land tenures in Scotland derived their oriofin, and without a knowledo;e of which their true character could hardly be ascertained. The author was, however, at length enabled to com- plete this part of his volume through the courtesy of the editor, who, with the kind permission of the Lord Bishop of Limerick, chairman of the Brelion Law Com- mission, communicated to him the proof-sheets of the text and translation of these tracts, but it was not till
viii PREFACE.
after this volume had iu the main been printed, and was almost through the press, tliat the fourth volume of the Ancient Laws of Ireland was at length published, and the author had any opportunity of reading the introduction ; and thus in compiling that part of his volume he had unfortunately not the benefit of the learned editor's commentary upon these tracts.
The author has to record his thanks to his friends : Mr, Alexander Carmichael for the instructive account of three of the Long Island townships embodied in the last chapter ; W. M. Hennessy, Esq., of the Public Record Office, Dublin, for the curious poem relatino[ to the Kin2;doni of the Isles, with its transla- tion ; and Captain Thomas for the old description of the Isles, both printed in the Appendix, Nos. ii. and iii. He has also, as formerly, to thank Mr. John Taylor Brown for his ready aid in revising his proof-sheets ; and he takes this opportunity when completing his work of recording his sense of the valuable assistance and advice he has received throughout from his excellent publisher, Mr. David Douglas.
The volume containing the History and Ethnology of the kingdom was brouoht down to the end of the reign of Alexander the Third, the last of the old dynasty of Celtic monarchs, which terminated with his death in the year 1284, and it is with the same reiffn that our narrative in treatina; of the ' Land and People ' must now commence.
Edinburgh, 27 Inverleith Kow, Ut Ocioher ISSO.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
BOOK III.
LAND AND PEOPLE.
CHAPTEli 1.
SCOTLAND IN THE EEIGN OF ALEXANDEll THE THIRD.
I'AGE
Consolidation of the provinces of Scotland into one feudal mon- archy completed in this reign, .... 1
Southern frontier of Scotland, ..... 3
English possessions of the Scottish king.?, ... 5
Northern boundary of Scotland, ..... 7
Physical aspect of Scotland in the reign of Alexander the Third, 9
Population of Scotland in the reign of Alexander the Third
composed of six races, . . . . .15
Indigenous races of the Britons and Picts, . . .16
Colonising races of Scots and Angles, . . . .17
Intruding races of Danes, Norwegians, and Normans, . . 18
Influence of foreign races on native population, . . .18
Foreign elements introduced into population of Pictish and
Cambrian territories, ...... 20
Spread of Teutonic people over them, . . . .21
Norwegian kingdom of the Isles, . . . . .28
The Gallgaidheal, 29
The Estates of the Realm in 1283, . . . .39
Distinction of population into Teutonic Lowlanders and Gaelic
Highlanders, ....... 40
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
ClIAPTErv II.
THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND.
Old division of Scotia into provinces,
Seven provinces in the eighth century,
Seven provinces in the tenth century,
Districts ruled by kings and afterwards by Mormaers,
Petty kings of Argyll and Galloway,
Jari Thorfinn,
Mormaers termed by Norwegians, Jarls,
INIormaers of Buchan, from the Book of Deer
Toisechs of Buchan, . Seven Earls first appear in reign of Alexander the First, Policy of David I. to feudalise Celtic earldoms, Creation of additional earldoms,
Earldom of IVIar,
Earldoms of Gar\7^ach and Levenach,
Erldoms of Koss and Carrick,
Earldom of Caithness, Seven Earls in the reign of Alexander the Second, Province of Argyll, . . . -
Seven Earls in the reign of Alexander the Third, State of the land in the reign of Alexander the Third, The Crown demesne, ....
District of Argyll divided into sheriffdoms,
PACE
42 42 44 49 .51 .52 54 55 56 58 63 66 68 69 70 71 71 78 80 83 84
CHAPTEE III.
LEGENDARY ORIGINS.
The problem to be solved.
Early traditions,
Ethnic legends.
Linguistic legends,
Historical legends,
Artificial character of early Irish history,
Cymric legends,
90 90 91 96 97 97 100
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
XI
Legendary origin of transmarine tribes, The Nemedians in Scotland, Tlie Firbolg and Tuath De Danan in Scotland, Pictish legends, .... The Milesians in Scotland, The race of Ith in Scotland, The race of CoUa in Scotland, The last three pagan kings of Ireland in Scotland How far have these legends a historic basis ? Early connection between Scotland and Ireland, The twofold division of the Picts and the establishment of Scone as the capital of the kingdom, ....
PAGK
104 105 105 107 108 111 113 114 120 125
132
CHAPTEE IV.
THE TUATH OR TEIBE IN IRELAND.
Mixed population of Scotland,
Sources of information as to their early social state.
Tribal organisation of the Gaelic race.
Influences aflecting the tribe in Ireland,
Effect of introduction of Christianity,
Land originally held in common, .
Distinction of ranks in the tribe, .
The Ri or king.
Distinction of ranks arising from possession of cattle,
Origin and growth of private property, and creation of an order of territorial chiefs,
The Ceile or tenants of a chief, State of the Tuath or territory of a tribe
The Dun or fort, The Mortuath, The Cuicidh or province, . The law of Tanistry,
Connection between superiors and dependants. The system of fines,
The Honor price, System of land measures, . Later state of the tribes, .
135 136 136 137 138 139 139 140 142
144 145 147 148 149 149 150 150 151 152 1.53 157
Xll
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTEE V.
|
THE FINE OR SEPT IN IKE |
LA.ND, AND THE |
TEIUi: |
IN AVALES. |
|
Origin of tlie Fine or Sept, |
I'ACK 171 |
||
|
The Cin6 or kinsfolk, |
171 |
||
|
The Ceile or tenants, |
172 |
||
|
The Fuidhir or stranger septs. |
173 |
||
|
Territorial basis of Fine, . |
175 |
||
|
The four families of the Cin^ or |
kinsfolk, . |
176 |
|
|
Members of the four families, |
. 179 |
||
|
The Geilfin(5 chief, . |
180 |
||
|
Eehition of Geilfine chief t( |
t the Ki Tuath, |
184 |
|
|
Law of Succession, |
187 |
||
|
Sluaged or hosting, |
188 |
||
|
Fosterage, |
190 |
||
|
Later state of the Fines, . |
. 192 |
||
|
The Tribe in Wales, |
197 |
||
|
Fines for Slaughter, |
. 204 |
||
|
The sept in Wales, |
205 |
||
|
Fosterage in Wales, |
. 207 |
CHAPTEK VI.
THE TRIBE IN SCOTLAND
Early notices of tribal organisation,
The tribe among the Picts,
The tribe in Dalriada,
The tribe in Galloway,
Modification of original tribes under foreign intiuences, .
Passing of the Mortuath into the Piarldom, and the Tribe int
the Thanage, ..... Distinction of people into free and servile classes, Classes of freemen, Ranks of bondmen. Measures of land, . Burdens on the land,
The Cain or Can,
Conveth,
E.xpedition and hosting,
209 210 212 214 •214
215 216 217 220 223 227 228 232 234
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Assimilation to feudal forms,
Tenure in ftu-farm,
Ranks of society on Crown lands,
PAGE
236 237
238
CHAPTEK VIL
THE THANAGES AND THEIR EXTINCTION
Review of the Thanages and their converi
Thanages in Moray and Ross,
Thanages in Mar and Buchan,
Thanages in Angus and Mearns,
Thanages in Fife and Fothriff,
Thanages in Strath erne,
Thanages in Atholl, .
Thanages in Gowry, .
Thanages south of the Forth, Toshachdor and Toshachdera, Result of survey of thanages.
|
ion into Baronies, |
246 |
|
|
247 |
||
|
250 |
||
|
257 |
||
|
267 |
||
|
269 |
||
|
270 |
||
|
274 |
||
|
277 |
||
|
. 278 |
||
|
281 |
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIN^ OR CLAN IN SCOTLAND.
Clanship in the Highlands,
The Highland Line,
Break-up of the Celtic Earldoms,
Moray,
Buchan,
Atholl,
Angus,
Menteath and Stratherne,
Mar, ....
Ross,
The Gallgaidheal and their lords,
Lennox, The Toshachdoracht, First appearance of Clans, Clan Macduff and its privileges, . Description of Highlanders— 1363-1383,
284 285 286 287 287 288 289 290 291 291 292 300 300 302 303 307
XIV
TAIiLE OF CONTENTS.
Raid into Angus in 1391, .
Combat of two clans on North Inch of Perth in 1
The Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron,
The Chief and the Kinsmen,
The native-men,
Fosterage,
The Clan and its Members,
iW>,
PACK
308 310 313 318 318 321 323
CHAPTEK IX.
THE CLANS AND THEIU GENEALOGIES.
State of the Highlands in the sixteenth century, . Names and position of the clans, .... Meaning of ' Clann,' and the personal names from which their
patronymics were taken, Original importance and position of Clan pedigrees, First change in Clan pedigrees. Influence of legendary history
of Scotland, .... Second change. Influence of Irish Sennachies, Analysis of the Irish Pedigrees, Artificial character of these pedigrees, Third Change. Influence of Act 1597, Spurious Pedigrees, Result of Analysis of Pedigrees, . Termination of Clanship in the Highland.'-
326 327
331 334
336 337 338 346 346 349 364 365
CHAP TEE X.
LAND TENURE IN THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS SUBSEQUENT
TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
Changes in tenure of land, ..... 368
Abolition of Calps, ...... 368
Size of townshijjs, ....... 369
Occupation of townships, ...... 370
Average size of township in Central Highlands, . . . 370
Township in the Islands, . . . . .371
Highland deer-forests, . . . . .371
Causes affecting the population in the eighteenth century, . 372
Townships in the Inner Hebrides in 1850, . . . 374
Existing townships in the Outer Hebrides, . . . 378
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV
APPENDIX. I.
PAGE
Translation of a part of the Book of Clanranald, containing the Legendary History of the Lords of the Isles as given by the MacVurichs, hereditary Sennachies of the Clan, . 397
IL
Baile Suthain Sith Eamhna, an Irish poem relating to the king- dom of the Isles, with a translation by W. M. Hennessy, Esq., ........ 410
IIL
The Description of the Isles of Scotland, written 1577-1595, . 428
IV.
On the Authenticity of the Letters Patent said to have been granted by King William the Lion to the Earl of Mar in 1171, ........ 441
V.
On the Earldom of Caithness, ..... 448
VI.
Original of the Poem on the Lennox, .... 454
VIL
Comparison between the Highland Clans and the Afghaun
Tribes. Written in 1816 by Sir Walter Scott, . . 456
VIIL
Legendary Descent of the Highland Clans, according to Irish
Mss., ........ 458
Index, ........ 493
ILLUSTRATIVE MAP.
Scotland, with the ancient divisions of the land, . to fare the Title
BOOK I I I.
LAND AND PEOPLE.
CHAPTER 1.
SCOTLAND IN THE REIGN OF ALEXANDEK THE THIRD.
The brightest and most prosperous period in the annals of [;°^^°|.^^^^ Scotland was undoubtedly that during which she was under provinces
■^ ° . "f Scotland
the rule of the dynasty of kings which sprang from the imion into one
feudal
of the Celtic king Malcolm Ceannmor with the Saxon prin- monarchy
T i-i- -ic ic completed
cess Margaret. It was during this period of upwards of a in this century and a half that the different provinces of Scotland ^ ^ were welded into one feudal monarchy, and the various races which inhabited them, and upon the allegiance of each of whom the kings of this race had hereditary claims, were fused into one mixed population combining the peculiar qualities of each.
The reign of Alexander the Third, the last king of this old Celtic dynasty of Scottish kings, saw the concentration of the various provinces of Scotland into one compact kingdom finally completed by the cession of the Isles in the year 1266. Scotland now presented the same geographical platform which it ever after possessed. The various races which composed its population occupied in the main the same relative posi- tion. The kingdom of Scotland could now be no longer viewed as a limited Gaelic kingdom, possessing dependencies peopled by British, Anglic, or Scandinavian communities, but had become a feudal monarchy, the dominant element of
VOL. III. A
2 SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER III. [hook in.
which wa.s Teutonic, while tlio Celtic population was either restricted to tlu; wilder and more mountain re;^don.s, or formed the under class of serfs and tillers of the soil.
It would seem as if the task of amalgamating the dis- cordant elements of the population, and of concentrating the semi-independent provinces which they peopled, had no sooner been completed than the dynasty which effected it was to pass away, and a war of succession was to follow, which was still further to root up her ancient institutions, and to throw the kingdom still more into the hands of kings and nobility of an alien race.
By the death of his only daughter, who had been married to the king of Norway, and of his only son in the same year, Alexander the Third found that unless he had a male heir by a second marriage the succession to the throne would devolve upon a little grand-daughter, the Princess of Norway, then only two years old, and on her the succession was settled in a Parliament held at Scone on the 5th February 1283-4, failing such male issue. In the instrument by which the succession was so settled the magnates of Scotland bound themselves to receive Margaret, daughter of Eric, king of Norway, and of Margaret, daughter of King Alexander, as their lady and heir of the kingdom of Scotia ; and to acknowledge her and her heirs as their liege lady, and the true heir of their sovereign in the whole kingdom, and in the island of Man, and all the other islands pertaining to the kingdom of Scotia, as well as in Tynedale and Penrith, and other dependencies of the kingdom.^
Such were the enlarged limits to which the name of Scotia, once confined to the districts between the Firth of Forth and the river Spey, had now extended ; and the de- pendencies of the kingdom, which had then embraced large
' De toto regno, de insula Man- Penereth cum aliis omnibus juribus
nise et de omnibus aliis insulis ad et libertatibus ad dictum domiuuni
dictum regnum Scotioe pertinenti- Regem Scotias spectantibus. — Rjnn.
bus necnon et de Tyndallia et de Feed, ii, p. 266.
CHAX'. i.J SCOTLAND UNDEU ALEXANDER 111. .3
semi-iudependeiit provinces on the south and west of these boundaries, were now reduced to the recently-acquired Western Isles, and to the small districts of Tynedale and Penrith lying beyond her southern frontier.
If this process of consolidation, however, may be said to liave been completed in the reign of Alexander the Third, it can only be held to have properly commenced with that of David the First. Prior to his accession, although the rule of the Scottish monarchs had extended itself by degrees over the districts south of the Forth and Clyde, and then west of the Drumalban range and the river Spey, yet the name of Scotia was still confined to the eastern districts between these limits. These districts formed the real nucleus and heart of the kingdom, and were more directly associated with her monarchs as kings of the Scots.
The extension of their power over the southern districts Southern commenced about a century after the establishment of the scotiami. Scottish dynasty on the Pictish throne, when, in the year 94G, the districts forming the kingdom of Cumbria were ceded b} Edward the elder to Malcolm king of the Scots. This kingdom extended, at that time, from the river Clyde to the river Dervvent in Cumberland, and to the cross at Stanniore on the borders of Westmoreland and Yorkshire, which separated it from the Northumbrian territories. It embraced the western districts of Scotland from the Clyde to the Solway, the present county of Cumberland, with the excep- tion of that part of it which lies on the south of the river Derweut and formed the barony of Copeland, and the whole of Westmoreland exclusive of the barony of Kendal, which, with Copeland and the western districts as far as the borders of Wales, belonged to the Northumbrian kingdom.
Within eighty years afterwards, the districts on the east coast extending from the Forth to the Tweed, and consist- ing of Lothian and Teviotdale, were ceded to his grandson,
4 SCOTLAND UNDKU ALKXAXDEK III. book iii
unother Mukolin. These southern territories were, however, ill tlic position of (lependencies on the kingdom of Scotland, lying beyond her proper southern frontier and within that of England, and were on three different occasions entirely separated from the Scottish kingdom : — First during the usurpation of Macbeth and the possession of the greater part of Scotland by the Norwegian Earl of Orkney, whose joint rule certainly did not extend beyond the Forth, while the southern districts remained faithful to the family of Duncan ; again during the short reign of Donald Ban ; and for a third time after the death of Eadgar, when the territories over which he had ruled as king were divided between his brothers Alexander and David, the former reigning as king over the kingdom north of the Forth and Clyde, while the latter ruled with the title of Earl over these southern dependencies. The southern frontier of the Cumbrian kingdom did not, at this time,extend beyond the Solway,for the Norman king, William Rufus, had, in the year 1092, wrested that part of it which lay between the Solway and the Derwent from Malcolm Ceann- mor, and given it to the Norman barou Eanulph de Meschines, while Henry i. erected it, with Westmoreland, in 1132, into the bishopric of Carlisle. The southern boundary of Earl David's possessions had thus become coincident with the southern frontier of the later kingdom of Scotland. It was only on the accession of David to the throne of Scotland that they became permanently united to the kingdom, and the name of Cumbria, or Cumberland, was restricted to that part of the ancient kingdom of Cumbria which now belonged to England. The connection of the royal family with the ancient line of the Saxon kings, the training and Norman tendencies of David himself, and his marriage with the daughter of an Earl of Northumbria, and widow of an Earl of Northampton, whose mother was a niece of the Conqueror, created a tie between them and the Anglic population of the
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 5
southern districts which was closer thau that which now connected him with the Celtic population of the other por- tions of the kingdom ; and Lothian assumed that prominent position as the most valuable and cherished centre of the interests of the monarchy, which had hitherto belonged to the region between the Forth and the Spey.
But while David the First may be held to have established English
'' possessious
the Solway, the range of the Cheviots, and the Tweed, as the of the
. „ 1 , . Scottish
proper southern boundary of the kingdom of Scotland, his kings, marriage gave him claims to territories beyond it, which he was disposed to assert when opportunity offered. During the life of Matilda, his queen, he had enjoyed in her right the earldoms of Northampton and Huntingdon ; but on her death, seven years after he had succeeded to the throne of Scotland, the earldom of Northampton passed to her son by her first marriage, Simon de Senlis, while Henry, her son by King David, succeeded to the earldom of Huntingdon. The death of Henry, king of England, in 1135, and the disputed succession between his daughter the empress of Germany and his sister's son Stephen, Earl of Mortaigne, presented the opportunity King David longed for. He embraced the cause of the empress, who was his niece, and in her name took possession of Northumberland, with the excep- tion of the castle of Bamborough, which he soon after sur- rendered to Stephen, who confirmed the Honor of Huntingdon to Prince Henry, with Doncaster and the castle of Carlisle in addition to it. In the following year King David again claimed the northern provinces in name of his son Prince Henry, and both Northumberland and Cumberland were yielded to him ; but on peace being made between him and Stephen he sur- rendered Northumberland, retaining, however, Cumberland in England. An attempt, two years afterwards, to regain Northumberland led to the battle of the Standard, in which David was defeated; but a peace was concluded in 1139,
G SCOTLA.ND UXDEi; ALKXANDEIt III. [book iii.
when Northumberland was made over to Prince Henry, except the fortresses of Newcastle and Bamborough, which he retained to his death in 11 52, when King David had Mal- colm, the eldest son of Prince Henry, proclaimed heir to the crown, and presented his second son, William, to the North- umbrian barons as their ruler. Malcolm had not been four years on the throne when he surrendered Northumberland and Cumberland to the king of England, which were annexed to the English crown, while the king restored to him the Honor of Huntingdon. An attempt on the part of his bro- ther and successor, William the Lion, to regain these pro- vinces, led to the war in which he was defeated and taken prisoner in 1173, and Huntingdon was taken from him and given to Simon de Senlis ; but on the death of the latter in 1184 it was restored to King William, who bestowed it upon his youngest brother David, afterwards known as David, Earl of Huntingdon, in whose family it remained.- The claims of the Scottish kings upon the northern pro- vinces of England were renewed by Alexander the Second, l)ut through the mediation of Cardinal Otho, the Pope's legate, all questions in dispute between England and Scot- land were finally settled by an agreement concluded at York in September 1237. In lieu of the claims made by Alexander upon the earldoms of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, as his hereditary right, and for the dowry he ought to have received with Johanna, the sister of the kino- of England, whom he had married, King Henry undertook to convey to the King of Scotland in property, lands in the earldoms of Northumberland and Cumberland to the yearly value of two hundred pounds.^ The lands so settled upon him were Tynedale, also called the barony of Werk, in
- For this sketch of the attempts Hailes's Annah and Vol. i. of this of the Scottish kings to obtain pos- work may be consulted, session of these northern provinces. ^ Itymer's Fa>dera ; Palgrave, Re-
cords, vol. i. pp. ii. 1.
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL /
Northumberland, and the crown demesne in Cumberland, consisting of Penrith and other lands, with the exception of the castle of Carlisle.
Such is a short sketch of the attempts made by the kings of Scotland to extend their frontiers to the south ; and the result was that in the reign of Alexander the Third the southern boundary of Scotland was the same as it is at pre- sent, but Alexander was left in possession of the lands of Tynedale and Penrith beyond it, as a dependency of the king- dom, and they remained with his successor John Baliol, when they were finally lost to Scotland in the war of independence which followed his short and disastrous reign.
But if the kings of this dynasty struggled vainly to Northern
° J J no J boundary
enlarge their boundaries on the south, they were more sue- of Scot- land, cessful in gradually extending the power of the crown over
the northern and western provinces. David i. by successfully defeating and crushing the rebellion of Angus, Earl of Moray, in 1130, terminated tlie semi-independent state of that pro- vince, and no earl of this province was permitted to exist till King Robert Bruce bestowed it upon his nephew Eandolph, but its guardianship was committed to different Scottish nobles, under the title of Custos Moravia-.* The son of Mal- colm MacHeth, who called himself the son of Earl Angus, attempted on the accession of Malcolm iv. to regain the province with the aid of the powerful Regulus of Argyll, but unsuccessfully, and their^ailure was followed by the northern seaboard, between Inverness and the Spey, where David i. had already planted the royal castle, being to a great extent taken from the native chiefs and given to strangers — a policy still further followed out by his successor William the Lion, who added the district of Pioss, in which he built two castles ;
■* Dominus autem re.K, circa fes- dereliquit. . . . Erat enim tunc
tumS. Michaelis (A.D.|1211)rediens temporis ipse (Willelmus Cumyii
inde cum manu valida, Malcolmum Comes de Buchan) Custos Moraviaj.
comitem deFyfeMoraviiecustodem — Scotichron. B. viii. c. Ixxvi.
