CHAPTER II.

THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND.

[Sidenote: Old division of Scotia into provinces.]

During the Celtic period of her history we find Scotland exhibiting a

distribution of her population in separate districts, 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.

[Sidenote: Seven provinces in the eighth century.]

In the same way the earliest account we possess of the provincial

distribution of the population of Scotland tells us that Transmarine

Scotland,[39] or the country north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, was

anciently divided by seven brothers into seven provinces, and that the

principal of these was _Enegus_ with _Moerne_, so called from _Enegus_,

the firstborn of the brothers. This name of _Enegus_ or Angus, now

represented by the county of Forfar, is no doubt the same with the

ancient Celtic personal name of Angus; and _Moerne_, now called Mearns,

or the county of Kincardine, is a corruption of the old Gaelic name

_Maghgherghin_, that is, the plain of Gergin, and is alluded to under

that name in one of the old Lives of St. Patrick.[40] The second

province was _Adtheodle_ and _Gouerin_, or Atholl and Gowry. The old

form of this name of _Adtheodle_ was _Athfodla_, in which form it

appears in the Annals of Tighernac, and _Gouerin_ was probably

_Gabhrin_, a name analogous to the old name of the district of Ossory in

Leinster, which is called Gabhran, pronounced Gowran.[41] The third was

_Sradeern_ and _Meneted_, or Stratherne and Menteath, and there seems no

doubt that the former is the district which appears so frequently in the

Irish Annals under the name of Fortren.[42] The fourth was _Fif_ with

_Fothreve_. The old form of the former name was _Fibh_. The latter name

has entirely disappeared, 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 _Fibh_ 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 Ros. The old form of the former name

was _Moreb_, and was applied to a large territory extending 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 Ros

by the river of Beauly, the passage across which was by a ford termed

the Stockford,[43] 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 seventh

province was Cathanesia, within and beyond the mountains, for the

mountain called Mound divides Cathanesia into two parts. This 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 the Norwegian word _nes_, signifying a promontory,

and applied it to that part of the province which lay to the north of

the mountains, while they termed the southern half _Sudrland_, 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.[44]

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,[45] while during the last century of the

independent existence of the Pictish monarchy, the _Ardri_, or supreme

king, had his principal seat at Scone in the district of Gowry.

[Sidenote: Seven provinces in the tenth century.]

The old descriptions then give us another legendary version of these

seven provinces, which the author says were described to him by Andrew,

bishop of Caithness, a Scotsman by birth, and a monk of Dunfermlyn, 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 extended from that great water, termed in

Scotch _Froch_, that is, Forth, in British or Welsh _Werid_, in Roman

(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 province extends to _Hilef_, as the sea encircles

it till it reaches a mountain on the north plain of _Strivelin_ or

Stirling, which is called _Athrin_, by which Athrie in the gorge of the

Ochils can alone be meant. The district of Gowry is situated between 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, but is formed of

its fourth province of Fife and Fothreve, with the addition of Gowry.

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, therefore, corresponds with the

fifth province in the first list containing Mar and Buchan. The fifth

province extended from the Spey to the mountain _Bruinalban_ or

Breadalbane, and corresponds with that part of the second province of

the first list termed _Adtheodle_ or Atholl. The sixth province is Muref

and Ros, which is the same with the sixth province in the first list;

and the seventh is _Arregaithel_. The changes thus produced upon the

provincial 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

_Maghgherghinn_ 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 Ros, rather points to the

great mountain barrier which separates the Highlands from the Lowlands

now assuming greater significance in the tribal distribution, the

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.[46]

The great change, however, in this list is the disappearance 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 kingdom of Dalriada had ceased to exist. The name of Arregaithel,

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 comprised, 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 Ross. In this statute a distinction is drawn

between the country situated between the Forth, the river Spey, and

Drumalban, and the districts beyond these limits, which consist of

Moravia or Moray, Ros, 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’ or the southern part

of it, distinguished from ‘Ergadia which belongs to Moravia,’ or that

part which formed the western districts of Moray; and in a charter by

King Robert the Bruce reviving the old earldom of Moravia, it is said to

extend to the boundary of ‘northern Ergadia, which belongs to the Earl

of Ross.’[47]