8 SCOTLAND UNDER ALKXANDHIl III. |iio.)i< in.
iiiul tlie cnnvn continued to maintain its control over these l)rovinces, notwithstanding occasional attempts on the part of the Celti(i inliabitants to regain their independence by supporting the pretensions of the families of MacWilliam and MacIIeth. Tlie province of Caithness too, which at this time included Sutherland, and had for generations helongod to the Norwegian earls of Orkney, who held it nominally under the king of Scotland with the title of Earl, was at length brought by the same monarch more directly under the power of the crown, and placed in the same position as the other Scottish provinces. By his son Alexander tlio Second the still more extensive province of Argathelia or Argyll, forming the western seaboard of Scotland, and extend- ing from Loch Long, opening off the Firth of Clyde, to the borders of Caithness, was brought under subjection, so that in the reign of this king the power of the crown was firmly established over the whole mainland of Scotland north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde. The islands, however, whicli surrounded it still belonged to the kingdom of Norway. Th(^ Orkney and Shetland Islands had been colonised by the Norwegians as early as the ninth century. They had been ruled by a line of Norwegian Jarls, who owed submission to the king of Norway alone, and though the succession to these Jarls opened in the reign of William the Lion to two families of Scottish descent, they were still considered as Jarls under the Norwegian crown, and the islands did not become con- nected with the Scottish kingdom till long after the period we are dealing with. The Western Isles, however, stood in a different position. Although the Norwegian Vikings had to a great extent taken possession of them at the same time that they colonised Orkney, and they had been the subject of fre- quent contest between the Norwegian Jarl and the Danish kings of Dublin, who had acquired possession of the island of ]\ran, they were still claimed by the Scottish kings as belong-
CHAP, i.l SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 9
ing to their kingdom, till the reign of Edgar, when they were formally ceded to the king of Norway. They were at this time along with the Isle of Man under the rule of petty kings of Norwegian descent, and this line of Norwegian kings of the Isles retained the whole till the year 1154, when the kingdom of the Isles was divided, and the islands south of the Point of Ardnamurchan passed under the rule of the Celtic ruler of Argyll, whose claim was derived through a descent in the female line from one of the Norwegian kings of the Isles, but who still held them nominally under the king of Norway. The tie to Norway, however, was becoming weaker and the connection with Scotland stronger, when the unsuccessful attempt of Hakon, king of Norway, to firmly re-establish his power over the whole of the islands in the reign of Alexander the Third, and his defeat and death, led to the cession of Man and the Isles in the year 126G to the Scottish monarch. And in 1284 we find them settled upon the Maid of Norway as a dependency of the Scottish kingdom. The Western Islands became from this time firmly united to the rest of Scotland, while the island of Man, after being in the follow- ing century alternately in the possession of the Scots and the English, finally passed over to the English crown.
Such then was, in extent, the Scotland of Alexander the Piiysieui
rni • 1 • . aspect ol
Third, and of its physical aspect at this time we can also Scotland in
... . 11-1 the reign of
lorm a very lair conception. As early as the third century Alexander we are told that the Barbarian tribes beyond the bounds of '^ the Eoman province in Britain ' inhabit mountains wild and waterless, and plains desert and marshy, having neither walls nor cities, nor tillage, but living by pasturage, the chase, and certain berries ;' and that ' many parts being constantly flooded by the tides of the ocean become marshy.' ^ Had the writer of this description ever seen the Scotch mountains, ])robably 'waterless ' is the very last epithet he would have
■' It is thus described by Dio in the reign of the Emperor Severus.
10 SCOTLAND UNDER ALKXANDER in. [book iii.
thought of applying to theia ; and though the inhabitants are said to have had neither walls nor cities, yet no doubt every rock and height showed the rude fortification or hill fort, the remains of so many of which are still seen, and ever}- rising ground, with its rude collection of huts, would be surrounded with its rampart of earth and stones. Adamnan, writing in the seventh century, tells us of the fortified resi- dence of the king of the Picts on the banks of the river Ness, with its royal house and gates, of a village on the banks of a lake, and of the houses of the country people. Of the leading physical features of the country he tells us too, of the large inland lakes. Loch Ness and Loch Awe, and of the range oi' mountains forming the backbone of Britain, or great watershed dividing the eastern and western waters, and separating the Scots from the Picts ; ^ and Bede, in the succeeding century, talks of the mountains which separated the southern from the northern Picts, and within which the former had seats.^
To some extent these features must have still characterised the Scotland of Alexander the Third. The aspect of the country became gradually altered by the hand of man as he advanced in civilisation. The introduction of Christianity, and its rapid spread over the country, would fill it with those rude Celtic monasteries which were everywhere established, and with small Christian colonies, who practised a rude agriculture ; forests would be cut down and mosses drained ; and in place of ' those marshy parts of the country, constantly flooded by the tides of ocean,' would appear those rich carses which border the estuaries of her great rivers. The climate would become ameliorated, towns and villages would spring up, and a more settled mode of life become established among the Celtic tribes
" Adamnan, 17/. Cohtmho'. ab australibus eorum sunt regio-
nibus sequestrate. Namque ipsi
" Provinciis septentrionaliuiu australes Picti, qui intra eosdeni Pictorum, hoc est, eis que arduis montes habent sedes. — Hisf. Ec. atque horrentibus montium jugis lib. iii. cap. iv.
CHAP. I.J SCOTLAND UNDEI; ALEXANDER IIL 11
which formed her population. An old description of Scotland north of the Firths, written in the first year of the reign of William the Lion, exhibits of course the same great physical landmarks, which do not alter, as still forming the leading territorial boundaries. ' This region is said to exhibit the form and figure of a man. The chief part of the figure, that is, the head, is in Arregaithel, or Argyll, in the west part of Scotland, on the Irish Sea. His feet are upon the German Ocean. The mountains and deserts of Arregaithel form his head and neck, and his body is the range of mountains called Mound, or the Mounth, which extends from the western to the eastern sea. His arms are the mountains which separate Scotia from Arregaithel. His right side is formed from Moray, Eoss, ]\Iarr, and Euchan. His legs are these two great and principal rivers the Tay and the Spey. Between the legs are Angus and Mearns, on this side of the Mounth, and other districts on the other side,' that is, Marr and Euchan, ' between the Spey and the Mounth.' ^ This descrip- tion, which is fanciful enough, would place the head of the supposed figure at Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scot- land. The body is formed by the great range of hills which separated Inverness-shire and Aberdeenshire from the counties of Eerth, Forfar, and Kincardine, and which forms, as it were, tlie backbone of the Grampians, and these are the mountains obviously alluded to by Eede as separating the northern from the southern Eicts. The arms are formed by the range of liills which run at right angles, and are the great watershed dividing the eastern and western waters. The southern part forming the left arm now separates Argyllshire from Eerth- shire, and the northern part, or right arm, divides the western seaboard of Inverness-shire and Eoss-shire, which then formed part of Argyllshire, from the eastern districts of these counties,
* De situ Albania? qure in se figuram liominis habet. — Chron. Pkts and Scots, p. 135.
12 SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL [hook in.
and lliese arc equally plainly tlie Drumalban range, which in Adamnan's time divided the Scots from the Picts.
Upon this scene, during the period when Scotland was under the rule of this dynasty, two great additional features were introduced. The first consisted of those Norman castles or strongholds, either built by the Norman barons to whom grants of land had been made, and which contributed so greatly to their power in the country, or by the kings of this race upon the crown lands ; and around the latter would cluster those groups of dwellings, inhabited by traders and artisans, which, on the banks or at the mouths of navigable rivers, formed the burghs and seaport towns in which the trade and commerce of the country was carried on. The second great feature consisted of those monasteries founded by these kings for communities of regular canons or other monastic orders of the Eoman Catholic Church, which, with their stone-and-lime buildings, tlie extensive tracts of land attached to them, and the industrial habits they fostered, would tend greatly to extend the cultivation of the soil, and to promote the social condition of the people under theirinfluence.
We have a somewhat imperfect description of Scotland as it was in the time of Alexander the Third, compiled not long after his death. It commences at the eastern border between England and Scotland, and first names Tyvidale, that is, Teviotdale, with its two royal castles of Eokesborow or Roxburgh, and Geddeworth or Jedburgh, the latter a favourite residence of Alexander the Third. Then follows Lothian, with its castles of Berwick, Edinburgh, Dunbar, and Strivelyn or Stirling. These two provinces extend, it tells us, from the border to Erlesferie and Queneferie, that is, to the Eirth of Eorth. In the districts which extend in the west from the Clyde to the Solway it names only the new castle built upon the Ayr water, and in Galewey, Anandale the land of the Lord Robert de Brus, the royal castle of
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER III. 13
L)oimfres or Dumfries, that of Kirkcudbright, belonging to William de Ferrers, and the castle of Baleswynton, belonging to John de Cumyn. The central districts are not named, but here was the extensive forest of Ettrick and Traquair sepa- rating the eastern from the western districts. Beyond Lothian, it tells us, lay the land of Fif or Fife, in which were the burgh of St. Andrews and the castle of Locres or Leuchars. Beyond the Firth of Tay was the land of Anegos or Angus, in which were the castles of Dundee and Forfar ; and then follows ' a certain waste called the Mounth, upwards of sixty miles long and sixteen broad, across which a most wretched passage can be taken to the north, without food ' (ubi est pessi- mum passagium sine cibo). Then follows Mar, and Bouwan or Buchan, in which is the burgh of Aberdene with its royal castle. Followed by the land of Morref or Moray, with the castles of Elgyn and Spiny, and then Ross and Cateneys or Caithness.'' This description seems to follow the coast, as the central districts of Gowry, Atholl, Stratherne, and Menteath are omitted, as well as the district of Arregaithel or Argyll, and the enumeration of the castles is very imperfect. Fordun, however, gives a view of Scotland in his day which is probably equally applicable to the time of Alexander the Third, and in which he seems to break out into enthusiastic admiration of his native country. ' It is a country,' he says, ' strong by nature, and difficult and toilsome of access. In some parts it towers into mountains ; in others it sinks down into plains. For lofty mountains stretch through the midst of it from end to end, as do the tall Alps through Europe, and these mountains formerly separated the Scots from the Picts, and their kingdoms from each other,' — a very accurate description of the Drumalban chain, extending through Scotland from south to north. ' Impassable as they are on horseback, save in very few places,' he proceeds, alluding
^ Brevis Descriptio regni Scotice. — lb. 214.
14 SCOTLAND I NI)i;i; ALKXANDKi: III. [BOOK ill.
here to the passes into Argyll, ' they can hardly be crossed even on foot, both on account of the snow always lying on them, except in summer-time only, and by reason of the boulders torn off the beetling crags, and the deep hollows in Ihcir midst. Along the foot of these mountains are vast woods, full of stags, roe-deer, and other wild animals and beasts of various kinds. . . . Numberless springs also well up, and burst forth from the hills and the sloping ridges of the mountains, and trickling down with sweetest sound in crystal rivulets between flowery banks, flow together through the level vales, and give birth to many streams : and these again to large rivers, in which Scotia marvellously abounds beyond any oilier country ; and at their mouths, where they rejoin the sea, she has noble and secure harbours. Scotia also has tracts of land bordering on the sea, pretty level and rich, with green meadows, and fertile and productive fields of corn and barley, and well adapted for growing beans, peas, and all other produce ; destitute, however, of wine and oil though by no means so, of honey and wax. But in the upland districts, and along the highlands, the fields are less productive, except only in oats and barley. The country is there very hideous, interspersed with moors and marshy fields, muddy and dirty. It is, however, full of pasturage grass for cattle, and comely with verdure in the glens along the watercourses. This region abounds in wool-bearing sheep, and in horses ; and its soil is grassy, feeds cattle and wild l)easts, is rich in milk and wool, and manifold in its wealth of fish in sea, river, and lake.^*^
We can thus, in some degree, picture to ourselves the Scotland of this period. Instead of the large tracts of culti- vated land and the modern mansions of its possessors sur- rounded by plantations, we should see forests of trees of native growth, from amid which, or on their margin, would
^^ Fordun's Chronicle of Scotland, B. ii. ce. vii. and viii. vol. ii. pp. .36-7.
OHAP. 1.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 15
rise the towers of the royal castles, or those of the Norman barons. We should see small patches of cultivated land, in- terspersed with long stretches of barren heath. In sheltered valleys we should find the seats of the early bishoprics of the Celtic Church, and the more imposing monasteries of the regular clergy and monastic orders subsequently introduced, surrounded by a greater extent of cultivated land, and with the huts of the occupiers of the soil clustering round. On the banks of the navigable rivers, or at their mouth, we should find settlements of the trading and industrial population pro- tected by rude walls ; and we should find the northern and western districts exhibiting very much the same characteris- tics as they did during the succeeding centuries : — the two great leading mountain chains of the Mounth and Drumalban forming a succession of hunting-grounds or forests, left to the red-deer and other game ; the minor chains leading from them to the south-east and north-east terminating abruptly on the lowland plains, and forming a great mountain barrier, extend- ing on the south in an oblique line from Ben Lomond to the great range of the Mounth near Stonehaven, and on the north from the same range at Ballater to the river Nairn, through which the great rivers rising among the western hills pour their waters, through narrow gorges which form the passes into the mountain region. Within this line the country would be mainly used for pasturage, and its natural defences would render but few artificial fortifications necessary.
Durius the period when the boundaries of Scotland had Pppuiatiou
f^ ^ of Scotland
been thus extended by the kings of this dynasty, its popula- in the reign
"^ _ .of Alex-
tion was composed of several distinct races, partly of Teutonic auder the
. . p . in • 1 Third coni-
and partly of Celtic origin, forming a people oi very mixed loosed of six descent, in which the Teutonic element was gradually pre- dominatinij more and more over the Celtic, and either absorb- ing the latter or confining it to the more barren and moun- tain regions of the country. The constituent elements of tliis
IG SCOTLAND UNDKIi ALKXANDHi; III. [book in.
|tnpul;Uiuu bore .^ix. cliirercnt iiaines. These were the Picts and theCumbrians or Britons, the Scots and Angles, theNorwegians, and the Franks or Normans, and we find them distinguished by these names under the rule of the Scoto-Saxon monarchs, till they gradually become merged in the general name of Scots. Thus the charters of Eadgar and Alexander tlie First are addressed to their subjects, both Scots and Angles. Those b}' David the First and Malcolm the Fourth sometimes to Scots and Angles, at other times to Franks or Normans and Angles, and frequently to Franks and Angles, Scots and Gal- wegians or Picts, while in the charters of the subsequent kings these distinctions disappear. When the whole force of the kingdom was called out by David the First at the inva- sion of England which terminated in the disastrous battle of the Standard, we find that his army, according to Ptichard of Hexham, was composed of Normans, Germans, Angles, Northumbrians and Cumbrians of Teviotdale, of Lothian, of Picts commonly called Galwegians, and of Scots/^ while, according to Ailred, the army was arranged in the following battalions. The first was composed of the Galuenses or Gal- wegian Picts ; the second of the Cumberenses and Teviot- dalenses or Britons of Strathclyde and Teviotdale ; the third of the Laodonenses, Insulani, and Lauernani, that is, a mixed battalion of Angles of Lothian, Norwegians of the Isles, and the Gaelic people of the Lennox ; and the king had in his own battalion the Scotti and Muravenses, that is, the people of Scotland between the Forth and the Spey and of the great province of Moray, which he had recently subjected, beyond it, and along with them ' Milites Angli et Franci,'^- or Saxon and Norman barons. Indigenous Of thesc raccs two only were indigenous, and the rest
races of the . . . .
Briton.s and '^ Coadunatus autem erat iste Lodonea, de Pictis, qui vulgo Galle-
Picts. nefandus exercitus de Normannis, weienses dicuntur, et Scottis. — Rio.
Germanis, Anglis, de Nortliymbra- Hagustald. ad an. 1138.
iiis et Cumbris, de Teswetadala, de ^' Fordun's Ghron. vol. i. App. i.
cHAi-. 1.] SCOTLAND UNDEIt ALEXANDER IIL 1 t
were intruders. To the indigenous races belonged the Cum- brians or Britons south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the Picts, who originally inhabited the whole country north of these estuaries, as well as Galloway and a considerable part of Ireland. Both belonged to the Celtic race, the former to that branch of it, the dialect of which is represented by the Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, and perhaps in the main most nearly approached the Cornish in the form of their speech. But whether the Picts were altogether a homogeneous people may perhaps be a question. From the time when they first be- came known to the Romans, they appear throughout as divided into two branches ; but whether the expression of the Ptonian historian, when he terms these two divisions of the Pictish people two nations, indicates any diversity of race, or whethei-, as the language of Bede rather implies, the distinction was simply geographical, certainly in one important respect they for a time showed a material difference, for the southern Picts adopted Christianity at a much earlier period than the north- ern Picts, and they were so far disunited that the conversion of the former did not imply that of the whole nation, and for a century and a half, while the southern portion were nomi- nally Christian, the northern half remained Pagan. Every circumstance, however, connected with them, tends to show that the Picts who inhabited the northern and western regions of Scotland, as well as Galloway and. the districts in Ireland, belonged to the Gaelic race and spoke a Gaelic dialect, while the southern Picts, placed between them and a British people, present features which appear to assimilate them to both ; and the conclusion we came to was that they were probabl}' originally of the same Gaelic race, while a British element had entered into their language, either from mixture with tliat people, or from some other influence arising from their contact.
The sixth century brought in both an additional Gaelic Colonising
l'3.CtiS 01
and a Teutonic element into the population of this part of Scots ami
Angles.
VOL. in. li
18 SCOTLAND UNDKU ALEXANDER III. [isooK in.
Britain, for in the beginning of that century a colony of Scots
from Ireland, who were undoubtedly a Gaelic people, settled
on the l)urren coasts on the nortli side of the Firth of Clyde,
and the same century saw tlie eastern seaboard, extending
from tlie Tweed to the Inrth of Forth, in possession of the
Angles of Northumberland ; while there is reason to believe
that some parts of the country between these limits had been
previously partially settled by Frisian tribes belonging to the
great Saxon confederation.
iiitrudiug In the ninth century the great outburst of piratical ad-
races of 1 O T •
Danes, Nor- venturers from the Scandmavian shores brought first the and ' Danes and afterwards the Norwegians to Scotland, and the . orm. lis. -^^^^Q^, j-^Q^ Qj^jy colonised the Orkney and Shetland Islands but became masters of the Western Isles, and from time to time of considerable districts on the mainland of Scotland. During the reigns of the earlier kings of this dynasty the Saxon influence was largely increased by those who either took refuge in Scotland from the power of the Norman Con- ([ueror or were attracted by the connection of these kings through their mother with the Saxon royal family ; while David the First introduced the Norman barons, who obtained large tracts of laud on both sides of the Firths of Forth and Clyde under his auspices and that of his immediate successors. iiirtuence of In estimating the extent to which these foreign elements races^oii influenced the original inhabitants, and how far they formed popi^Mioii. a permanent ingredient in the mixed population, it is neces- sary to keep in view the circumstances under which they obtained a footing in the country, and the peculiar features which characterised the intruders. Did they enter the country as colonists or as conquerors ? If the former, did they come as military colonists? or did they bring theii' wives and families with them ? Or, if the latter, did they amalgamate with the conquered population so as to form one people, the language and institutions of one or other obtaining
OHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 1\)
tlie mastery over the whole 1 or did they exterminate or drive them out ? or were the remains of the conquered people re- tained as a servile class under the conquerors'? The first recorded settlements whicli have a historical basis were those of the Scots on the west coast and of the Angles on the east. Of these the Scots appear to have come more as colonists than as invaders. They were a tribe of Scots who came from the district of Dalriada in Ireland in the beginning of the sixth century, and brought that name with them which was applied to the southern part of the great western district of Argyll. They belonged to the same Gaelic race as the Pictish tribes among whom they were settled, and the oldest tradition as reported by Bede cannot tell whether ' they secured to themselves these settlements by fair means or by force of arms.'^^ The conversion of the northern Picts to Christianity by the Irish missionary St. Columba, and the establishment of a Christian church among them under Scottish clergy, now formed a bond of union between them ; and it is recorded by Bede that up to the time when he wrote his History their mutual boundaries had remained unaltered. In the same century the Angles of Bernicia, under the sons of Ida, who had founded that kingdom, obtained possession of the districts extending along the east coast as far as the Firth of Porth. They were a Pagan people, conquering a Christian population of a different race and language from themselves ; and there .seems little reason to question tliat this settlement was only effected after a fierce and prolonged struggle between the Angles and the native pojDulation, by which, after varied for- tunes on either side, the latter were eventually either exter- minated or driven into the more hilly and barren regions on the west. There were thus formed four distinct kingdoms, which remained independent of each other during the sixth,
'■^ Qui duce Reuda de Hibeniia met inter eos sedes qiias hacteniis piogressi vel aniicitia vel ferro sibi- habeiit, vindicarent. — Bede, i. c. l'.
20 SCOTLAND I'NDKi; .M-KXANhKK III. |nnoK in.
seventh, and eighth centuries, viz. those of the Ticts and of the Cumhrian Ik-itons consisting of tlie two indigenous races, and those of the Scots of JJalriada and Angles of Bernicia estab- lished by two of the intruding peoples ; and their mutual boundaries had remained unaltered down to the period when Bede wrote in the eighth century. Foreign It was not till the ninth century that those changes in
hitroduced thcir relative position commenced which ultimately led to latiouT" their fusion into one mixed population. A revolution in Cumbrian '^ that ccntury led to a dynasty of kings of Scottish descent territories. ]^gjj-,g permanently placed on the Pictish throne, and to a Scottish element being largely and to an increasing extent introduced into the Pictish population. The capital of the Pictish kingdom had at this time been Scone, and around this central point the new Scottish monarchy had its chief influence, and in the neighbouring districts the new Scottish population would be most numerous. The province of Fife seems to have been considered as their main seat, and they appear to have spread over the central districts of the region extending from the Forth to the great barrier of the Mounth, while the more independent portion of its Pictish population appear at its two extremities in the firu Fortren or men of Fortren, who had their chief stronghold in Dundurn at the eastern end of Lochearn, and in the viri de Moerne or men of Mearns, whose principal fortress was Dnnfother or Dunnottar at Stonehaven. These Scots and Picts, belonging to the same Gaelic race and speaking kindred dialects, would amalgamate readily enough, and they would probably be found at this time established alongside of each other in homesteads some of which would be Scottish and others Pictish, — a state of matters of which we find examples in northern Eussia, where the earlier Finnish population and the intruding Slavs occupy respective villages, and in parts of Greece, where the distri- bution of the Albanian and the Greek population presents
OHAi'. i.J SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 21
the same features. This view of the distribution of the Scot- tish and Pictish communities in the new kingdom of Alban, to which the name of Scotia was soon applied, will to some extent account for the strange interlacing in this part of the country of the three earliest dioceses of Dunkeld, of Abernethy, afterwards represented by the dioceses of Dun- blane and Brechin, and of St. Andrews, — the two former being traditionally connected with the Pictish name, and the latter closely identified with the Scottish people. Diocesan boundaries are usually found to reflect more ancient etlmic divisions.
The Scottish dynasty of kings had not occupied the Pictish throne for more than sixty or seventy years when the failure of the line of British kings of the Strathclyde Britons, and the election of a brother of the Scottish king t(j he their successor, placed a similar dynasty of Scottish kings on the tlirone of the Cumbrian kingdom, and made its eventual cession to the Scottish monarch a more natural and easy arrangement ; and the cession of Lothian in the follow- ing century completed the territorial formation of the later Scottish kingdom.
Such being the state of matters when the dynasty of kin<'s Spread of
"^ . J J .-- Teutonic
sprung from the union of JVIalcolm Ceannmor with the Saxon people over i-»- -nT 11 1 • 1 • 1 ^11 them.
fnncess Margaret ruled over this knigdom, we find when we reach the reign of Alexander the Third that a great change has taken place. The British speech has entirely disappeared from the district forming the ancient Strathclyde kingdom, and their population now speak the same Northumbrian or northern dialect of English with the people of Lothian ; while this Teutonic language has likewise spread over the eastern districts extending from the Forth to the Moray Firth, where in the reign of Malcolm Ceannmor that Celtic king had had to interpret the Saxon speech of his queen to its inhabitants, and the indigenous Gaelic vernacular was now confined to
22 SCOTLAND UNDEl; ALKXANDEI! III. [hook iii.
the mountain regions of the North and West north oi' the Firths oi' Forth and (-lyde, wldle the peojde of Lennox and Galloway, within the linnts of the ancient Cumbrian king- dom, likewise retained their Gaelic speech. There had, there- fore, taken place in these districts a silent revolution, of which history has taken little note.
Besides the violent or organic changes produced in a population by the invasion or colonisation of a foreign people which history marks, and the effects of which we can trace in the events recorded in the annals of the country, there is another silent and inorganic spread of one race over the territory of another, the eventual results of which are appa- rent enough, and the causes which led to it may be divined, but the steps of its progress are less easily marked. In the one, whole nations or tribes take possession of part or the whole of new districts ; in the other, they spread not collectively but in families or groups. In the one, the inroad is effected by force or by direct convention. In the other, it is the result of natural causes arising from the contact of two races possessing different qualities and states of civilisation, and from the influence which the force of character of one people may exercise over another. Their influence, too, upon the spoken language and the place-names of the people presents itself in different aspects. In the one, the language of the invading people is established as the language of tlie country when the subject population has been exterminated or driven out, and the older place-names are either adopted into the language or changed at once. In tlie other, the silent and gradual inorganic colonisation changes by degrees the spoken language, but not the bulk of the place-names. The great natural features of the country usually retain the names imposed upon them by its original inhabitants, but those of the homesteads occupied by the colonising race assume the forms of their language, and those applicable to the dwellings of man only remain unchanged when the original people have
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 23
lingered longer, or when the name is expressive of some common natural feature, which has been readily adopted as such by the intruders. Topography thus affords us some help in indicating the presence of the stranger, and marking the extent to which the race to which he belongs has spread over the country.
When Earl David, as Prince of Cumbria, proposed to restore the ancient church of Glasgow, and asked the elders and wise men of Cumbria to inquire into the ancient posses- sions of that church, they told him that after Kentigern, the founder of the church, and several of his successors, had passed to God, ' various seditions and insurrections rising all around not only destroyed the church and its possessions, but, laying waste the whole country, delivered its inhabit- ants into exile. Thus, also, all good beinjf exterminated, after a considerable interval of time different tribes of differ- ent nationalities pouring in from different parts inhabited this deserted country, but being of separate race, speaking a dis- similar language, and living after different fashion, not easily agreeing among themselves, they maintained paganism rather than the cultivation of the faith. The Lord, however, who wills that none should perish, was pleased to visit, in his clemency, these unhappy inhabitants of a condemned habita- tion, irrationally dwelling after the manner of beasts. In the days of Henry, king of England, Alexander reigning as king in Scotia, God sent them David, brother-german of the fore- said king, as prince and leader, who corrected their obscene and wicked contagion, and bridled their contumelious contu- macy with nobleness of soul and inflexible severity.'^* This picture, coloured no doubt to deepen the shade of the past,
'^ Dicto namque Kentegerno destnixerunt, verum etiam totam
pluribusque successoribus suis pie regioneni vastantes, ejus habita-
religiouis perseverantia ad Deiim tores exilio tradidei-unt. Sic ergo
transmigratis, diverse seditiones omnibus bonis exterminatis, magnis
circumquaque insurgentes, non so- temporum intervallis transactis,
lum Ecclesiam et ejus possessiones diverse tribus diversai'um nationem
24 SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDKU III. [book m.
and to brighten the prospects of the country under David's rule, still sufficiently indicates the belief that the British inhabitants had to a great extent deserted the country, and that it had been repeatedly laid waste by foreign nations, who had eventually settled in the country. The allusion to the paganism of some refers probably to the Norwegians and Danes, the former of whom in 870 besieged their capital Alclyde, now Dumbarton, and destroyed it after a few months' siege, and carried a great host of prisoners with them to Ireland into captivity, and five years afterwards the Britons of Strathclyde and Picts of Galloway were ravaged by the Danes of Northumberland. A Welsh chronicle, attributed to Caradoc of Llancarvan, tells us that in '891 the men of Strathclyde, who would not unite with the Saxons, were obliged to leave their country, and go to Gwynedd or North Wales.' '^ In 945 it was ravaged by Edmund, king of Wessex, and ceded to the Scots. In 1000, Ethelred, king of Wessex, entered Cumbria, ravaged it nearly all, and it was again laid waste ; and in 1070, Gospatric, Earl of Northum- bria, having collected a considerable force, made a furious incursion into the Cumbrian kingdom, then under the do- minion of the Scottish king ]\Ialcolm, spreading slaughter and conflagration on all sides. These notices sufficiently
ex diversis partibus affluentes, de- germanum, in jjrincipem et duceni ;
sertam regionem prefatam habitave- qui eorum impudica et scelerosa con-
runt ; sed dispari genere et dissiinili tagia corrigeret, et aniini iiobilitate
lingua et vario more viventes, baud et inflexibili severitate contumelio-
facile [inter] sese consentientes, gen- sani eorum contumatiam refrenaret.
tilitatem potius quam fidei cultuni — Haddan and Stubbs, Councils,
tenuere. Quos infelices dampnate vol. ii. part i. p. 17. liabitationis babitatores, more pe-
cudum irrationabiliter degentes, ^^ 'pi^jg cbronicle was printed
dignatus est Uominus, Qui nemi- from tbe Book of Aberpergwm in
nem vult perire, propitiatione Sua tbe Myvyriwi Archa'ology, vol. ii.,
visitare ; tempore enim Heurici and reprinted, with a translation,
Regis Anglie, Alexandro Scotorum in theArcJurologia Cambrensis, vol.
rege in Scotia regnante, misit eis ix., Third Series, but its authority
Deus David, predicti Regis Scotie is very doubtful.
CHAP. 1.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER III. 25
bear out that feature in the dark picture of the past history of the British kingdom, and we may well believe that under these repeated devastations, and under the Scottish dominion, its Welsh population, isolated in the north between Picts, Scots, and Angles, and harassed by incessant invasions, would gradually retreat to their mother country of Wales, and that their neighbours would gradually settle in the partially deserted country.
There are some indications of earlier settlements among them of Frisians, who left their name in Dunfres, the town of the Frisians, as Dunbreatan or Dumbarton is the town of the Britons,^'* and the subjection of the Cumbrian kingdom to the Angles of Northumbria for thirty years prior to 685 must have had an effect on its population ; but, be this as it may, the neighbouring Anglic population, attracted by her fertile plains and valleys, appear at a later period to have made their way into the upper valley of the Tweed and Teviot, and along the banks of the great watercourse of the Clyde, and to the plains of Renfrew and Ayr, where they have left evidence of their settlements in the numerous Saxon place- names ending with the generic terms of ton and hamc, while the northern district, where the limits of the Cumbrian king- dom penetrated into the mountains — the district surrounding the romantic lake of Loch Lomond — seems soon to have ac- quired a Gaelic population, and became known as the Levenach or Lennox. The Gaelic population of Galloway at the same time appear to have encroached upon the southern limit of Ayrshire and peopled the district of Carrick with a Gaelic race. Extensive territories too were granted by Earl David to his Norman followers. The great district of Annandale was given to De Bruce. The adjacent districts of Eskdale
'8 When Kentigern was preach- their god Woden had been a mere
ing to the pagan people at Hoddam, man. — See Paper on Early Frisian
in Dumfriesshire, the chief point of Settlements, Proceedings Ant. Scot.,
his sermon was to show them that vol. iv. p. 169.
26 SC()T[,ANI) UNDKI; ALKXANDEl! III. bouk iii.
aud Ewisdale were tilled with Xormaus, The De ^lorevilles obtained Cuninghame or the northern district of Ayrshire, and the Norman Fitzallan, who became the Steward of Scot- land, acquired Strathgryff, or Renfrew and part of Kyle. These Norman barons settled their Northumbrian followers on their lands, and thus almost the whole of the ancient king- dom of the Cumbrian Britons became soon entirely Saxonised.
A similar process seems to have commenced in the eastern districts north of the Forth after the union of the Celtic monarch with the Saxon princess had given the Saxon influence predominance in the country, and stamped his children with the character and feeling of Saxon monarchs, which soon pro- duced a similar result. We find Saxon barons, who fled to Scotland from the power of the Norman Conqueror, acquiring lands in the province of Fife. The burghs founded by the kings of this race on the crown lands were filled with Saxon and Flemish traders, and the latter people obtained grants of land. Thus we find ^lalcolni the Fourth granting the lands of Innes ' Beroaldo Flandrensi,' and David, Earl of Huntingdon, grants lands in Garrioch to ]\Ialcolm, son of Bertolf, a Flemish name, and his charter is addressed to ' all good men of his Idngdom, French or Normans, English or Angles, Flemish and Scotch.' ^' The great religious houses established by them brought southern ecclesiastics into the northern parts of the kingdom, who were accompanied by a southern following; and on the extensive church lands we find the sole remains of the Celtic population appearing as serfs, under the Celtic appella- tions of ' Cumlawes' and ' Cumherbes,'^^ and large territories speedily passed into the possession of Norman barons, who settled them with their own followers.
In the scanty records which throw light upon the history
of the land in these districts, we can see the Gaelic name of
the land-owners gradually becoming more and more restricted,
I'FourthReportofHist. MSS.Com.jApp. p. 493. ^'^ Chart. 80071,1^.24.
CHAP. I.J SCOTLAND UNDKII ALEXANUKU HI. 27
and retreating before the Teutonic settlers. We can see more and more of the land becoming feudalised, and being held by the followers of the barons in military tenure. The church lands, forming a large proportion of the whole, became in fact agricultural colonies of strangers. In the crown lands alone the older land tenures maintained their position for a time, though there too the increasing im- portance of the royal burghs, and the gradual advance of their Saxon inmates into the surrounding land, soon carried the Saxon tongue into them ; and thus the old Celtic king- dom of Alban or Scotia, extending from the Firth of Forth to the river Spey, had in the reign of Alexander the Third assumed an entirely Teutonic aspect, while wliat Fordun tells us of Malcolm the Fourth, that ' having gathered together a large army, the king removed the rebel nation of the Moravienses from the land of their birth, as of old Nebuchad- nezzar, king of Babylon, had dealt with the Jews, and scattered them throughout the other districts of Scotland, both beyond the mountains,' that is, the Mounth, ' and on this side thereof, so that not even one native of that land abode there, and installed therein his own peaceful people,' ^^ is probably to some extent true in so far as regards the inhabitants of the plain country extending from the Spey along the southern shore of the Moray Firth to the river Nairn, in which the royal castles of Elgin, Forres, and Nairn were situated, and which formed the three small sheriffdoms of these names. It is not at all unlikely that that king, or his successor AVil- liam the Lion, should have adopted the policy of interposing between the native population, ' who,' Fordun tells us, ' would, for neither prayers nor bribes, neither treaties nor oaths, leave off their disloyal ways, or their ravages among their fellow- countrymen,' and the frontier of the province a tract of country, garrisoned, as it were, with the more settled people of the lowlands.
'8 Fordun, Chron. (Annals, iv.) ed. 1S72, vol. ii. p. '2o\.
28 SCOTLAND I'NDKi; ALKXANDKK III. |ii()UKlii.
Norwegian Hut if tliis silent and gradual immigration of tlie Teutonic
kinpdoiii ol ° °
the Isles, people thus took place into the southern and eastern districts of the country north of the Forth and Clyde, and either ab- sorbed its Celtic inhabitants or gradually drove them back into the more mountainous regions, the latter were exposed to a more direct assault from another people of Teutonic race on the north and west, which, however, did not produce the same permanent effect upon the population. This was that strange and sudden appearance in the northern and western seas of a piratical horde of sea-robbers, which issued from the Scandinavian countries lying to the north of Germany. The first to make their appearance were the Danes, and though they repeatedly ravaged the "Western Isles and destroyed the Christian monasteries, they effected permanent settlements only in Ireland, and in the northern provinces of England forming the ancient kingdom of Northumbria. They were followed by the Norwegians, who appear to have been more attracted by the islands surrounding Scotland, and thus came more immediately in contact with the Gaelic population of Scotland. They entirely occupied the islands of Orkney and Shetland, which they colonised ; and took possession of the Western Isles, without, however, driving out or absorbing the previous inhabitants of Gaelic race.
By the ( laelic people these northern ravagers were termed either Gcinnfc or Gentiles as being pagans, or Gall or Stran- gers as being foreigners, and the two races of the Danes and Norwegians were distinguished by the terms Duhhgcinnte or Dubhgall, that is, black pagans or black strangers, and Finn- gcinntc or Finngall^"^ white pagans or white strangers, and the Western Islands were termed Innsigall, or the Islands of the Strangers, while the Norwegians themselves called them
-* The names Dubhgall and Finn- belong to a large class of names end-
gall must not be confounded, as ing with the syllable gaJ, signifying
is usually done, with the Chi'istian ralour. names Dubhgal and Fingal, which
CHAP. I.J SCOTLAND UKDKlt ALEXANDEIt 111. 21)
the Sudreys or Southern Islands, to distinguish them from the Nordereys or Northern Islands, that is, the Orkney and Shetland Islands.-^
That the Norwegians did not so thoroughly colonise the The Gail -
. gaidheal.
Western Isles and absorb its Gaelic population, as was the case with the Orkney and Shetland Islands, may have arisen from their finding in the former a more dense population, and also that they appear to have used the Sudreys more as a kind of stepping-stone to other settlements, or as temporary strongholds, rather than as places for lasting settlements, and thus their Norwegian population was generally of a more transient and fluctuating character ;^2 but this was mainly true of the earlier period of their occupation only, and a more important ground of difference arose from the Gaelic popula- tion of the Western Isles more nearly assimilating themselves to the character of the Norwegian sea-robbers. They seem to have submitted easily to their rule, and to have adopted their habits, so that when one of the great Norwegian Vikings, Ketill Elatnose, succeeded in establishing a petty kingdom in the Isles in opposition to the rapidly increasing power of Harald Harfager, the first monarch who acquired the dominion of all Norway, we find the Isles said by the Sagas to be in the possession of Scotch and Irish Vikings, and Ketill appears in the Irish Annals under the name of Caittil Finn as the leader of a people called the Gallgaidheal, a name applied to those Gaidheal who became subject to the Norwegians, and conformed to their mode of life. Harald, however, eventually conquered both the Orkney Islands and the Sudreys or West- ern Isles. The former came under the rule of a line of Nor- wegian Jarls, who, by the marriage of one of them with the daughter of ' Dungadr, Jaii of Katenes,' that is, of Duncan,
-' There is no foundation for the is contradicted by the language of
usual statement that the Sudreys the Sagas.
meant merely the islands south of -- Th is is Munch's opinion. Seehis
the Point of Ardnamurchan, which Chronicle of Man, preface, p. xviii.
30 SCOTLAND UNDEU ALEXANDER IIL f»ooK m.
the Celtic Mormaer of Caitlmess, added that province to their dominions ; and the Norwegian population seem to have as completely colonised the eastern and level part of Caithness as they did the Orkney Islands.
Harald appears to have governed the Western Isles by Norwegian Jarls, but his hold upon tliem was slight, and ap- parently ceased with his death, and they became merely the haunt of stray Vikings until the middle of the following cen- tury, when their possession was contested between the Danes of Dublin and Limerick, who had got a firm hold of the Island (jf Man, and the Norwegian Jarls of Orkney. One of the principal leaders of the Danes of Dublin, Anlaf Cuarau, had become connected with the Scottish King Constantine, and appears to have exercised some authority over the islands ; but at the great battle of Brunanburgh, in which he and his father-in-law Constantine were engaged., we find the death of Geleachan, King of the Isles, recorded, as well as that of Cellach, a prince or Mormaer of Scotland,-'^ names which un- doubtedly show a Gaelic form. Soon after we find Maccus or Magnus, son of Aralt, a leader of the Danes of Limerick, called King of Many Islands, and a struggle took place between his brother and successor Godfred, son of Aralt, called King of Innsigall, and Sigurd, Norwegian Jarl of Orkney, for the possession of the western Isles, wlieu the former was slain by the Gaelic people of Dalriada or Argyll, and the Isles were acquired by the Orkney Jarl, who soon after added to his territories the western and northern dis- tricts of Scotland. His territories are said in the Sagas to have consisted, besides Orkney and the Sudreys, of Katanes, Sudrland, jNIyrhaevi or Moray, and Dali or the glens of Argyll, on the west, and we find a Jarl Gilli apparently ruling the Isles, whose principal seat was the island of Coll, and whose name has a Gaelic form.-* He pays scatt or tribute to
'-■' Annals of the. Four Mafiter.<, -'■* Dasent, .So .7a of Burnt Njal,
vol. i. p. 634. vol. ii. pp. 12. 39. 40.
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDElt III. 31
Sigurd, and obtained his sister in marriage. Under Sigurd's son Thorfinn, the most powerful of the Orkney Jarls, after the defeat and death of King Duncan in 1040, the whole of the northern districts of Scotland, as far as the river Tay, fell under the power of the Norwegians, who likewise possessed the Sudreys or Western Isles and the Gaelic district of Galloway, while Macbeth, the Mormaer of Moray, ruled as king over the dominions left to him, and the other districts south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde adhered to the family of Duncan ; but on the deatli of Thorfinn, we are told that the additional territories acquired by him fell back to their native lords. Malcolm, the son and heir of Duncan, succeeded in defeating and killing the usurper Macbeth, and his successor Lulach, also of the family of the Mormaers of Moray, and establishing himself as king over the same territories which had been pos- sessed by his father. The Western Isles pass for a time under the power of an Irish king of Leinster, which shows how powerful the Gaelic element in their populations still was, and on his death fell under the authority of the Crown. At this time the Isle of Man was in the possession of the Danish kings of Dublin, but a powerful Norwegian Viking who had joined the expedition of Harald, king of Norway, in 1066, with his followers, and fought at the battle of Stamford Bridge, succeeded after that defeat in driving the Danes out of Man and extending his power over the Western Isles, where he founded a new dynasty of Norwegian kings of the Isles. He is termed in the Chronicle of Man Godred Crovan, and, in the Irish Annals, Goffraig Meranach, king of the Galls of Dublin and the Isles, where his death,-^ which, according to the Chronicle of Man, took place in the island of Isla, is recorded in 1095. The Isles had, however, two years
"5 Goifraig Meranach ri Gall mor- Meranach tighearna Gall Athacliath
tuns est. — An. Ult. ad an. 1095. agus ua ninnsidh. — Annals of flie
Atbath don mhortladh chetna (of Four Masters, vol. ii. p. 950. the same pestilence died) Gofraidh
32 SCOTLAND UNDKIt ALKXANDKi; 111. |i)OOKiir.
before been invaded by Magnus, king of Norway, and brought under his dominion, and were eventually formally ceded to him by King Eadgar in the beginning of his reign, who thus, for a time, terminated their nominal connection M'ith the Scottish kingdom. After the death of King Magnus, we find the leading men of the Isles applying to the king of Ireland to send them some person of worth of the royal family to act as their king till Olave, the son of Godred, should grow up, and Donald, son of Tadg, was sent, who is said in the Annals of Innisfallen to have acquired the kingdom of Innsigall by force,^^ but was driven out when the king of Norway sent a Norwegian named Ingemund. But on his attempting to have himself appointed king, he was attacked and slain by the chief men of the Isles, and Olave, the son of Godred Crovau, was established as king over all the Isles, and ruled them for forty years. The Norwegians at this time still pos- sessed the western seaboard of Scotland north of the Firth of Clyde, and the district of Galloway. According to the Red Book of Clanranald, 'All the islands from j\Ian?inn, or the Isle of Man, to Area, or the Orkneys, and all the bordering country from Dun Bretan, or Dumbarton, to Cata, or Caith- ness, in the north, were in the possession of the Lochlannach or Norwegians, and such of the Gaedhal of those lands as remained were protecting themselves in the woods and mountains.' -'
This is probably a true picture of the relative posi- tion of the Norwegian and the Gaelic population at this time, and is no doubt equally applicable to the district of Galloway ; but, during the rule of Olave over the Isles, a simultaneous effort seems to have been made by the Gaelic inhabitants of both districts to free this mainland border country from the presence of the Norwegians. The leader of the native Gaelic population of Argyll was Somerled, and of that of Galloway was Fergus. The former
-^ Chroii. Pict.i and Scots, p. 170.
-' See translation of Book 0/ Clan ran a hi in the Appendi.x, No. i.
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 33
bears certainly a Norwegian name, but the names of father and grandfather have been preserved. He was son of Gille- bride, son of Gille-adomnan, and these names are of too purely a Gaelic form to indicate anything but a Gaelic descent, and they are said in the Book of Clanranald to have taken refuge from the Norwegians in Ireland, and to have had a hereditary right to the mainland territories possessed by the latter. The name of the father of Fergus of Galloway has not been preserved, but his own name is a purely Gaelic form, and his personal qualities probably raised him to the leadership of the Gaelic population. Macvurich describes Gillebride, the father of Somerled, as being present at a con- ference held by the Macmahons and Maguires in Fermanagh, and obtaining help from them to regain his inheritance in Scotland. He went over to Scotland with his son Somerled and a band of followers, and when in the mountains and woods of Ardgour and Morvern, they were surprised by a large force of Norwegians, who were, however, eventually defeated by Somerled and his party ; and, adds Macvurich, ' he did not halt in the pursuit until he drove them northward across the river Shell, and he did not cease from that work until he cleared the western side of Alban from such of the Norwegians as had acquired the dominion of the islands, with the exception of the island called Innsigall, and he gained victory over his enemies in every field of battle.' ^^ We have no record of what took place in Galloway, except that the result appears to have been the same, for we find the people of Galloway joining the army of King David at the Battle of the Standard under their Celtic leaders, and Fergus fully established in his reign as Lord of Galloway. The Nor- wegians, however, were not allowed even to retain quiet possession of the Isles, and Somerled, who now appears as Eegulus of Argyll, succeeded in eventually wresting the
=8 lb.
VOL. in. c
34 SCOTLAND UNDKR ALEXANDER III. [book in.
Southern Isles from them. Macvurich tells us that after he had cleared the mainland of the Norwegians ' he sjoent some time in war, and another time in peace,' and during one of these intervals peace appears to have been concluded between the leaders of the Gaelic population and the Norwegian king Olave, for the latter married Afreca, daughter of Fergus, the Celtic lord of Galloway, by whom lie had a son, Godred, and gave one of his own daughters to Somerled, the Celtic Eegulus of Argyll, in marriage, who had by her four sons, Dubhgal, Eeginald, Angus, and Olave.-^ During the reign of Olave he is said by the Chronicle of Man to have ' lived upon such terms of union with all the kings of Ireland and Scotland that no one dared to disturb the kingdom of the Isles as long as he was alive ; ' but after his death the two populations came again into conflict, which resulted in the Gaelic population of Galloway maintaining their independence, and those of Argyll adding a large portion of the Islands to the dominions of their leader. Olave was slain in the island of Man by the sons of his brother Harold, who had formed a conspiracy against him in the year 1152, upon which, we are told in the Chronicle of Man, the conspirators divided the land among themselves, and a few days afterwards, having collected a fleet, they sailed over to Galloway, intending to conquer it for themselves. The Galloway men, however, formed them- selves in a body and assailed them with great impetuosity ; whereupon they speedily fled in great confusion, and either slew or expelled from it all the men of Galloway who were resident within the island.' ^^ In the following year Godred, the son of Olave, arrived with some ships from Norway, and was elected by the chiefs of the Isles as their king ; but he was no sooner secure in his kingdom than he became tyran- nical to his chief men, some of whom he dispossessed, and others he degraded from their dignities. One of the most
■-■9 Chron. of Man, ad an. 1140. '■^'> lb.
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER III. 35
powerful of these, Thorfinn, son of Otter, went to Somerled and asked to have his son Dubhgal, wliose mother was King Olave's daughter, that he might set him on the throne of the Isles, and taking him through the Isles he forced the chiefs to acknowledge him for their sovereign, and to give hostages for their allegiance. Another of these chiefs called Paul fled privately to Godred, who seems to have been in Man, and told him what had taken place, when he immediately col- lected his followers, got his ships ready, and sailed to meet the enemy. Somerled, too, collected a fleet of eighty vessels, and a sea-battle was fought between Godred and Somerled, during the night of the Epiphany, with great slaughter on both sides, and next morning they came to a compromise, and divided the sovereignty of the Isles, ' so that from that period they have formed two distinct monarchies till the present time.' ^^
Somerled was slain, as we know, at Eenfrew in the year 1164, and on his death his eldest son Dubhgal appears to have succeeded him in his mainland territories, while his pos- sessions in the Isles fell to his second son Eeginald with the Norwegian title of king. Godred died in the Isle of Man in the year 1187, and was succeeded by his eldest son Eeginald. There thus came to be two Eeginalds reigning over the Isles at the same time, the Norwegian Eeginald the son of Godred, and the Celtic Eeginald the son of Somerled. Both bore the title of King of the Isles, and thus they are often confounded. There is preserved in the Book of Fermoy a curious poem which throws some light on the state of the Isles at this time.^^ It consists mainly of a panegyric on the Norwegian Eeginald, but appears to allude likewise to the other Eegi- nald. When the Isles were divided, those which lie south of
■"^ 76. this poem, collated with one in his
^^ The author is indebted to W. own possession. It is printed in the
M. Hennessey, Esq., of the Public Appendix, No. ii., along with a
Record Office, Dublin, for a copy of translation by Mr. Hennessey.
3G SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER lU. [book hi.
the Point of Ardnamurchan appear to liave fallen to the share of Somerled, and his son Eeginald seems to have had his chief seat in the island of Isla. The Isles retained by the Nor- wegians consisted of Skye, the Long Island, and the islands of Tyree and Coll. The latter island of Coll, whicli we find was the chief seat of the Jarls who had ruled the Isles under the king of Norway prior to the establishment of the Norwegian kingdom of the Isles, appears to have remained as the chief seat of the Norwegian Reginald, for he is addressed in the poem as king of Coll. The islands of Arran and Bute in the Firth of Clyde appear to have been shared between the two Reginalds, the Norwegian retaining Arran, which forms a prominent feature in the poem under the poetic name of Eamain Ahhlach or Eamania of the apple-trees,^^ and Bute passing over to the Celtic Reginald.
It is unnecessary for our present purpose to follow the history of the Western Isles further. Suffice it to say that Argyll came under the power of the Crown in 1222, when Alexander the Second firmly established his authority over this extensive western region. In 1196 William the Lion had brought the great northern district of Caithness under subjection, and severed the southern half of it, which he placed under a Scotch lord, and in the same reign of Alex- ander the Second, the restricted earldom of Caithness passed into the possession of a branch of the Celtic family of the Earl of Angus, and he died in the island of Kerreray while endeavouring to wrest the Isles from Norway. In the follow- ing reign the whole kingdom of the Isles passed into the possession of the Scottish monarch, the last Norwegian king of Man having died in 1265, and the Isles being formally ceded to Alexander the Third in 1266 ; and thus the power of
^ Ise in Manannan sin robai i n- is the place which is called Eamania
arainn ocus as friaside adberar E- of the apple-trees. — Yelloiv Book of
main Ablach. It was this Manan- Lecain, Atlajitis, vol. iv. p. 228. nan that resided in Arann, and this
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 37
the Norwegians entirely disappeared from the mainland of Scotland and from the Western Isles, the islands of Orkney and Shetland alone remaining as a dependency of the king- dom of Norway.
During the entire duration of this Norwegian kingdom of the Isles, we see the frequent appearance of a subordi- nate body termed the Princes or Chiefs of the Isles,^^ whose recognition of the authority of the king was necessary to his assumption of that position. "We see them electing a king and occasionally deposing a king ; and that this body consisted of persons partly of Norwegian and partly of Gaelic descent is evident, from their sometimes deferring to the authority of the king of Norway, and at other times appealing to Ireland for aid. When the Norwegian influence was paramount, they would accept the control of the Nor- wegian monarch. When the Gaelic influence predominated, they seem invariably to have fallen back upon the kindred Gael of Ireland, and come under their influence. The inferior population of the Isles throughout was probably Gaelic, who formed the actual occupiers of the soil under superior lords, some of Norwegian and some of native descent.
When the partition of the kingdom of the Isles took place between Clave and Somerled, the Southern Isles, which thus passed under the rule of a native lord, would naturally attract to them the Gaelic population, both chiefs and people, while the chiefs of Norwegian descent would as naturally withdraw to the Northern Isles, which remained under Norwegian rule ; and thus the Norwegian population would become more restricted to these islands, while that of the Southern Isles would become more purely Gaelic ; accordingly we find the Norwegian place-names in Skye and the Long Island are more numerous and more thoroughly spread over the Isles than in the islands south of the Point of Ardnamurchan, a result we
^' Principes Insularum. — Ghron. Mannuv.
38 SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER III. [book iii.
might also naturally expect from the Norwegian occupation of the former having lasted a century longer than that of the latter. We should also expect to find that after the partition of the Isles the Northern Islands would become comparatively deserted by the lower class of the population, the actual occupiers of the soil ; and the condition of these islands at this time may be gathered from the Chronicle of Man, where it tells us that the Norwegian king Eeginald ' gave his brother Olave the island which is called Lcodhus or Lewis, which though larger than any of the other isles is mountainous, rocky, and almost entirely inaccessible. It is of course thinly peopled, and the inhabitants live mostly by hunting and fishing. To this island Olave retired, and lived in the way of poverty. Seeing the island could not support him and his followers, he went confidentially to his brother Eeginald, who was at that time resident in the Islands, and thus accosted him : Brother, my lord and sovereign, thou art conscious that the kingdom of the Isles is my birthright, but as the Al- mighty hath appointed thee to rule over them, I neither envy nor begrudge thee this royal dignity. Let me now only entreat thee to appoint me some portion of land in the Islands, where I may live creditably with my people ; for the island of Lcodhus, which thou hast given me, is insuffi- cient for my maintenance.' ^^ Apparently Eeginald saw no way of satisfying his demand, and found an easier solution in making him prisoner and sending him to King William the Lion, who imprisoned him during the rest of his reign.
We likewise see from the Chronicle of Man that there was frequent intermarriage between the two races who occupied the islands, and this would not only lead to the introduction of personal names of Norwegian form into families of pure Gaelic descent in the male line, but must to a great extent have altered the physical type of the Gaelic
'^^ Ghrot}. Mannke, ad an.
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 39
race in the islands ; but there is no reason to suppose that, after the entire defeat of the Norwegians in the reign of Alexander the Third, and the cession of the kingdom of the [sles to him, there remained in them many families of pure Norwegian descent, and from the population of Scotland, as we find it in his reign, the Norwegian element, never pro- bably a very permanent and essential ingredient, must now have entirely disappeared.
When the ' Communitas ' or Estates of Scotland met at The Estate
of the
Scone on the 5th of February 1283, to regulate the succession Realm in
1283
to the crown, we find that the great holders of the land in Scotland consisted at this time, first, of thirteen of the great hereditary earldoms, one of which was held by a family of Anglic descent, and four by Norman barons who had suc- ceeded by inheritance in the female line to the ancient Celtic earls ; and, secondly, of twenty-four barons, of whom eighteen at least represented the Norman baronage of the kingdom, while the Celtic element is represented only by three families descended from Somerled, the great Celtic Lord of Argyll ; 3« and when Edward the First placed the whole of Scotland under four justiciaries in 1315, we find the country south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde still divided into the two great districts of Lothian and Galloway, but the lands beyond the Scottish Sea, that is, north of these firths, are now for the first time differently grouped, one division consisting of the country between the river of Forth and the mountains, and the other of the lands beyond the mountains, or that part of the country to which the Gaelic population was now re- stricted.^'^
The account given by Fordun of the distribution of the
^^ See Act. Pari., vol. i. p. 424. ray et iilus a honur et au profits de
"^'' Puis est treitez et acordez de nostre seignur le Roy et al aisement
mettre quatre poire des Justices en du poeple est assentu que en Loe-
la terre Descoce et pur ce que les neys soient deux Justices, cest
choses soient mesnees de meillur ar- asavoir monsieur Johan del Isle
40 SCOTLAND UNDKK ALEXANDER IIL [book hi.
Distinction population ill liis (lay entirely corresponds with this. He tioii into says — ' The manners and customs of the Scots vary with the
Teutonic ...
Lowianders diversity of their speech, for two languases are spoken
and Gaelic "^ ^ . *= " ^
Higii- amongst them, the Scottish and the Teutonic, the latter of
landers. i • i • i i
winch IS the language of those who occupy the seaboard and plains, while the race of Scottish speech inhabits the high- lands and outlying islands. The people of the coast are of domestic and civilised habits, trusty, patient, and urbane, decent in their attire, affable and peaceful, devout in divine worship, yet always prone to resist a wrong at the hands of their enemies. The highlanders and people of the islands, on the other hand, are a savage and untamed nation, rude and independent, given to rapine, ease-loving, of a docile and warm disposition, comely in person but unsightly in dress, hostile to the English people and language, and, owing to diversity of speech, even to their own nation, and exceedingly cruel. They are, however, faithful and obedient to their king and country, and easily made to submit to law if properly governed.' ^^
This description is no doubt to some extent coloured by the predilections of one who himself belonged to the low- country population, but it is not greatly unlike the prejudiced view taken of the characteristics of the Celtic population by late historians, and the struggle between the prejudices of the old historian against the Highland population and his reluctant admission of their better qualities is apparent enough.
We thus find a Gaelic-speaking people in the Highlands
et monsieur Adam de Gurdon. En et monsieur William Inge. Et pur
Ga[lo]way monsieur Roger de les terres dela les Montz Mon-
Kirkpatrick et monsieur Wautier sieur Reynaud le Chien et Monsieur
de Burghdone. Et pur les terres Johan de V^aux du Counte de Nor-
DELA LA MER Descoce, cest asavoir thumber. — Act. Pari. Scot., vol. i.
ENTRE LA RiVERE DE FoRTH ET LES p. 120.
MoNTZ monsieur Robert de Keth ^* Fordun's Chron., vol. ii. p. 38.
CHAP. I.] SCOTLAND UNDER ALEXANDER IIL 41
and a Teutonic-speaking people in the Lowlands. The lan- guage of the former is at an earlier period termed Albanic, and afterwards Scotch, the language of the latter is by the native writers prior to the sixteenth century usually termed Inglis ; but in the sixteenth the progress of a litera- ture in the latter tongue led to those who used it calling it Scotch, while they applied to the Celtic dialect, formerly called Scotch, the epithet of Irish corrupted into Erse. The Celtic part of the population has never given any other name to their language than Gaelic, and term the language of the Lowlanders Bextrla Sassannach, or the Saxon tongue.
It is the social history and position of this portion of the population with which we have now to do.
42
THK SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND.
[book III.
CHAPTEE II.
THE SEVEN PIIOVINCES OF SCOTLAND.
oiddivi- During the Celtic period of her history we find Scotland
Scotia into exhibiting a distribution of her population in separate dis-
provmces. ^j,jg(.g^ which is very analogous to what existed in Ireland at
the same period. The latter country appears from a very
early period to have been divided into five provinces, and
these provinces of Udlah or Ulster, Laighean or Leinster,
Mumhan or Munster, and Connacht or Connaught, with
Midhe or Meath, were ruled by provincial kings under the
Ardri, or supreme king of Ireland, who had his royal seat
at Teamhar or Tara in Meath.
Seven pro- In the Same way the earliest account we possess of the
V1I1C6S in
the eighth provincial distribution of the population of Scotland tells us cen iiry. ^^^^^ Transmarine Scotland,^ or the country north of the Mrths of Forth and Clyde, was anciently divided by seven brothers into seven provinces, and that the principal of these was Enegus with Moernc, so called from Enegus, the firstborn of the brothers. This name of Encgus or Angus, now represented by the county of Forfar, is no doubt the same with the ancient Celtic personal name of Angus ; and Moeryie, now called Mearns, or the county of Kincardine, is a corruption of the old Gaelic name Maghghergliin, that is, the plain of Gergin, and is alluded to under that name
' Bede tells lis (B. i. c. 12) that remote part of Britain beyond the
the Picts and Scots were termed two firths. The word Transmarine
transmarine nations, not because Scotland is adopted as a convenient
they came from beyond Britain, term for Scotland beyond the Firths
but because they belonged to that of Forth and Clyde.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PEOVINCES OF SCOTLAKD. 43
iu one of the old Lives of St. Patrick.- The second pro- vince was Adtheodle and Goiierin, or Atholl and Gowiy. The old form of this name of Adtheodle was Athfodla, in which form it appears in the Annals of Tighernac, and Gouerin was probably Gcdjhriii, a name analogous to the old name of the district of Ossory in Leinster, which is called Gabhran, pronounced Gowran.^ The third was Sradecr7i and 3fcneted, or Stratherne and Menteath, and there seems no doubt that the former is the district wliich appears so frequently in the Irish Annals under the name of Fortren.* The fourth was Fif with Fothreve. The old form of the former name was Fihh. The latter name has entirely disap- peared, but was preserved in the deanery of Fothri, in the diocese of St. Andrews. The two together embraced the entire peninsula between the Firths of Forth and Tay, and the line of division between Fihh on the east and Fothreve on the west extended from the eastern boundary of the county of Fife on the Tay to the mouth of the river Leven on the Forth. The fifth province consisted of Mar and Buchan, which still bear these names and form the modern county of Aberdeen. The sixth was Muref and Eos. The old form of the foiiner name was 3Ioreb, and was applied to a large territory extend- ing along the southern shore of the Moray Firth from the river Spey, and across the entire country to the Western Sea. It was anciently separated from Eos by the river of Beauly, the passage across which was by a ford termed the Stockford,-'' and the name, which signifies in old Gaelic a promontory, was very applicable to the peninsula stretching into the Moray Firth between the Firths of Cromarty and Dornoch. The
- Defunctus est Palladius in iu Sraith-herne or Stratherne, the
Campo Girgin, in loco qui dicitur Irish Annals narrate the same event
Forddun. — Colgan, 2V. "J'h. p. 13. as a slaughter hy the men of Fort-
•i D 7 ^D- 7. T- 1 ir> ren. — Chron. Plots a7id Scot'<, -pp. 9
■* Book of UKjlits, pp. 1/ and 49. , r.^ ,
and 6\yl.
■* When the Pictish Chronicle tells ^ Aci-oss the Stockfurde into Ros.
us that the Norwegians were cut off — Wyntoun.
44
THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND.
[book III.
Seven pro- vinces in the tenth century.
seventh province was Cathanesia, within and beyond the mountains, for the mountain called Mound divides Cathanesia into two parts. Tliis is the range now called the Ord of Caithness. The old form of the name is Caith, from which the Norwegians formed the name Katanes, compounded of that syllable with tlie Norwegian word nes, signifying a pro- montory, and applied it to that part of the province which lay to the north of the mountains, while they termed the southern hdXiSndrland, from which comes the modern name of Sutherland. Each province thus consisted of two districts, forming in all fourteen, and the old description proceeds to tell us that these seven brothers who thus divided the country might be considered as seven kings who had under them seven inferior kings, making fourteen in all, and that the seven kings divided the kingdom of Alban into seven kingdoms, in which each reigned in his own time.**
As the western region, which formed the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada, is here omitted, while it includes the district of Caithness, which soon after the ninth century passed into the possession of the Norwegian Earls of Orkney, it is obvious that this description applies in the main to the territory of the Pictish kingdom prior to the accession of the Scottish dynasty which united it with Dalriada ; and we find mention during this time of the petty kings of Athfodla or Atholl, and of Fortren or Stratherne,'^ while during the last century of the independent existence of the Pictish mon- archy, the Ardri, or supreme king, had his principal seat at Scone in the district of Gowry.
The old descriptions then give us another legendary ver- sion of these seven provinces, which the author says were described to him by Andrew, bishop of Caithness, a Scotsman
^ Chron. Picts and Scot. ^, p. 136. 739 Tolarcan mac Drostan rex
Athfltotla a bathaclh la h'Anfjiin ' 693 Briiidhe mac Bile Eex Fort- (drowned by Angus). — Ti<jh. lb. rend moritur. pp. 75, 76.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 45
by birth, and a monk of Dunfernilyn, who flourished at the time it was compiled, viz., in the first year of the reign of William the Lion ; and if the first account applies to the Pictish kingdom prior to the ninth century, it is equally clear that this latter account must be referred to the kingdom of Alban or Scotia which succeeded it, for it omits altogether the province of Cathanesia, which had now passed into the possession of the Norwegians, and substitutes for it a province termed Argathelia, which must have included within its bounds the territory which had formed the ancient Scottish kingdom of Dalriada.
The bishop describes the provinces more by their natural boundaries than by the two large districts included in each. According to his account, the first kingdom or province ex- tended from that great water, termed in Scotch Frock, that is, Forth, in British or Welsh Wericl, in Eoman (by which he evidently means Anglic) Scottewatre, or the Scottish Water, which divides the kingdoms of Scotland and England, and flows past the town of Strivelin or Stirling, as far as that other great river which is called Tae, or the Tay. This province corresponds in extent with the third province of the first list, which includes Stratherne and Menteath. His second pro- vince extends to Hilcf, as the sea encircles it till it reaches a mountain on the north plain of Strivelin or Stirling, which is called Atlirin, by which Athrie in the gorge of the Ochils can alone be meant. The district of Gowry is situated be- tween the river Tay and the Isla, if that river be meant by the Hilef, but its eastern boundary is the small stream called the Liff, which is believed to have been formerly the channel through which the Isla reached the sea instead of flowing into the Tay, and that part of this province which is encircled by the sea points plainly to the great peninsula between the Firths of Tay and Forth. This province, therefore, does not entirely correspond with any of the provinces in the first list,
46 THE SKVEN TROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
but is fonned of its Ibnrtli province of Fife and Fothreve, with tlie addition of Gowiy. The bishop's third province extends from Hilef to the Dee, and corresponds with the first province in the first list, containing the district of Angus and Mearns. His fourth province extends from the Dee to that great and wonderful river termed the Spe or Spey, the greatest and best of all Scotia. This province, tlierefore, corresponds with the iifth province in the first list containing Mar and Buclian. The fifth province extended from the Spey to the mountain Bruinalhan or Breadalbane, and corresponds witli tliat part of the second province of the first list termed Adtheodlc or Atholl. The sixth province is Muref and Eos, which is the same with the sixth province in the first list ; and the seventh is Arregaithcl. The changes thus produced upon the provin- cial distribution of the population by the formation of the kingdom of Alban or Scotia in the ninth century were, first, that in place of the province of Fife and Fothreve, we now find a larger province, including Gowry, with Scone, the royal seat of the Ardri, or supreme king ; and here, probably, the chief settlements of the Scots had been made, and the chief power and influence of the kings of Scottish race were formed. It lay between the provinces of Stratherne and Menteath or Fortren on the south-west, and of Angus and Mearns or Magh- gherghinn on the north-east, where, during the period of this dynasty, the men of Fortren on the one hand and the men of Mearns on the other appear as a separate people, and probably represented those remains of the older population which still preserved a separate existence.
The separation of Atholl from Gowry, and the fact that the first five provinces are described by their natural boundaries, while the sixth retains its older designation of Muref and Eos, rather points to the great mountain barrier which separates the Highlands from the Lowlands now as- suming greater significance in the tribal distribution, the
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 47
population within it being less affected by the change of dynasty and retaining more of their older constitution. Thus we find at this period the older title of Ri or king still appearing in the province of Moray only.^
The great change, however, in this list is the disappear- ance of Cathanesia or Caithness and Sutherland from the provinces, and the substitution of Arregaithel for it. The former had become in the tenth century a possession of the Norwegian Jarls of Orkney, and the separate petty king- dom of Dalriada had ceased to exist. The name of Arre- gaithel, however, must not be held as synonymous with that of Dalriada, but appears to have been applied to a much larger district than that which formed that small kingdom. In a former part of the description, the author terms it the principal or largest part of the country on its west side, over against the Irish Sea, and talks of the mountains which separate it from Scotia ; and we can see from the references to it in one of the statutes of William the Lion, in the first year of whose reign this description was written, that it com- prised, in fact, the entire western seaboard of Scotland, and included not only the territory which had formed the kingdom of Dalriada, but also the western districts of the province of Moray and Eoss. In this statute a distinction is drawn be- tween the country situated between the Forth, the river Spey, and Drumalban, and the districts beyond these limits, which consist of Moravia or Moray, Eos, Katanes or Caithness, Ergadia, and Kintyre. Ergadia here is merely the Latin form of Arregaithel, and Kintyre had been separated from it when the Western Isles were ceded in the end of the eleventh century to Magnus, king of Norway, who, by a stratagem, included it in the Norwegian kingdom of the Isles. We find, however, in the same statute ' Ergadia which belongs to Scotia'
^ 1020 Findlaec mac Ruaidri Mormaer Moreb. — Tlgh. Findlaec mac Ruadri Ri A\ha,n.— An. Ult.
48 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
or the southern part of it, distinguished from ' Ei'gadia which belongs to Moravia,' or that part which formed the western districts of Moray ; and in a charter by King Eobert the Bruce reviving tlie oki earldom of Moravia, it is said to extend to the boundary of ' northern Ergadia, which belongs to the Earl of Eoss.' »
The author of the description, who is usually supposed to have been Giraldus Cambrensis, but whose etymologies show him to have been evidently a Welshman and acquainted with the Welsh language, gives us four interpretations of the name Arregaithel. He says it is so called as ' the margin of the Scots or Irish/ for all the Irish and Scots are generally called Gattheli, from their original leader Gaithelglas ; or because the Scotti Picti first peopled it after their return from Ireland ;i^ or because the Irish occupied these parts after the Picts ; or, what is more certain, because that part of the country of Scotia is more closely connected with the country of Ireland.
In the Irish Annals the form of the name is Airergaidhd,
•' Et si ille qui calumpiiiatus est de gadia que pertmet ad Moraviam nee
catallo fiirato vel rapto vocat waren- ilium habere poterit tunc veniat ad
turn suum aliquem liomiuem nianen- vicecomitem de luvirnisse, etc. . .
tern inter Spey et Forth vel inter Item si calumpniatus vocaverit
Drumalban et Forth habeat ab illo warentuni aliquem in Ergadia que
die quo calumpniatus fuerit xv. dies jjert'met ad Scotiam tunc veniat ad
adproducendumwarentum siiumqui Comitem Atholie vel ad Abbatem
infra dictas di visas maneat ad locum de Clendrochard, etc. — Act. Pari.
sicut Rex David constituit in comi- vol. i. p. 372.
tatu ubi calumpnia tus fuerit. Et si Dominus Rex pro pace et stabili-
quis ultra illas divisas velut in Mora- tate regni sui observanda statuit et
via vel in Ros vel in Katenes vel in ordinavit quod de terris subscriptis
Ergadia vel in Kenty re vocaveritwa- fient videlicet De terra Comitis de
rentes habeat omnes warentos illos Ros in Nort Argail. — lb. ad an.
quos habere debuit ab ultimo die 1292, vol. i. p. 447.
quindecem dierum predictorum in i" The term Scotti Picti is here
unam mensem ad locum ubi ipse qui evidently a rendering of the name of
calumpniatus est de catallo furato Gwyddyl FJichti, by which the Picts
vel rapto cum catallo adductus erit. were known to the Welsh, and the
Et si calumpniatus venerit pro war- allusion to their return from Ireland
ento suo qui maneat vel in Moravia refers to the tradition of their settle-
vel in Ros vel in Katenes vel in Er- ment as given by Bede.
CHAP. 11.] THE SEVEN PEOVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 49
Airer signifying a district.^^ The Scotch form is Earrgaoi- dheal from Earr, a limit or boundary, and this approaches most nearly to the form of the name in the old description, with its etymology of margin or limit of the Gael. The oldest name is that probably in the Albanic Duan, where it is termed Oirir Alban, or the coast lands of Alban, from Oirtliir, a coast or border; and we find the name Oirir applied to it in the Book of Clanranald, which distinguishes the Oirir a tuaih, or northern Oirir, and the OiHr a deas, or the southern Oirir, from each other. The name given to this district by the Norwegians was Eali or Dalir, the Dales, and Somerled, the Eegulus of Arregaithel, and his family, are termed in the Orkney inga Saga the Dalveria Aett, or family of the Dales.^-
Such being the territorial divisions of Scotland at this Districts period, we find, in place of each province being under the rule kings and of a Bi or king, with a subordinate division under a sub-king by Mor^ ^ that, with the exception of Arregaithel or Argyll, the rulers of "^^^^''• the whole of these districts now bear the name of Mormaer or great Maer or Steward, while the Mormaer of Moreb or Moray appears occasionally under the title of lii or king. These Mormaers held a position in the scale of power and dignity inferior only to the Ardri or supreme king. Thus, in narrating the great battle fought in 918 between tlie Danes and the people of Alban, in the reign of Constantin, son of Aedh, king of Alban, the Irish Annals tell us that neither their kino: nor any of their Mormaers fell by him ;^^ and the Pictish Chronicle mentions in the same reign the death of Dubucan, son of Indrechtaig, Mormaer ^ngusa, or of Angus.^* In 965 Dubdon Satrapas Athochlach, that is, Governor of Athole, by which title the Mormaer is probably meant, fell in battle, according to the Pictish Chronicle. The same chronicle
" Reeves's Adamnan, p. 397. " Chron. Pids and Scots, p. 363.
^- Orkneyinga Saga, p. 181. i* 76. p. 9.
VOL. III. D
50 THE SKVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book in.
records in the reign of Cullen, who died in 970, the death of jNIaelbrigdi, son of Dubucan the Mormaer of Angus ; and in 976 Tigliernac tells us that three Mormaers of Alban, whose names he gives us as Cellach son of Findgaine, Cellach son of Baredha, and Duncan son of Morgaind, took part in a foray by one of the petty kings of Ireland against another.^^
The reign of Malcolm the Second, who ascended the throne in 1004, and whose thirty years' rule over Alban was distin- guished by the acquisition of the cismarine territories south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, throws still further light upon the position of these provincial rulers. In the early part of his reign the great conflict took place between the Danes of Dublin and the native Irish under their great king Brian Boroimhe, which was to determine whether the Galls or foreign hordes of Scandinavia or the native Gaedheal were to retain possession of Ireland ; a conflict terminated in favour of the Gaedheal when the battle of Clontarf was won in the year 1014 by Brian, the Ardri, or supreme king of Ireland, though, like some other victorious generals, he lost his own life in the struggle. In this great conflict we find the people of the provinces taking part on both sides ; those in the possession of the Norwegians siding with the Danes, and those under native rule taking part with King Brian. To the assistance of the Danes came Sigurd, Nor- wegian Earl of Orkney, with the host of the Orkneys and of the Norwegian Islands, the Galls or Norwegians of Caith- ness and Mann. Skye, Lewis, Kintyre, and Oirergaidlul or Argyll, are especially mentioned as being on the Danish side. On the other hand, ten Mormaers followed Brian with foreign auxiliaries, who probably represented the districts in Alban under native rule, and the leading man among them appears to have been Donald, son of Eimiu, son ^5 Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 77.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 51
of Caiiinech, Mormaer of Mar, who fell in the battle of Clontarf.16
In this reign the Mormaers of Moreb or Aloray come very prominently forward, and show us the title hereditarily borne by a very powerful family, which eventually placed two of its members on the throne. The first who appears is Find- laec the son of Euadri, Mormaer Moreb, whose death is recorded at 1020, when he was slain by the sons of his brother Maelbrigdi. This Findlaec is obviously the Finnleikr Jarl who is mentioned in one of the Norse Satras as defendins; his district in Scotland against Sigurd the Norwegian Jarl of Orkney, who eventually conquered Myrhaevi of Moray and Eoss.17 In 1029 the death of Malcolm, son of Maelbrigdi, son of Euadri, is recorded, when he bears the title of Ei or king. He is obviously the son of that Maelbrigdi, the brother of Findlaec; and in 1032 Gillacomgan, son of Maelbrigdi, Mormaer of Moreb, was burnt with fifty of his men. The son of Findlaec was Macbeth, who afterwards usurped the throne of Scotland, and the son of Gillacomgan was Lulach, who suc- ceeded him for the short space of three months.^^
In the same reign we find also the petty kings of Arrc- petty kings gaitJid or Argyll and Gallgaithel or Galloway making their and Gaiio- first appearance. In the year 1031, when Cnut, the Danish '^^^^'• king of England, invaded Scotland, he is said to have received the submission of Malcolm, king of the Scots, and of two other kings, Maelbaethe and lehmarc. These kings appear to have represented the districts beyond the rivers Spey and Drumalban, which at this time formed the boundary of Scotland proper on the north-west and west ; for Maelbaethe can be no other than the celebrated Macbeth, who was then Mormaer of Moreb or Moray, and lehmarc may be identified
'" See vol. i. p. .387, note 5. War of the Gaedhil ivith the Gaill, p. 153. ^" Olaf Tryggvesson's Saga. Collect, de reb. Alb., p. 333. '8 Chron. Picts and Scot% 77, 78, and 367.
52 THE SEVEN PliOVINCES OF SCOTLAND. Lbook hi,
with Iniergi, who appears in the old Irish Genealogies as
ancestor of Souierled the petty king of Argyll^^ The Irish
Annals record in the same year in which king Malcolm died,
the death also of Suibne, son of Kenneth, Hi or king of Gall-
gaidel. This name, which appears to have been applied in the
Irish Annals as a general name of the Gaedhel or Gael of the
Western Isles and of the districts lying along the coast, who
became subject to and adopted the manners of the Norwegian
pirates or Galls, was, as a territorial name, used in a more
restricted sense, and appropriated to the district of Galloway,
a name which in its Latin form of Galwethia is derived from
the Welsh equivalent of Galwyddel. The Norwegians knew
it by the name of Gaddgeddla, a district said in the Orkney-
inga Saga to be ' at the place where Scotland and England
meet.'^'*
Th^^rfinc ^^^ ^^^® death of Malcolm the Second in the year 1034
the dynasty of Scottish kings, which had been established on
the Pictish throne nearly three centuries previously, came to
an end. There appears to have been no male descendant left
who could claim the crown, and the succession opened to his
grandson by his eldest daughter. So far as the districts south
of the Firths of Forth and Clyde were concerned, his claim
was not opposed to the law of succession which previously
prevailed there, and though inconsistent with the law of
tanistry which regulated the succession to the crown among
the Scots, it had been so far modified that the right of the
heir-female to succeed in default of heirs-male appears to
have been recognised in such an emergency, but the change
^^ Saxon Chron. ad an. 1031, See places the locality on the southern
also vol. i. p. .397, note 22. frontierof Scotland. ThatGallgaed-
-* Anderson's Orhieyin<ja Saga, p. hel is geographically Galloway ap-
28, note. The author has no doubt pears from this, that the deaths of
that Munch's conjecture is correct. Roland and Allan, Lords of Gallo-
The expression ' where Scotland way, which took place in 1199 and
and England meet' must not be too 1234, are recorded in the Irish An-
strictly construed, but it evidently nals under the title of i^i(?a%aed/te^.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 53
was too recent to have acquired a firm and permanent place in the law of the country ; and here the right of Duncan, the son of the eldest daughter, was contested by Thorfinn, the most powerful of the Norwegian Jarls of Orkney, whose mother was likewise a daughter of Malcolm ii.; and a war of succession followed, which was terminated by the death of King Duncan in 1040. According to a contemporary writer, he was slain by the commander of his own army, Macbethad, son of Findlaech, who succeeded him.^i This was Macbeth, the Ei or Mormaer of Moray, who appears to have treacher- ously joined the Norwegian Jarl and slain his king, in hopes of obtaining, with the assistance of the former, the Scottish crown.
We are told by the Orkneyinga Saga that Thorfinn then followed the routed army, and subjected the land to himself as far south as Fifi or Fife ; that he drove those who resisted him to the deserts and the woods, and subdued the country wherever he went ; and that till the day of his death he pos- sessed nine jarldoms in Scotland and the whole of the Sudreys or Western Isles.^^ These jarldoms were no doubt the districts ruled by the native Mormaers, and, if his con- quest embraced merely the low country as far south as Fife, the districts which he had not subjected consisted merely of the province composed of Gowry, Fife, and Foth- reve, the province of Athol, and that consisting of Stratherne and Menteath. Over these, within which Scone, the capital of the kingdom, was situated, Macbeth appears to have ruled as king, while the districts of Lothian and Cumbria recog- nised the son of Duncan as their legitimate monarch, with the exception of the Gaelic territory of Galloway, which was under Norwegian rule.
-1 1040 Donnchad rex Scotise in in regnum. — (Marianus Scotus.) aiitumno occiditur a duce suo Mac- Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 65. bethad mac Finnlaech, cui succesit " CoUect.de rth. yl^6., pp. 34.5,346.
54
TIIK SEVKxN I'HOVINCK.S OF SCOTLAND.
[book III.
Mormaers termed by Norwegi- ans Jarls.
In 1054, Malcolm, the eldest son of Duncan, who is termed by the historians son of the king of the Cumbrians, with the assistance of Siward, eari of Northumbria, drove Macbeth from his kingdom and regained possession of its capital, Scone; and on the death of Tliornfinn in 1057 Macbeth was driven north and slain within no great distance from the frontier of his native province of Moray, and Malcolm's rule was extended over the wliole kingdom as its legitimate monarch. We are told in the Orkneyinga Saga that Thorfinn 'was much lamented in his own land, but in those lands which he had subjected to himself by conquest the natives were no longer content under his government ; consequently many rilcis which the earl had subjected fell off, and their inhabitants sought the protection of those native chiefs who were territorially born to rule over them.'^^ These inkis were no doubt the districts subdued by Thorfinn, which now passed again under the rule of their native Mormaers, and it is rather remarkable that, with the exception of the districts of Stratherne and Menteath, when we can trace the position of the remaining districts, consisting of Athol, Gowry, Fife, and Fothreve, we find them in the possession of the Crown, and ruled over by members of the royal family.-^
By the Norwegians these Mormaers seem to have been viewed as holding the same position as the Norwegian Jarls, and this name is invariably given to them in the Sagas.
=3 Col. de Feb. Alb., p. 3-46.
-■* Bower says of Alexander i. — ' Quod patruus suus comes de Gowry dedit sibi ad douum, ut moris est in baptismo, terras de Lyff et Inver- gowry ' [Scotichron. B. v. chap, xxxvi. ), wliich shows that during the life of Malcolm iii. one of his brothers possessed Gowry. Tlien we find that Madach, who ruled over Atholl as earl in the reign of
Alexander i. and David i. , was the son of Melmare, brother of Malcolm III., and his son Edelradus is desig- nated in a charter of Admore in Kinross-shire ' Abbas de Dunkel- den et insuper comes de Fife ' [Chart. St. Andreivs, p. 115), thus uniting the possession of the abbacy of Dunkeld, the patrimony of this royal family, with the earldom of Fife.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 55
Like them, they were viewed as the hereditary rulers of the territory with which they were connected, and as protecting the rights of the Crown within its bounds. That the office, whatever it was, was held hereditarily by the same family we see in the notices of two of these families preserved in the Pictish Chronicle and in the Irish Annals. In the one we find Dubucan, son of Indrechtaig, Mormaer of Angus, succeeded by his son Maelbrigdi ; and in the other we see the family of Euadri filling the office of Mormaer of Moray, and the suc- cession apparently following the Irish law of tanistry, and alternating between the descendants of his two sons Mael- brigdi and Findlaec ; and when this family was finally driven from the throne in the person of Lulach, the grandson of the former, we find his son Maelsnectai appearing as Ri Muireh or king of Moray, from whom it passed through his sister to ^ngus, termed in the Annals ' son of the daughter of Lulaig.' 2^
A more complete revelation, however, is made to us with Mormaers
.of Buchau
regard to the Mormaers of another district, that of Buchan, m from the the Book of Deer, which contains the usual memoranda of the Deer. old grants made to that monastery while still retaining its character as an old Celtic foundation. Here the names of seven of the old Mormaers during the five centuries and a half which elapsed between the foundation of the Celtic monastery in the time of Columcille and the reign of David the First are given. We are told that Bede Cridhncch, or the Pict, Mormaer of Buchan, gave the cathair or city Abhordohoir, now Aberdour, on the south shore of the Moray Firth, to Columcille and Drostan, and afterwards certain lands called also a cathair or city, to which Colum- cille gave the name of Dear. He seems to have been followed by Comgall, son of Aeda, who made a grant to Columcille and Drostan. After him we have Matan
^5 Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 370, 372.
56 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
son of Ceavill, Domhnall son of Giric, and Domnall son of Euadri, but there is nothing to show what the connection of these Mormaers with each other was or wlien they lived, but the dignity then passes to a family called Mac Dobharcon.^^ Two brothers, Domhnall son of Mac Dobhavcon, and Cainneach son of Mac Dobharcon, follow each other as Mormaers, and the latter is succeeded by his son Gartnait, who, with his wife Ete, daughter of Gillemichel, makes a grant in the eighth year of King David, that is, in 1132.
The succession among these latter Mormaers seems to follow the same rule of tanistic succession which we have seen among the Mormaers of Moray. Toisechs of The same valuable record, however, makes a further reve- lation regarding the organisation of those districts ruled over by the Mormaers. It shows us that the next rank under the Mormaers of Buchan was held by persons termed Toisechs, who possessed a similar relation in a subordinate capacity to the land and the people. Thus we find that Bede the Pict grants Abbordoboir free from the claim of Mormaer and of Toisech, and in the grants of land by the subsequent Mor- maers there is usually associated with them the Toisech as having an interest in the subject of the grant. Among these Toisechs a family descended from Morcunn or Morgan appears very prominent. Thus Comgall, son of Aeda, grants the land from Orti to Furerie, and Mondac, son of Morcunn, gave Pette mic Garnait and Acliad Toche Temni, and it is added that ' one was Mormaer and the other was Toisech.' ^7 Then Cathal, son of Morcunt, gives Achadnagleree ; and Domhnall
-•> Dohharcu, of which Dobharcon agus ise Toisech. This has been is the genitive form, signifies liter- translated as if it meant that Mon- ally water-dog, and is the name dac was both Mormaer and Toisech, usually given to an otter. while Comgall is left without a
designation, but the above is the
-'' The words agm ine Mormaer obvious meaning.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 57
mac Giric, the fouvtli Mormaer named, and Maelbrigdi, son of Catlial the Toisech, gives Pett in Mulenn ; and finally Colban, Mormaer of Buchan, and Eva, daughter of Garnait (the previ- ous Mormaer), his wife, and Donnachae, Toisech of the clan Morgainn, mortmained all the foregoing offerings to God, Drostan, Colcumcille, and Peter, free of all burdens except four davachs of such burdens as come upon chief residences of Alban and chief churches. Among the witnesses to this grant are Morgunn and Gillepetair, sons of Donnachach, and others who are called Maithi, that is, good men or nobles of Buchan. Another family of Toisechs which appears is that descended from Batni. Thus INIatan, son of Cairill, who is the third-named Mormaer, gives the Mormaer's share in Altere, now Altrie ; and Culi, son of Batni, gives the Toisech's share. Then Domhnall, son of Ptuadri, the fifth-named Mormaer, and Malcolm, son of Culi, give Bidhen, now Biffie ; and here the king comes in as also possessing rights in these lands, for Malcolm, son of Cinaetha, or Malcolm ii., gives the king's share in Bidhen, Pett mic Gobroig, and the two davachs of Upper Ptosabard. Then Domhnall, son of Mac Dubhacinn, mortmains all these offerings to Drostan upon giving the whole of them to him, and Cathal mortmains in the same way his Toisech's share. They also give Eddarun, and Cainnech, son of Mac Dobharcon, and the same Cathal give Alterin of Ailvethenamone ; and then it is added Cainnech,Domhnall,and Cathal mortmained all these offerings free from Mormaer and Toisech. It is unnecessary to notice the other grants further than that Comgall, son of Cainnaig, Toisech of Clan Canan, gives certain lands free from Toisech. Thus in the organisation of these districts we find a gradation of persons possessing territorial rights within them, consisting of the Ardri or supreme king, the Mormaer, and the Toisech, and the latter of these appears as not only possessing rights in connection with the land, but also standing in a relation
58 Til K .SKVKN I'KOVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book in.
to the tribe or clan wliicli occupied them as their leader.^^ The same record discloses a similar connection between the Mormaer and the land in the person of two of the Mormaers of Moray. Thus Malcolm, the son of Euadri, who died in • 1029, gives the Delerc, and Malsnectai, the son of Lulach,
the successor of Macbeth as usurper of the throne, gives Pettmalduib to Drostan. These lands were probably within the province of Moray ruled by them, and we are told by the Saxon Chronicle that ' in 1078 King Malcolm won the mother of Maelslaht or Maelsnectai and all his best men,' an expres- sion similar to that of the Maithi or good men of Buchan, which, as we have seen, included the Toisech ' and all his treasure and his cattle,' and he himself escaped with difficulty. His death as Ri Morcb, or king of Moray, is recorded, as we have seen, in 1080. Seven earls Qn the death of Eadgar, the successor of Llalcolm ill., his
first appear . ci i j
in reign of brother Alexander the First ruled as king over Scotland
AlGXtiiirlcr
the First, proper, while Lothian and Cumbria or Strathclyde fell to his brother David. From the time when the Celtic king Malcolm had married the Saxon princess Margaret there had been an increasing Saxon influence in the government of the Celtic provinces ; and when his sons by that princess had been firmly established on the throne by foreign aid, in opposition to the attempt of their father's brother to maintain his right under the older law of succession, with the assistance of the Gaelic population, and found their chief support in the Anglic population of Lothian and the Merse, the reigns of Eadgar and Alexander the First must be viewed as essentially those of Saxon monarchs modelling their kingdom in accordance with Saxon institutions ; while the object of David from the first,
8 In the above notice from the of the late Dr. John Stuart. The
Book of Deer the reader is referred facts they disclose are given here
to the edition of it printed for the merely, and the explanation must
Spalding Club under the able care be reserved to a subsequent chapter.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PEOVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 59
both while he governed the southern districts as earl and the whole of Scotland as king, was to introduce the feudal system of Norman England into Scotland, and adapt her in- stitutions to feudal forms.
The charters of Eadgar relate mainly to land south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and we find that the immediate dependants of the Court, who formed the witnesses to these charters, were certainly Saxons ; and when Alexander the First founded the monastery of Scone after the attempt made upon his life by the Gaelic population of the northern pro- vinces, we find that the foundation charter is framed upon the model of the Saxon charters. Like the latter, which were granted with the assent of the members of the Witenagemot, who subscribe the charter as consenting parties with the designation of Episcopus and Abbas if churchmen, and of Comes or Dux if earls, without the addition of the diocese, monastery, or earldom with which they were connected ; so we find this charter granted with the consent of nine persons, two of whom have the simple designation of Episcopus, who are followed by seven others, six of whom have the word Comes or Earl after their names ; and the only one who is not so designated is Gospatrick, whom we know to have been at the time Earl of Danbar, and who probably repre- sented that part of Lothian attached to Alexander's king- dom. The other six must of course have represented the districts of transmarine Scotland, which properly formed Alexander's dominions. We thus find in his reign a body constituted somewhat similarly to that portion of the Witenagemot of the Saxon monarchs, and exercising similar functions.-^ The six persons, however, who bear the title of Comes are Beth, Mallus, Madach, Eothri, Gartnach, and Dufagan, and of these we can identify four. Mallus is un- doubtedly the Mallus Comes Stradarniie or Earl of Stratherne,
2» Chart. Scon, p. 2.
60 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
who took such a prominent part in tlie Battle of the Stan- (lard.3° Madach is that Maddach, Jarl of Atjoldum, or Earl of AthoU, said in the Orkneyinga Saga to be the son of Melkolfr or jMelmare, brother of Malcolm the Third.^^ Rothri appears in a charter in the Book of Deer, granted in the eighth year of King David, as Euadri, Mormaer of Mar; and Gartnach is the Gartnait, son of Cainnech, Mormaer of Buchan, who grants the charter. The remaining two, Beth and Dufagan, cannot be identified with certainty, but the re- semblance of the name of the latter to Dubican, who appears at an earlier date as Mormaer of Angus, leads to the supposi- tion that he may have filled that position. At all events there is enough to show that the six persons who appear with the title of Comes as representing the districts north of the Firths, were the same persons whom we have hitlierto found in connection with these districts bearing the title of Mor- maer; and thus the great Celtic chiefs of the country, to whom the Norwegians applied the Norwegian title of Jarl, which was a personal dignity though given in connection with a territory, now appear bearing the Saxon title of Comes or Earl, and the Celtic title of Mormaer, probably official in its origin, was now merged in a personal dignity.^-
■'*' Ailred De bello apud Standar- Rothri comes assensum prebeo, ego dum, printed in appendix to For- Gartnach comes assensum prebeo, dun, Chron. , vol. i. p. 443. ego Dufagan comes assensum prebeo ^1 Orkneifinr/a Saga, p. 86. {Chart. Sco)i, p. 2), with the follow- '■'- Compare the subscriptions to ing Saxon charters : — ' Ego /Ethel- the Scone charter, ' Ego Alexander balth (Mercensium Rex) banc dona- Dei Gratia Rex Scotorum propria tionem meam subscripsi. Ego Uuor manu mea hec confirmo . . . ego Si- Episcopus consensi et subscripsi. billa Dei Gratia Regina Scottorum Piot abbas. Uuilfirth comes. Sigi- propria manu hec confirmo, ego Gre- bed comes. Oba comes. Beorcol gorius episcopus, etc. , confirmo, ego comes. Heardberht frater Regis Cormacus episcopus, etc., confirmo, Eadberht comes, etc. Or another ego Beth comes similiter, ego Gospa- in 82.3—' Ego Eagbertus Rex Anglo- tricius Dolfini assensum prebeo, ego rum banc donationem meam, etc. , Mallus comes assensum prebeo, ego confirmavietsubscripsi. Ego^Ethel- Madach comes assensum prebeo, ego uulf Rex consensi et subscripsi. Ego
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 61
In one of the earliest charters in King David's reign, we find a slight change in the position of these comites. It is the first of David's charters to the monastery of Dunferm- line, and in this charter five bishops appear who alone prefix to their names the word ' Ego,' and add the title of Episcopus simply with the word confirmed ; and then follows a list of names of persons who are said to be ' hnjus privilegii testes et assertores,' and these are headed by five earls — viz., Ed Comes, Constantinus Comes, Malise Comes, Eotheri Comes, and Madeth Comes.^^ The last three are obviously the same with three of the earls who subscribe the Scone charter, and who, we have seen, had been Mormaers of Stratherne, Mar, and Atholl. Constantin appears in a subsequent charter, where King David grants to Dunfermlin * the whole shyre of Kirkcaldy, which Earl Constantine held from them by force, in perpetual charity,' and this charter is simply witnessed by three bishops and three earls — viz., Madeth Comes, Malis Comes, Head Comes.^^ Constantin, however, appears in two documents in the Chartulary of St. Andrews, in which he is described as Earl of Eife. In the first, which is the memo- randum of the grant by Edelrad, son of Malcolm, king of Scotland, abbot of Dunkeld, and also Earl of Fife, of the lands of Admore, it is said to have been confirmed by his brothers David and Alexander ' in presentia multorum viro- rum fide dignorum scilicet Constantini Comitis de Fyf viri discretissimi.' The second is a perambulation of the bound- aries of Kirkness and Lochore, when the king sends his messengers through the province of Eyf and Fothrithi, and
Uulfred Archiepiscopus consensi et scripsi. Ego Osmod Dux consensi subscripsi. Ego Wigthegn Episco- et subscripsi. Ego Dudda Dux con- pus consensi et subscripsi. Ego sensi et subsci'ipsi, etc. — I'algrave, Ealhstan Episcopus consensi et sub- Jlitse and Progress of the English scripsi. Ego Bearnmod Episcopus Commonwealth, vol. ii. pp. ccxix. consensi et subscripsi. Ego Wulf- ccxx.
hard Dux consensi et subscripsi. •" Chart, of Dunfermlin, p. 4.
Ego Monuede Dux consensi et sub- ^ lb. p. 16.
62
THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND.
[book m.
.summons many of their people in one place — viz., Constan- tinem Comitem de Fyf viruni discretum et facundum cum satrapys et satellitibus et exercitu de Fyf et Macbeath Thay- netum de Falleland (Falkland), etc. The dispute is then referred to ' tres viros legales et idoneos,' tlie first of whom is ' Constantinus Comes de Fyf magnus judex in Scotia.' ^^ We thus see that one of the principal functions of these old Mor- maers, who now appear as comites or earls, was judicial, and it is probable that the title of Magnus judex, or great judge, given to Constantin, is simply the Latin equivalent of the Celtic title of Mormaer, or great maer, and by the ' satrapes,' probably the same persons are meant who appear in the Book of Deer with the Celtic title of Toiseach. The 'Ed comes' who precedes Constantin in the first of King David's charters may possibly be the same person as the ' Head comes ' who wit- nesses the second, but neither can be identified.^^
'^5 Chart, of St. Andrews, pp. 116, 117.
■■^ Mr. Robertson, in his valuable work of Scotland under her Early Kings, considers that Beth in the Scone charter is wi-itten by a clerical error for Heth, tliat he is the same person with the Ed and Head of David's charters, and was Earl of Moray, and father of that Angus, Earl of Moray, defeated and slain in 1130 (vol. i. pp. 104, 190). This opinion is mainly grounded on the fact that Wimund, when he claimed to be the son of Angus, called him- self Malcolm IMacHeth, but Beth appears in the same form in a sub- sequent charter in the Scone chartu- lary (p. 4), and an identification, which requires us to suppose that the name has been miswritten in two charters, is not admissible. More- over, it is not likely that an Earl of Moray should witness the founda- tion-charter of a monastery erected
as a thank-offering for the defeat of the men of Moray in that year. As the great province of Fif consisted of the two old districts of Fyfe and Fothrithi, it is not impossible that there may at first have been an Earl connected with each, and that Beth, occupying here the leading place in which the subsequent Earls of Fife are invariably found, may have been earl along with Edelrad, and that the latter is the Ed who, along with Constantin, witnesses the earliest charter of King David, as there is a circumflex through the d of Ed, which implies that some letters after it have been omitted. This would account for Constantin ajjpeariug in the charter of Edelrad as if he were his contemporary. It m.ay be ob- served that the Admore which Edel- rad grants was in Fothrif, while Constantin appears in connection with Kirkcaldy in Fife, and that the name of the Thane of Falkland being
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROYHSTCES OF SCOTLAND. 63
During the entire reign of David tlie rir.st these earls appear simply with the designation of Comes without any- territorial addition, with two exceptions, which occur towards the end of his reign. In the earliest charter the earls who witness it, among whom is Constantin, are followed by other witnesses, partly officers of state, as the chancellors, partly Norman barons, and a few Celtic names which have no de- signation, and the first witness who follows the earls and pre- cedes the chancellor is Gillemichel Makduf. In the founda- tion charter of Holyrood, granted not long after, he follows the chancellor and the chamberlain as Gillemichel Comes, and in a subsequent charter to Dunfermline he again precedes them as Gillemichel Comes de Fif In a charter in the Book of Deer, which must have been granted in the last year of David's reign, the earl who succeeded Gillemichel appears as Dunchad, Comes de Fif, and along with him, for the first time, appears Gillebride, Comes de Angus. Gillemichel has usually been supposed to be the son of Constantin, but this has arisen solely from the preconceived notion that all the ancient Earls of Fife bore the name of Macduff. There is, however, no evidence of any connection between them, and it is obviously quite inconsistent with the character of their appearance as witnesses in the same charter.
There is no doubt that David's object, on his accession to Policy of the throne, was to feudalise the whole kingdom, by importing feudalise feudal forms and feudal holdings into it, and to place the doms! leading dignitaries of the kingdom in- the position of Crown vassals, as well as to introduce a Norman baronage. The relation of those old Celtic earls or Mormaers towards the Crown on the one hand, had hitherto been purely official, and that towards the districts with which their names were con-
Macbeath, shows that the name Earl of Moray who preceded Angus, Beath was also connected with Fife. and gave his name to the family of Head may certainly have been the MacHeth.
64 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
nected was not a purely territorial one. It was more a relation towards the tribes who peopled it than towards the laud. David's desire, certainly, would be to place them, whenever opportunity offered in the position of holding the land they were officially connected with as an earldom of the Crown in chief, in the same manner as the barons held their baronies, and in these cases he may have inaugurated the policy undoubtedly followed, as we shall see, by his successors. Gillemichel Macduff, from his position in the earliest charter, must have held a high position as a follower of the king, and may have rendered him great services, which legend drew back to the usurpation of the throne of his ancestor Duncan by Macbeth, and led to the creation of the fictitious Macduff, who makes his first appearance in Fordun's Chronicle, and after Constantin's death Gillemichel may first have had the personal title of Comesor Earl bestowed uponhim,and then been feudally invested with the Earldom of Fife, which thus may have become a territorial title in his person. It certainly did so in that of his successor Duncan, who received from David a charter of the earldom, which was confirmed to his successors by the subsequent kings ; ^"^ and a similar feudal investiture of the earldom of Angus in the person of Gilli- bride may have added that old Celtic earldom likewise to the number, as from this time, when we find the older earldoms still conferring no territorial designation on their earls, Gilli- bride invariably appears along with them as Earl of Angus. During the earlier part of the reign of Malcolm iv. no change appears to have been made in the position of the existing earldoms. His first charter after his accession ap- pears to have been his comfirmation of the grants to the
^'' See charter by Alexander the tenuit. . . Sicut carta regis David
Second to Earl Malcohn of Fife, son de predicto comitatu facta comiti
of Duncan, Earl of Fife, of the comi- Duncano patri ejus.' — National
tatus de Fyfe. ' Sicut Comes Dun- MSS. vol. i. p. 28. canus frater suus comitatem ilium
CHAP. II. THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 65
monastery of Dumfermline, and this charter is witnessed first by six bishops, then by twelve barons, most of whom were Normans, and other foreigners, and then by six of the earls (De Comitibus), who are tlius named : Gospatricius Comes, Ferteth Comes, Duncanus Comes, Morgund Comes, Melcolmus Comes, et Comes de Engus. The five preceding earls were those of Dunbar, Stratherne, Fife, Mar, and Athol, the earl of Buchan, who would make up the number of the seven earls, not appearing among them. To this number a tem- porary addition was made by Malcolm, when, on making peace with Malcolm macHeth, the pretended son of Earl Angus of Moray, in 1157, he gave him the district of Eos with the title of earl ; but the inhabitants soon rose against him and drove him out.
An event, however, took place soon after, which led to the policy inaugurated by David the First, of feudalising these earldoms, being resumed by Malcolm and still further carried out by his successor. This was the attack made upon the king by six of the old Celtic earls, when, under the leadership of Ferteth, earl of Stratherne, they besieged him in Perth in the year 1160. Fordun, quoting from the Chronicle of Melrose, says, 'Six earls— Ferchard, Earl of Stratherne, to wit, and five other earls — being stirred up against the king, not to compass any selfish end, or through treason, but rather to guard the common weal, sought to take him, and laid siege to the keep of that town (Perth). God so ordering it, however, their undertaking was brought to nought for the nonce, and after not many days had rolled by, he was, by the advice of the clergy, brought back to a good understanding with his nobles.' ^^ An expression in the Orkneyinga Saga would lead us to infer that the object of the six Celtic earls was to put up the young son of William Fitz Duncan, who was usually called
^8 Fordun, Chron. (Annals, in.) vol. ii. p. 251 ; and see note, p. 430. VOL. in. E
66 lllK SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book in.
the Boy of Egremont, and as grandson of King Duncan, the eldest son of Malcohn in. by Ingibiorg, widow of Earl Thorfiun of Orkney, had a direct claim to the throne, which would commend itself both to the Gaelic and to the Norwe- gian population in preference to the descendants of the Saxon princess Margaret. ^^ Wyntoun gives us the following account of this occurrence : —
A mayster-man called Feretawche, Wyth Gyllandrys Ergemawche, And other mayster-men thare fyve, Agayne the king than ras belyve ; For caws that the past till Twlows, Agayne hym thai ware all irows : Forthi thai set thame hym to ta In till Perth, or than hym sla. But the kyng rycht nianlyly Swne skalyd all that cumpany, And tuk and slwe.''"
Wyntoun here associates with the five earls who followed Ferteth, the Earl of Stratherne, Gillandrys Ergemawche. If two persons are meant, Ergemawche may be a corruption of Egremont, and Gillandres may have represented the old Celtic earls of Eoss, as the clan bearing the name of Eoss are called in Gaelic Clan Ghillcanrias, or descendants of Gill- andres, and may have led the revolt which drove Malcolm macHeth out of the earldom. Creation of Eacli of the seven provinces of Scotland consisted, as we earidoms^.^ have sccn, of two districts, and we find a Mormaer ruling over each : but when they appear in the reign of Alexander the First, under the name of Comes or Earl, we find the number reduced to six ; and with the exception of the province consisting of
^8 ' Ingibiorg, the mother of the was a good man. His son was
earls,' married Melkolf, king of William the Noble, whom all the
Scotland, who was called Langhals. Scots wished to take for their king.
Their son was Dungad, king of Scot- — Collect, de Reh. Alb. 40, p. 3-46. land, the father of William, who * Wyntoun, C'A>wt. B. vii. c. vii.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 67
the two districts of Mar and Buchan, each of which is repre- sented by an earl, the other provinces appear with one of its two districts possessing an earl, and the other remaining un- represented. It was these six earls, no doubt, who formed the party who attacked the king in Perth, and one feature of the new policy appears to have been to increase their number by appointing new earls to the vacant districts, who were feudally invested with their earldoms, and thus introducing a large feudal element into the old Celtic earldoms, while those which retained their original character would be gradually feudalised as opportunity offered. Malcolm had thus restored one of these vacant districts when he made Malcolm mac- Heth Earl of Eoss ; and when that earl was driven out by the inhabitants, he endeavoured to connect it still more closely with the Crown, by giving the earldom to Florence, Count of Holland, in marriage with his sister Ada in 1162, but this grant, too, did not practically take effect."*^ Two years after he added another in the district of Menteath, which, along with Stratlierne, formed one of the old provinces of Scotland. ' Gillechrist, Comes de Menteth,' makes his first appearance as witness in a charter granted by King Malcolm to the canons of Scone in 1 164 ; and in the same charter we have Gillebride Comes de Angus and Malcolm Comes appearing for the first time with the territorial designation of ' De Ethoel.'
The policy thus inaugurated by David the First as entering into his plan for transforming the old Celtic kingdom of the Scots into a feudal monarchy, and to some extent carried out by Malcolm the Fourth, was still more vigorously prosecuted by his successor William the Lion ; and we find that during
^1 Memorandum quod Comes de Willelmietpredictuscomitatuselon-
Holand processit de sorore domini gatus fuit a predicto comite de Ho-
Regis Willelmi ut cognitum est per land sine aliqua ratione et sine me-
anticos regni Scotie quod totus comi- rito suo vel antecessorum suorum ut
tatus de Ros, collatus fuit in marita- injuste sicut recognitum est. — Pal-
gio cum predicta sorore domini Regis grave, Documents and Records, p. 20.
68 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book in.
his reign he converted two of the old earldoms into feudal holdings, that a third had passed by gift and a fourth by succession into the hands of Norman barons, and that he added four new earldoms to the number. Earldom of "VVe have seen that during the reign of Alexander the
Mar. .
First and the early part of the reign of David, Euadri or Kotheri, who had been Mormaer of Mar, appears witnessing the royal charters, with the personal title of Comes or Earl. He was followed, during the latter part of the reign of David and during that of his successor Malcolm iv., by Morgundus or Morgund, who also bears the personal title of Comes or Earl; but in the early part of the reign of William the Lion, when the territorial designations became more common, he is superseded by a certain Gilchrist, Earl of Mar, and Gilchrist, in his turn, makes way in 1171 for Morgund again. The explanation of this apparent contest for the position of earl is furnished us by the controversy which afterwards took place between the family of De Lundin, who were the king's hereditary Hostiarii or doorkeepers, and from that oJSice took the name of Doorward or Durward. It appears from this controversy that Morgund was alleged to be illegitimate, and King William had probably taken advantage of this flaw in his title to break the succession of the old Celtic earls by recognising Gilchrist, the next lawful heir, as earl. This Gilchrist had married Orabilis, the daughter of Ness, son of William, one of the foreign settlers in Eife, and his daughter was the mother of Thomas de Lundin, the king's Hostiary or Doorward, and carried the claims of the lawful lieirs into this family.'*'^ It is probable, however, that this illegitimacy,
^ The principal act of Gilchrist's were illegitimate, and in 1291 the
life was the foundation of the Priory Earl of Mar complains that when
of Monimusk, and Thomas, the William the Lion i-estored the Earl-
Doorward, confirms the grant by dom to Morgund, ' deficiebant tres
his grandfather and his mother. centum librate terre.' — Ant. Ah.
His son Alan declares, in 1257, and Banff, vol. iv. p. 151. that Morgund and his son Duncan
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 69
tliough possibly well founded according to the canon law, was not recognised as such by the Celtic customs, and an arrangement seems to have been come to by which Morgund agreed to receive from the king the investiture of the earldom as a feudal holding, while the claims of the rival party were satisfied by a large tract of land between the rivers Dee and Don, which was withdrawn from the earldom and became the property of the Durwards. There is preserved a deed by King William, in which he narrates that Morgund, son of Gilloclier, formerly Earl of Mar, appeared before him in June 1171 and was invested with the earldom of Mar, in which his father had died vest and seized, and which was now granted to him and his heirs whatsoever.'*^ It may perhaps be doubted whether this is an original deed ; but there can be little doubt that it contains the record of a real transaction by which the earldom was converted into a purely feudal holding, whicli, like all such holdings created at this time, was descendible to heirs-female.
The policy followed by King "William, with regard to Earldoms
of Gar-
these earldoms, was checked for a time by the unfortunate vyach and
Xj6V6DftCh.
result of his attempt in 1174 to recover possession of the nortliern provinces of England, when he was taken prisoner, and only recovered his liberty by surrendering the inde- pendence of his kingdom ; but soon after his liberation, when lie returned to Scotland, he appears to have created two new earldoms, which he bestowed upon his brother David. The first was the earldom of Garvyach or Garrioch in Aber- deenshire, formed from the districts surrounding the ancient fortification of Dunideer, and extending between the river Don and its tributary the Ury. The second was the earldom of Levenach or Lennox, and consisted of the northern part of
*^ This deed has hitherto been printed was found among his papers,
known only by its being printed by and is now in the library at Lincoln's
Selden in his I'itles of Honour ; Inn. See Appendix No. iv. for an
but the document from which he account of this charter.
70 TllK SEVEN I'KOVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book in.
the old Cumbrian kingdom, which appears to have received a Gaelic population, and is nearly represented by the county of Dumbarton.-''* These districts were probably at the time iu the hands of the Crown. The earldom of Garvyach passed on David's death to his son John the Scot, after whose death it again reverted to the Crown, and was eventually granted as a lordship to the earls of Mar. The earldom of Levenach does not appear to have remained long in Earl David's pos- session, as we find it emerging in the possession of a line of Celtic earls, the first of whom, Aluin, must have received it as early as the year 1193. Earl David was invested with the English earldom of Huntingdon on the death of its then possessor, Simon de Senlis, in 1184 ; and it is probable that on that occasion he resigned the earldom of Lenno.K in favour of the head of its Gaelic population."^ Earldoms In 1179 William the Lion brought the people of Eoss
Carrick.''° under more complete snbjection to the Crown, and built two royal castles within its bounds, but he appears to have retained the earldom in his own hands, as the Count of Holland complains that he had been deprived of it, although he had never been forfeited. His grievance was probably not a very substantial one, as it is very unlikely that he either had obtained or could obtain practical possession of it. Seven years after the king formed a second earldom out of the territory of the old Cumbrian kingdom, at its south- western extremity, where it bordered upon the Gaelic district of Galloway, and appears to have received a Gaelic population from thence. This was the district of Carrick, which he
*» Fordun, Ghron. (Annals, xxx. ) a charter in the Liber de Melrose,
vol. ii. p. 276. '^'ol. i. p. 22, and that his name
« Chart, of Paisley, p. 167. The was Aluin appears from the Char-
expressions used here imply that tulary of Glascjow, vol. i. p. 86,
David held the earldom only for a where we find, between 1208 and
time The first mention of another 1214, a charter by Alewinus comes
earl of Lennox is in 1193, when Eth, de Levenax filius et heres Alewini
son of the earl of Lemiox, witnesses comitis de Levenax.
CHAP. II. 1 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 71
bestowed as an earldom upon Duncan, son of Gilbert, and grandson of Fergus, the Celtic Lord of Galloway.
Ten years after this he took advantage of the slaughter of Earldom of the bishop of Caithness by^the Norwegian earl of Orkney and Caithness, to extend his power over that district likewise, and to reduce its earl to submission. Harald, the earl at this time, was not a very distant relation of the king by paternal descent, being the son of Madach, earl of Atholl, whose father was a brother of Malcolm the Third, but he inherited the earldom of Orkney to which Caithness at this time was attached, through his mother, Margaret, the daughter of a previous earl, of Nor- wegian descent, and he had married a daughter of Malcolm MacHeth, the so-called earl of Moray, and was thus associated with that family in their opposition to the Crown. The result of two separate invasions of Caithness by the royal army was, that Caithness, north of the great range called the Ord of Caithness, was eventually restored to Earl Harald, to be held by him on payment to the Crown of a large sum of money ; while the district south of that range, which has the Nor- wegian name of Sudrland or Sutherland, was retained by the king, and bestowed upon Hugo, a scion of the house of De Moravia, as a lordship, and eventually made an earldom in the person of his son William. Before the death of William one of the old Celtic earldoms had passed by succession into the hands of a foreign baron, for William Cumyn, the head of the Norman house of that name, became possessed of the earldom of Buchan by his marriage with Marjory, daughter of Fergus, the last of the Celtic earls.
Alexander the Second, the successor of William, followed seven Earls out the same policy, but during his reign, notwithstanding reign^of the increase in the number of the earldoms, and the feudali- ^^g ggcond sation of some of the older ones, we find the seven earls of Scotland frequently making their appearance, apparently as a constitutional body whose privileges were recognised. They
72 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
first appear as taldng an important part in the coronation of Alexander as king of Scotland, and then consisted of the earls of Fife, Stratherne, Atholl, Angus, Menteath, Buchan, and Lothian.-*^ AVitli the exception of Menteath, which was a more recent earldom, these are the same earldoms whose earls gave their consent to the foundation charter of Scone ; but Menteath comes now in place of Mar, perhaps owing to the controversy as to tlie rightful possessor of the latter earldom, and Buchan was, as we have seen,now held by a Norman baron. Another of these ancient earldoms, however, soon after terminated in the male line, and this raised a question which throws some light upon their character and relation to the law of feudal tenures. When Fergus, the last of the old Celtic earls of Buchan, died in the end of King William's reign, there seems to have been no doubt that the earldom devolved upon his daughter Marjory, which she carried to her husband, William Cumyn ; but when Henry, the last of the old Earls of Atholl, died, soon after the accession of Alexander the Second, his heirs were two sisters, Isabella and Forflissa, and the question at once arose whether the earldom was partible between them, as was the case with any feudal barony, or whether it devolved in its entirety upon the elder sister, Isabella, who had married Thomas of Gallo- way, brother of Alan, Lord of Galloway. This question, and the decision of the Curia regis or royal court, consisting of the tenants in chief of the Crown, are incidentally mentioned when the same discussion took place before Edward the First between three of the competitors for the crown on the death of the Maid of Norway. These were John Baliol, who claimed as grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon ; Eobert de Bruce, who claimed as son of his second daughter Isabella ; and John de Hastings, as grandson of Ada, the youngest daughter. The competition *' Fordun, Chron. (Annals, xxix.), p. 276.
CHAP. II. THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 73
for the crown came eventually to be between Baliol, who claimed as representing Earl David through his eldest daughter, and Bruce, who asserted that being his grandson he was one step nearer, and should be preferred to his great- grandson, notwithstanding that he was thus connected through the second daughter. John de Hastings, who, like Baliol, stood only in the relation of great-grandson, admitted the right of the latter to the throne, if the kingdom was main- tained in its entirety, but asserted that being held under the English Crown, it was partible like any other feudal holding, and that he ought to be preferred to one-third of the territory of the kingdom; and Robert Bruce put in a further claim, that in the event of his right to the whole being rejected, he was likewise entitled to one-third. His argument was this — ' The land of Scotland, albeit it is called a kingdom, ought to be partible, by reason that the event which has now happened to Scotland, seeing that it is held in fee of our lord the king of England by homage, is no other than similar to what it would have been as to an earldom or a barony of the realm of England which had descended in such case. And if an earldom or barony had descended to three daughters, with the issue of them, each would have her purpart, seeing that the three daughters represent but one heir of all the heritage of their father ; so that no advantage ought to accrue unto the eldest, or unto the issue of her, except solely the name of the dignity, and especially of the chief messuage.'*^ The king of England referred this question to the eighty Scotch arbiters, who had been elected by the parties, who were asked to decide — ' first, whether the kingdom of Scotland is partible ; second, although it be that the kingdom is not partible, whether the lands acquired and the escheats are
■*^ Willelmi Rishanger Chronica et erroneously translated Ly the editor J w?iaZes, Master of the Rolls Series, 'of chief of the house,' instead of p. 344. The words ' de chef mes ' are ' chief messuage. '
74 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
partible or not. The third, whether the earldoms and the baronies of the kingdom are partible of right ; and the fourth, seeing that the kingdom is not partible, in case the right to the kingdom falls to daughters, whether any consideration ought to be paid to the younger ones, by reason of the equality of right which descended to all, as though in acknowledg- ment of their right.* This discussion only bears upon our subject in so far as it affects the position in this respect of the old earldoms, and it is unnecessary to refer to the answers of the arbiters, except to the third and fourth questions. ' To the third they say that an earldom in the kingdom of Scotland is not partible ; and this was found by judgment in the Court of the king of Scotland as to the earldom of Astheles, or Atholl ; but as to baronies, they say that they are partible. To the fourth they say that as to a kingdom they never saw the like ; but if an earldom falls to daughters in Scotland, the eldest takes it wholly. But if either of the other sisters has not been provided for, in the life of the father, it is proper that the eldest, who takes the inheritance, makes her a pay- ment and assignment. And this is of grace, not of right.'*^ They thus adopt the argument of Eobert the Bruce as to baronies but not as to earldoms. It is, however, unlikely that the eighty arbiters, forty of whom were named by Baliol and forty by Bruce, should have been unanimous in rejecting the claim of the latter ; and the qualification contained in the fourth answer has much the appearance of a compromise between two conflicting views, and like most compromises is inconsistent with the grounds upon which either must be based. In point of fact both views had a substance of truth in them. So far as the old Celtic earldoms of the kingdom were concerned, the arbiters pronounced a correct judgment, for such earldoms were rather official and personal than terri- torial dignities, and the territory of the earldom, which after-
"^ Eislianger, Chronica, pp. 355, 356, 357.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 75
wards formed its demesne, was more of the nature of mensal land appropriated to the support of the dignity. The decision, founded on as having been given by the court of the king, that the earldom of Atholl was not partible, must have reference to that time when the last Celtic earl was repre- sented by two co-heirs, and it appears to have been viewed as being governed by Celtic and not by feudal law. Hence the eldest sister, Isabella, was held to have right to the whole earldom."*^ Isabella married Thomas de Galloway, brother of Alan, Lord of Galloway, by whom she had a son, Patrick ; and after her first husband's death, in 1232, Alan de Lundin, the Hostiarius or Doorward, and one of the most powerful barons of the time, appears as earl of Atholl, from which we may infer that he had married the widow, and held the title during her life. Patrick, the young earl, was, on his accession, miser- ably burnt to death at Haddington in the year 1242, and then we are told the earldom passed to his aunt Forflissa, who had married David de Hastings, a Norman baron.^*^
While the succession to the earldom of Atholl thus shows the light in which the ancient Celtic earldoms were regarded,
*^ The decision is thus given in vynt . . . P]scoce Seneschaucie Mare-
the arguments adduced by Baliol in schaucie Conestablerie Foresterie . e
supportof the position that the king- .... einzne . . . al isseue
dom was not partible. Printed by einznesce autres offices e V)aillies
Palgrave (Doc, p. 40), unfortu- semblable qe sount de la coroune.'
nately the document is very imper- ^^ Pro dolor ! Patricius de Athedle
feet, but it appears to place the old filius Thomw de Galwedia et comitis
Celtic earldom in the same category de Adthedle, juvenis egregius et
with the offices of seneschals, mari- quantum ad humanam oppinionem
schals, constables, and foresters : — omni curiali sapientia et facescia im-
' Ausi la Countee de Asheles de- butus, apud Hadingtone in hospitio mora a Isabele la einzne . . . . puisne suo de nocte postquam se sopori de- n y aveit vivaunt Isabel 1 einzne soir disset, per consilium quorundam ma- e le isseue de li. E fet . . . . lavandit lignancium nequiter perimitur, cum Isabel en pleyn Parlament devaunt duobus sociis suis. . . . Post cujus ta- le Rey Alexaundre fiz son men obituni, David de Hastinges ac-
counseil q ele ne deveit ceo par . . . cepit ejus comitatum provenientem er por ceo qe Countee nest pas part- sibi ex parte uxoris sue, que erat ma- able qe plus . . . es ce . . . tertera juvenis occisi. — Ghron. Mel.
76 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
and the position they occupied in the eye of the common law of the land, those which had been either feudalised or created by the districts being erected into earldoms by the Crown, were in no different position from an ordinary barony, and were regulated by the feudal law, which was correctly laid down by Bruce, the lands being partible between co-heirs, but the dignity and the chief messuage belonging to the eldest co-heir. Of the former we have an example in the earldom of Caithness, which had become feudalised after the war between William the Lion and Harald, who, though of Scot- tish descent, had inherited through a Norwegian mother. On the death of John, earl of Caithness, the last of this line, in 1231, the title of earl passed with only one half of the lands of the earldom to Magnus, a son of the earl of Angus, while we find the other half of the earldom in the possession of the family of De Moravia, and on the death of the last earl of the Angus line this half was again divided, and Malise, earl of Stratherne, became earl of Caithness, possessing, however, one-fourth only of the lands of the earldom.^^ In the same manner, when the earldom of Buchan, which had passed by marriage into the hands of the Norman family of Cumyn, was forfeited to the Crown, and the last earl was represented by tw^o co-heirs, one-half of the lands of the earldom was given by King Eobert Bruce to Sir John de Eoss, son of the earl of Ross, who had married the younger daughter ; and the other half, with the title of earl, was afterwards conferred upon Sir Alexander Stuart, second son of King Eobert ii.
Of the additional earldoms which had been created by the Crown and added to the older earldom, the earliest, that of Menteath, affords an example. This earldom, like that of Buchan, had passed by marriage into the hands of a Cumyn,
*^ The history of these ancient more so than that of the earldom of earldoms is very inaccurately given Caithness. These errors will be by the Peerage-writers, and none found corrected in Appendix No. v.
H
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND, 77
and Walter Cumyn is termed Earl of Menteath as early as the year 1255. On his death in 1257 his widow married John Eussell, an unknown Englishman, and the nobles of Scotland, irritated at this, accused her of the murder of her former husband, and imprisoned both her and her second husband. Walter Stewart then claimed the earldom in right of his wife, and by the favour of the nobles obtained it. On the death of the first Countess her right passed to William Cumyn, who had married her daughter, and a controversy arose between him and Walter Stewart, which terminated in the title being confirmed to the latter, with one half of the earldom, while the other half was erected into a barony in favour of William Cumyn. The partition at a later period of the earldom of Lennox, another of these created earldoms, likewise affords an example.
Such being the distinction between the old Celtic earl- doms represented by the seven earls and those subsequently constituted, we learn also from the discussions which took place in the competition for the crown somewhat of the rights which they claimed as their privilege ; for among the documents still preserved connected with the competition is an appeal on behalf of the seven earls of the kingdom of Scotland to Edward i., in which it is stated that, ' according to the ancient laws and usage of the kingdom of Scotland, and from the time whereof the memory of man was not to the contrary, it appertained to the rights and liberties of the seven earls of Scotland and the " communitas " of the same realm, whenever the royal throne should become vacant de facto et de jure, to constitute the king, and to place him in such royal seat, and to confer upon him all the honours be- longing to the government of the kingdom of Scotland.'^- And this function we find them evidently performing at the coronation of Alexander the Second.
5- Palgrave, Documents, pp. 14, 15.
78 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. . [book hi.
Province of The oiily oiiG of the seven provinces which was required ^°^ ' to be brought into more direct connection with the Crown was the great district of Arrcgaithel or Argyll, and early in his reign Alexander annexed the northern part to the earldom of Eoss, and placed that earldom in possession of a devoted adherent of his person. The district forming what was then called North Argyll consisted in a great measure of the terri- tory of the old and powerful Celtic monastery of Apercrossan, and had passed into the hands of a family of hereditary lay abbots, who termed themselves Sagarts or priests of Apple- cross ; and Ferquard Macintaggart, or the son of the Sagart or priest who had aided the young king in suppressing an insurrection of the Gaelic people of Moray and Eoss in sup- port of the pretensions of the Mac William and MacHeth families in the early part of his reign, was now created Earl of Eoss, which thus became a feudal earldom held of the Crown, by a family who were among its most loyal supporters.^^ The insurrection which took place a few years after in favour of Gillespie mac Eochagan, also of the family of Mac- William, led to the rest of this great district being subdued and brought into the same relation with the Crown. The king, we are told by Fordun, led an army into Argyll. The men of Argyll were frightened. Some gave hostages and a great deal of money, and were taken back in peace, while others, who had more offended against the king's will, forsook their estates and possessions and fled. But our lord the king bestowed both the land and the goods of these men upon his own followers ' at will ' ; or, as Wyntoun expresses it —
' And athe tuk off thare fewte Wyth thare serwys and thare homage, That off hym wald hald thare herytage ; Bot the eshchetys off the lave To the lordys off that land he gave.'
5-" Vol. i. p. 4S,3.
CHAP. ]i.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 79
Those who fled appear to have taken refuge in Galloway, as we find Gilescop Macihacain Avitnessing a clmrter in Galloway with a cluster of Gaelic names along with him ; ^* and as one of these names can be connected with the district of Lochaber, while the family of that Eoderic who joined with him in his rebellion appear to have had their main possessions in the dis- trict of Garmoran, extending from Ardnamurchan to Glenelg, the main seat of the rebellion appears to have been that central portion of the great region of Argyll which was said to pertain to Moravia or Moray, of which these districts formed a part. The native lords of this district were apparently those whom the king dispossessed, and whose possessions he gave to his own followers, and accordingly we find Lochaber soon after in the possession of the Cumyns. lu South Argyll, on the other hand, the native lords appear to have submitted to the king, as the family of Dubhgal, the eldest son of Somerled, the great Celtic Lord of Argyll, seem to have remained in possession of the extensive district of Lorn ; and it is at this time that we may fairly place a grant which appears to have been made of the lands in the interior which afterwards formed the lordship of Lochow to Duncan Mac Duine, the ancestor of the Campbells, a clan the head of which appears in the following reign as a close adherent of the Crown.^^
The seven earls of Scotland appear again as a body taking part in important transactions on two different occasions in this reign. In the first, which was the agreement between the kings of England and Scotland, by which a settlement of the claims of the latter was concluded in 1237, the seven earls among others became bound by oath to maintain the
^■* Vol. i. p. 486. the said Archibald Campbell, en-
^^ See charter by David ii., con- joyed the same in the barony of
firming in 1368 to Archibald Camp- Lochaw, or other lands belonging to
bell, son of Colin, the lands of Craig- him. — HU. Com., A Keport, p. 40.
nish, Melfort, and others, with all The first Campbell on record is
the liberties thereof, as freely as Gillespie Campbell in 1266, and
Duncan Mac Duine, progenitor of this Duncan was his grandfather.
80 THE SEVEN PKOVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
agreement. These were the earls of Dunbar, of Stratherne, of Lennox, of Angus, of Mar, of Atholl, and of Eoss ; and here we find the earls of Lennox, of Mar, and of Eoss, coming in place of those of Fife, Menteath, and Buclian ; but when the agreement was renewed seven years afterwards, in 1244, the seven earls who became bound that King Alexander would observe good faith were, Patrick Earl of Dunbar, Malcolm Earl of Fife, ]\Lalise Earl of Stratherne, Walter Cumyn Earl of Menteath, William Earl of Mar, Alexander (younger) Earl of Buchan, and David de Hastings Earl of Atholl ; ^^ the Earls of Fife, Menteath, and Buchan again appearing among them, and those of Lennox, Angus, and Eoss being omitted. We thus see that though the number of seven was always retained, the constituent members were not always the same, the latter being probably regulated by the respective positions of the earldom at the time, for in 1237 the earldom of Angus had passed by marriage into possession of one of the powerful family of Cumyn, but he had died in 1242, and the Countess of Angus had in 1243 replaced him with a Norman Baron, Gilbert de Umphraville, whom she took as her second husband. Seven Earls In the elaborate and picturesque account which Fordun
in the _ _ -^
reign of gives US of the coronation of Alexander the Third when a
Alexander
the Third, boy of eight ycars old, he does not give the seven earls, as a body, a part in the ceremonial, but simply says that the royal boy was accompanied by a number of earls, barons, and knights. The only earls he mentions by name are Walter Cumyn Earl of Menteath, Malcolm Earl of Fife, and Malise Earl of Stratherne ; but it is probable that in a coronation in which the Celtic element loomed so largely, he did not intend to imply that this body did not play the same part which they did in the coronation of his father ; and this we may reasonably infer, for he tells that in the second year of his
^^ Rymer's Fcedera, vol. i. p. 257.
k
THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 81
reign a solemn ceremony took place at Dunfermline, when, in the presence of bishops and abbots, earls and barons, and other good men both clerics and laymen, the relics of Saint Margaret were enshrined at Dunfermline. The record of this transaction in the Chartulary of Dunfermline bears that it was done in presence of the seven bishops and seven earls of Scotland.^'' It is obvious, however, that this body of the seven earls were gradually losing their separate corporate existence, and were no longer able to maintain in this reign the functions they exercised in previous reigns ; for when the succession to the throne was settled upon the daughter of Alexander in 1284, we find them merged in the general ' communitas,' or feudal community of the kingdom, in which the entire body of the earls, now amounting to thirteen, appear. They take a part, but apparently not an influential one, in the discussions that took place after the death of the Maid of Norway between the competitors for the crown; and probably the last attempt they made to repossess themselves of the important position they formerly occupied in the affairs of the kingdom was when in 1 297 they, in conjunction with John Comyn of Badenoch, invaded England at the head of a pow- erful army which met in Annandale and besieged Carlisle. The seven earls engaged in this expedition were the earls of Buchan, Menteath, Stratherne, Lennox, Eoss, Atholl, and Mar ; ^^ but the attempt resulted disastrously for them, for they were obliged to raise the siege and return to Scotland ; and then again assembling at Roxburgh they made a second raid into the eastern part of England as far as the priory of Hexham, which they destroyed, and returned with a great
®' Fordun, Chron., ed. 1874, vol. lectoexercitu validoin valle Aiinan-
ii. p. 289, and note p. 436. die, feria secunda Paschse Augliani
^'^ Quo tempore septem Comites iiigressi, vastabant omnia csde et
Scotiae, viz. de Bowan, deMeneteth, inceudio, et non parcentes aitati vel
de Stradeherne, de Lewenes, de Ros. sexui venientes Carleolum urbem,
de Athel, de Mar, ac Johannes filius ipsam obsidione cinxerunt. — Wil-
Johannis Comyn de Badenau, col- lelmi Rishanger Chronica, p. 156.
VOL. III. F
82 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. I book hi.
booty to Scotland. They tlien besieged and took the castle of Dunbar, the earl of Dunbar having submitted to the king of England, but being besieged by the English in their turn the castle was taken, and three of the earls, viz., those of Menteath, Atholl, and Eoss, were taken prisoners, with John Oomyn and five other barons, with twenty-nine knights, two clerics, and eighty-three esquires, and confined in different castles in England.^^
After this we hear no more of the seven earls of Scotland. As a coustitutional body possessing, or claim- ing to possess, separate privileges, they are merged in the general ' Communitas regni, ' or Estates of the kingdom, the feudal 'Curia regis' consisting of all who held lands in chief of the Crown, As we have seen, when the succession to the Crown was settled towards the end of the reign of Alexander the Third, they take no part as a separate body, but are merged in the general assembly of the feudal baron- age of the kingdom, consisting of thirteen earls and twenty- four barons, and six years afterwards there is a still fuller representation of the Estates of the kingdom, when a letter is addressed to Edward the First by the Communitas regni urging him to arrange a marriage of his son with the Maid of Norway. The body from whom this letter proceeds consists of the two bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, John Cumyn, and James, High Steward, the guardians of the kingdom ; ten diocesan bishops ; twelve of the thirteen earls, the earl of Fife being then a minor; twenty-three abbots of monasteries, eleven priors, and forty-eight barons holding of the Crown.^** Xeither do they appear as a separate body in the great national protest addressed by the Communitas regni to the Pope in 1320, and signed on their behalf by eight of the earls and twenty-eight of the baron s.^^
^8 Willelmi Rishanger Chronica, '''* Rymer's Fc&dera, ii. p. 471.
l)p. 159, 160. "' Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 291.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PKOVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 83
The state, then, of the land, as thus exhibited to us in the state of tLe reign of Alexander the Third, appears to have been this. — A ,.e/gn of large portion of the territory of the kingdom was now held the ™rd! in chief of the Crown by barons, very few of whom were of Celtic descent, on the feudal tenure of military service. Another portion of the territory formed the domain of the Crown. A third portion formed the territory possessed by the old earls of Scotland, and presented, in miniature, the same characteristics as the Crown land, being partly held of the earls by the vassals of the earldom, and partly forming his domain ; and a very large extent of territory, probably not less than a third of the whole land, belonged to the Church, and formed the possessions either of the bishoprics, or of the great monasteries which had been founded by the kings of this dynasty, while the lands which had formed the territory of the old Celtic monasteries and had become secularised, now appear either in the possession of the Crown or of the monasteries under the name of ' abthaniae ' or abthainries.
In that part of Scotland which still retained, in the main, a Celtic population, we may expect to find the Celtic tenures still prevailing to a large extent, and still exhibiting many of their peculiar characteristics ; but where the population had become in a large measure Teutonic, and where so much of the land was now held on feudal tenures by the great barons of the Crown, and by the Eoman monastic orders, and where so many of the earldoms had passed by marriage into Norman families, it is more difficult to discover the traces of a Celtic occupation, and the peculiarities of the Celtic tenures under the feudal forms which shrouded them from observation. These we can only expect to find on that portion of land which formed the proper demesne of the Crown and of the old earls, and had been retained in their own possessions without the interposition of any feudal vassals between them and the actual occupiers of the soil.
84 THE SEVEN I'KOVINCKS OF SCOTLAND. [book iir.
TheCiown Qf tlie mocle in which the deiuestie hiiid of the Crown
(leinesuf.
was actually possessed, we have fortunately a very distinct account given to us by the old chronicler, John of Fordun. He refers it back to the period of Malcolm the Second, to whom nine spurious laws have been attributed, and sup- poses it to have originated witli him ; but tliis may be re- garded as a mere theory, framed on the basis of the spurious history of Scotland, to account for a state of matters which existed in his own day, and we have only to separate the mythic part of his statement from what is obviously the result of his own observation. He tells us that ' histories relate the aforesaid jMalcolm to have been so open-handed, or rather prodigal, that wdiile, according to ancient custom, he held as his own property all the lands, districts, and provinces of the whole kingdom, he kept no- thing thereof in his possession but the Moothill of the royal seat of Scone, where the kings, sitting in their royal robes on the throne, are wont to give out judgments, laws, and statutes to their subjects. Of old, indeed, the kings were accustomed to grant to their soldiers in feu-farm more or less of their own lands, a portion of any province, or a thanage ; for at that time almost the whole kingdom was divided into thanages. Of these he granted to each one as much as he pleased, either on lease by the year as tillers of the ground, or for ten or twenty years, or in liferent, with remainder to one or two heirs, as free and kindly tenants, and to some likewise, though few, in perpetuity, as knights, thanes, and chiefs, not however so freely, but that each of them paid a certain annual feu-duty to their lord the king.' *'-
The first or mythic part of this statement corresponds
with the spurious laws of Malcolm the Second, which thus
commence — ' 1. King Malcolme gave and distributed all his
lands of the realm of Scotland amongst his men ; 2. and re-
'^■- Fordun, Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 177.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 85
served natliing in propertie to himselfe but the Royale dig- nitie and the Mute hill in the town of Scone,'*^^ and may be disregarded as belonging to the spurious history of Scotland. Whether there ever was a time when it could be said that the king possessed nothing but the Moothill of Scone, and in what sense it could be said that the whole kingdom was divided into thanages, and that the whole lands of the king- dom once belonged to the Crown, is a question that must be determined in the course of this inquiry ; but when the old chronicler tells us by what class of persons the Crown lands were actually possessed, and by what species of tenure they held them, he is dealing with matters which still existed in his own day, and the characteristics of which he had every means of ascertaining if they were not perfectly familiar to him, and he gives us a very distinct account of them. He dis- criminates between three classes of persons as possessing these lands. The lowest class were the agricolce or husbandmen, the actual cultivators of the soil, who were regarded as yearly tenants, and are, no doubt, the same class with those who are termed 'bondi and nativi in feudal charters. They were, in the eastern di.stricts, the remains of the old Celtic population. The class next above them consisted of the liberi and gcnc- ros% who held land either on lease for ten or twenty years, or in liferent renewable for one or two lives. The former were probably equivalent to the liberi firmarii or free farmers, and the latter to the Eentallers or kindly tenants of the feudal holdings. Tlie third class, who held directly of the Crown, were either militcs or knights, who held a knight's fee for military service, or thani, who held a thanage, or principcs or mag- nates. And he defines a thanage to be a portion of the land of a province held ad feodojirmam,'^^ or in feu-farm, the holder
^^ Regiam Majeslatem, p. i. as meaning what is inconsistently
"^ This word feodofirma, called called a hereditary lease, but it was
feu-farm in Scotland and fee-farm not so at least in Scotland. It was
in England, is usually understood a grant of the feodum or fee of the
86 THE SKVKX I'ltOVINCES OF .SCOTLAND. [book ni.
of which was subject in payment of an annual ' census ' or feu-duty. By the princijMs, lie probably refers either to the Mormaers or Earls of the old Celtic earldoms, or to the posi- tion of the great Celtic vassals in the western districts as chiefs of clans.^^ Fordun was himself connected with the northern counties of Kincardine and Aberdeen, where the older holdings of the thanage still maintained their position in the greatest degree even to his own day. He was a chap- lain in the diocese of Aberdeen, and the Chartulary of that bishopric has preserved to us a rental of the Crown lands in the reign of Alexander the Third, which shows their extent and the nature of the holdings. In this rental we find the lands of Aberdeen, Belhelvy, Kintore, Fermartyn, Obyne, Glendowachy, Boyn, Munbre, and Natherdale, which are termed thanages ; Convalt, which is termed a ' dominium' or lordship ; Lydgat, Uchterless, and Eothymay, called baronies ; and other lands which have no particular desig- nation, with the towns of Aberdeen, CuUen, and Banff.*^*^ We also learn that the upper part of the vales of the rivers Dee and Don formed the domain of the earldom of Mar, which consisted of the districts of Braemar, Strathdee, Cromar, and Strathdon, while an extensive territory on the Dee, which had formerly belonged to the earldom, was held in the reign of Alexander the Third by one of his most powerful feudal vassals, Alan the Doorward, to whose father it had been given as a compensation for a claim he had to the earldom of Mar ; but though we do not find any of the lands of this earldom bearing the name of thanages, this denomination was still re- tained in the demesne of two of the more westerly earldoms. In Atholl we have the thanages of Glentilt, Crannich, Ach- more, Candknock, while the great abthanrie of Dull belonged
estate, and not merely of the usu- vol. ii. p. 414 note,
truct, burdened with an annual pay- *•' This subject will be more fully
ment of a Jirma or census, instead discussed in a subsequent chapter.
of military service. — See Fordun, "'' Chart. Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 55.
CHAr. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 87
to the Crown ; and in Stratherne we find the thanases of Strain and Dunning held under the earls, and that of For- teviot with the abthanrie of Madderdyn or Madderty in the Crown.
While in the eastern districts we find the older holdings which survived from the Celtic period though disguised under a Saxon nomenclature, which owes its origin probably to the reigns of Edgar and Alexander the First, explained in language more appropriate to feudal holdings, when v^e pass over to the western districts which still possessed a Celtic population where the Saxon terminology has not penetrated, we come in contact at once with the realities of the Celtic tribal system which the adoption of feudal forms little affected, and whose customs are therefore less disguised by feudal forms, while the relation of the different classes to each other, though nominally feudal, are practically tribal. Although, when the great district of Argyll was annexed to the Crown and other insurrections among the Gaelic tribes were repressed, grants of land were, to some extent, given to Norman barons, with a view to the more effectual suppression of the unruly inhabitants, they conveyed little beyond a bare feudal superiority and introduced no foreign resident element, and thus hardly influenced the Celtic tribes who remained the actual holders of the soil ; and when, by the cession of the Isles in the reign of Alexander the Third, the Norwegian dominion over them was transferred to Scotland, we find that the great Celtic lords of the Southern Isles, who had held them as kings under the Norwegian Crown, retained the same position under the Scottish king. At the great meeting ol' the Community of Scotland, which settled the succession of the Crown in 1283, we see the heads of three great families descended from Somerled — viz. Alexander de Ergadia, Angus, son of Dovenald, and Alan, son of liotheric — appearing among them, the first being the powerful Lord of Lorn, and the
88 THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. [book hi.
second the Lord of the Isles, wliilc the third owned large territories both on the mainhmd and in the Isles. District of One of the lirst acts of John Baliol, when his claim to the
.\rgyll
divided thronc was preferred, was to assimilate the district of Argyll
into sheiill- i.ii-i n i -r -i i ■, • ,
doms. and the kingdom ot the Isles to the system which prevailed in the rest of the kingdom, which was divided into sheriff- doms, in which the king was represented by the vicecomes or sheriff, and the Act of Parliament by which this was done will show how the land in these western regions was then held within eight years of the death of Alexander the Third.'''^ By this Act, which was passed in 1292, the sheriffdom of Skye was to consist of the lands of the earls of Eoss in North Argail, that is, the western part of the present county of Eoss, the lands of Glenelg, the Crown lands of Skye and Lewis (here the principal lords were the Macleods of Harris and Lewis though they are not named), the lands of Garmoran, with the islands of Egg and Eume (this had been the chief seat of the Lords of the Isles descended from Eoderic, son of Eeginald), and the islands of Uist and Barra, where the MacNeills were the principal possessors. The sheriffship of Lorn was to consist of the lands of Ardnamurchan and Kinnelbathyn or Morvern ; the lands of Alexander de Ergadia, Lord of Lorn ; of John de Glenurchy, of Gilbert M'Naughton, of Malcolm Maclvor,
''" Domiims Rex pro pace et stabi- galli de^Cragins Terra Johannis Mc-
litate regni sui observandus statuit (lilcrist Terra Magistri Radulphi de
et ordinavit quod de terris subscrip- Dunde, Terra Gileskel M'Lachl[an]
tis tient [vicecomitatus] videlicet. Terra Comitis de Meneteth de Kna-
De terra comitis de Eos in Nort Ar- pedal, Terra Anegus filii Dovenaldi
gail, Terra de Glenc[elg] Terra Regis Insularum et Terra Coliiii Cambel et
de Skey et Lodoux, octo davaux de vocetur vicecomitatus de [Lorn],
terra [Garmoran] Egge et Rumme De terris de Kentyr cum omnibus
Guiste et Barrich cum minutis insu- tenentibus terras in eadem. Terra
lis etvoceturvicecomitatusde Skey. Loclimani McKilcolim McErewer
De terris Kinnebatliyn Ardemui- Terra Enegus McErewer, Terra de
rich Bothelve, Terra Alexandri de ... Insula de Boot, Terra Domini
Argadia, Terra Johannis de Glen- Thomaj Cambel, et Terra Duukani
urwy, Terra Gilbert! Mc[Nauchton] Duf et vocetur vicecomitatus de
Terra Malcolmi M'lvyr Terra Du- Kentyr.— ^c^ct Pari. vol. i. p. 447.
CHAP. II.] THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND. 89
of Dugald of Craignish, of John, son of Gilclirist of Eadulpli of Dundee, who was a Scrymgeour, whose ancestor had re- ceived a grant of Glassrie from Alexander the Second ; of Gillespie M'Lachlan, of the earl of Menteath who had a rio-ht to Knapdale, of Anegus, son of Dovenald the Lord of the Isles, and of Colin Campbell, Lord of Lochow ; and the sheriffdom of Kintyre was to consist, besides the possessors of the district of Kintyre, of the lands of the Lamonts, of Thomas Cambel, and of Dunkan Duff, in Cowall, and of the island of Bute.
90
LEGENDARY ORIGINS.
[book III.
CHAPTEK III.
LEGENDARY ORIGINS.
The prob- lem to be solved.
Early traditions.
The occupation of the lands which formed the territory of the kingdom of Scotland in the reio-n of Alexander the Third, the mutual relation of the different races by which it was held, the connection of the Celtic portion of the population with the soil, the tenure by which they possessed it, and the different classes in their social organisation which it discloses, present to us the problem which we have to solve, and we have now to trace the history of the early institutions from which its phenomena were derived, and the extent to which they have been affected by internal change or by external influence.
But before entering upon this inquiry it may be well to aee what legend or tradition tells us with regard to the Celtic portion of the population, with which we have now mainly to do. Such legends or traditions are either intended as a means of conveying some early facts in the history of the race in a popular form, or of clothing some truths in a symbolic dress, or they are merely the picturesque imaginations of their early sennachies or native historians. Those which relate to the Celtic population of Scotland are derived from two different sources. They are either Welsh or Irish, that is, they are the legends of either the Cymric or the Gaelic race, and in esti- mating their relative value it is necessary to take their pro- bable origin and character into account. Some of them are
CHAP, in.] LEGENDARY ORIGINS. 91
what may be termed ethnic legends. They are designed to perpetuate the popular conception of the origin and early settlements of the race, but they are the creation of a period when there had been some progress in the culture of the people, and when they possessed a rude literature derived in the main from the spread of Christianity and the establish- ment of Christian institutions among them. Their authors felt the necessity of connecting the early history of the country with the events of Biblical or Classical history, and it assumed the shape of a fictitious narrative which belongs to the mythic period of their annals. Others again may be called linguistic legends, and were rude attempts to account for peoples nominally distinct, and from pride of race regarding each other as independent races, possessing the same language and using a cognate form of speech. Others were what may be truly called historical legends, and handed down in a more or less modified shape events which we have reason to think actually took place ; while others again were purely artificial, and were simply the rude and fastastic creations of the popular mind, which felt the necessity of filling up the dark period of the annals of their race with imaginary events calculated to gratify their national feeling and their natural love of the mar- vellous.
The ethnic legends invariably connect the origin of the Ethnic people with Biblical or Classical history, and assumes that some of the races which formed the oldest population of the country, and were really indigenous, had immigrated from some foreign land. We find it assuming two different shapes. In the one the different nations constituting the early population were separate colonies which proceeded from foreign countries and entered the land at different periods. Thus Bede tells us of the early population of Britain that it was first peopled by a colony of ' Brittones ' who
92 LEGENDARY ORIGINS. |book hi.
came from Armorica; that then the Picts came from Scythia, and the nation of the Scots came from Ireland ; and he places these successive colonies prior to the Koman invasion of Britain. The legendary history of Ireland pre" sents the early history of its population in the same aspect. The account of the successive colonies which occupied Ireland is supposed to have been narrated to Saint Patrick by her earliest historian Fintan, who lived before the Flood, and remained alive during the whole of the centuries which elapsed till the introduction of Christianity. The Book of Ballimote contains a poem supposed to have been written by him. If he was a real personage, he may have been Fintan Munnu, a celebrated Irish saint who died on 25th October 634, but the poem is no doubt a later composition, and a translation is here inserted as giving in short compass these successive peoplings of the island, and as a good specimen of their early legends.
As the learned historian has related, namely Fintan : —
1.
' Should any one inquire of me about Eire, I can tell most accurately Respecting every invasion which took place From the beginning of all pleasing life.
' Ceasair set out from the East, The woman who was daughter of Beatha, Accompanied by fifty daughters, As also by three men.
.3.
' The deluge came on. Bith resided at his mountain without secrecy, Ladra at Ard Ladran, And Ceasair at her corner.
i
CHAP. III.] LEGENDARY OKIGINS. 93
' As to me, I remained a year under the flood At Tul Tinnde of strength.
There had not been slept, nor will there be slept, A sleep better than that which I had.
' I was then in Ireland ; Pleasant was my condition When Partholon arrived From the Grecian country in the East.
6.
' I was also in Ireland While it was uninhabited. Until the son of Agnoman arrived, Neimead of pleasant manners.
' Fir Bolg and Fir Gaillian Arrived a long period afterwards. The Fir Domnan then arrived. And landed in Iirus westward.
8.
' After them the Tuatha De arrived Concealed in their dark clouds I ate my food with them. Though at such a remote period.
9.
' Then came the sons of Milead From Spain southward. I lived and ate with them, Though fierce were their battle.^.
10.
' A continuity of life Still remained with me,
For in my time Chiistianity was here established By the king of heaven of the clouds.'
The history of these successive colonies is elaborated with many details in the fictitious history of Ireland during the
04 LEGENDARY ORIGINS. [hook hi.
mythic period, but it is unnecessary for our purpose to enter into these details except in so far as they hear upon the legendary history of the people of Scotland.^
Another form of the ethnic legend is one common to the early history of all countries during the mythic period. In it the race is personified in an cjJonT/mus who is the supposed ancestor and founder of it, and their supposed settlement in the country in which they are first found is prefigured in a marriage with a female whose name has an obvious relation to it, and thus an ethnic family is produced, the sons of which usually represent the territorial divisions of the country. This family has therefore a territorial as well as an ethnic meaning, and the filiation does not always imply affinity of race, but may indicate no more than the joint occupation of the country by the different tribes personified in the