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;[48] 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 _Airergaidhel_, _Airer_

signifying a district.[49] The Scotch form is _Earrgaoidheal_ 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

_Oirthir_, a coast or border; and we find the name _Oirir_ applied to it

in the Book of Clanranald, which distinguishes the _Oirir a tuath_, or

northern Oirir, and the _Oirir a deas_, or the southern Oirir, from each

other. The name given to this district by the Norwegians was _Dali_ or

_Dalir_, the Dales, and Somerled, the Regulus of Arregaithel, and his

family, are termed in the Orkneyinga Saga the _Dalveria Aett_, or family

of the Dales.[50]

[Sidenote: Districts ruled by kings and afterwards by Mormaers.]

Such being the territorial divisions of Scotland at this period, we

find, in place of each province being under the rule of a _Ri_ or king,

with a subordinate division under a sub-king 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 _Ri_ 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 the 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 king nor any of their Mormaers fell by

him;[51] and the Pictish Chronicle mentions in the same reign the death

of Dubucan, son of Indrechtaig, Mormaer Ængusa, or of Angus.[52] 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 records in the reign of Cullen, who died

in 970, the death of Maelbrigdi, son of Dubucan the Mormaer of Angus;

and in 976 Tighernac 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.[53]

The reign of Malcolm the Second, who ascended the throne in 1004, and

whose thirty years’ rule over Alban was distinguished 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,

Norwegian Earl of Orkney, with the host of the Orkneys and of the

Norwegian Islands, the Galls or Norwegians of Caithness and Mann. Skye,

Lewis, Kintyre, and _Oirergaidhel_ 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 Eimin, son of Cainnech, Mormaer of Mar, who

fell in the battle of Clontarf.[54]

In this reign the Mormaers of Moreb or Moray 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 Findlaec the son of Ruadri, 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 Sagas as defending his district in

Scotland against Sigurd the Norwegian Jarl of Orkney, who eventually

conquered Myrhaevi of Moray and Ross.[55] In 1029 the death of Malcolm,

son of Maelbrigdi, son of Ruadri, is recorded, when he bears the title

of Ri 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 succeeded him for the short space of three

months.[56]

[Sidenote: Petty kings of Argyll and Galloway.]

In the same reign we find also the petty kings of _Arregaithel_ or

Argyll and _Gallgaithel_ or Galloway making their 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 Iehmarc. 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 Iehmarc

may be identified with Imergi, who appears in the old Irish Genealogies

as ancestor of Somerled the petty king of Argyll.[57] The Irish Annals

record in the same year in which king Malcolm died, the death also of

Suibne, son of Kenneth, Ri or king of Gallgaidel. 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 Orkneyinga Saga to be ‘at the place

where Scotland and England meet.’[58]

[Sidenote: Jarl Thorfinn.]

On the 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 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.[59] This was Macbeth, the Ri or Mormaer of Moray, who appears to

have treacherously 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 possessed nine jarldoms in Scotland and the whole of the

Sudreys or Western Isles.[60] These jarldoms were no doubt the districts

ruled by the native Mormaers, and, if his conquest 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

Fothreve, 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 recognised the son of Duncan as their legitimate

monarch, with the exception of the Gaelic territory of Galloway, which

was under Norwegian rule.

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, earl of Northumbria, drove Macbeth from his kingdom and regained

possession of its capital, Scone; and on the death of Thornfinn 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 whole 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

_rikis_ 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.’[61] These _rikis_ 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.[62]

[Sidenote: Mormaers termed by Norwegians Jarls.]

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. 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 Ruadri filling the office of Mormaer of Moray, and the

succession apparently following the Irish law of tanistry, and

alternating between the descendants of his two sons Maelbrigdi 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 Muireb_ or king of Moray, from whom it

passed through his sister to Ængus, termed in the Annals ‘son of the

daughter of Lulaig.’[63]

[Sidenote: Mormaers of Buchan from the Book of Deer.]

A more complete revelation, however, is made to us with regard to the

Mormaers of another district, that of Buchan, in the Book of Deer, which

contains the usual memoranda of the 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 _Cruthnech_, or the Pict, Mormaer of Buchan, gave the

_cathair_ or city _Abbordoboir_, 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 Columcille 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 son of Cearill,

Domhnall son of Giric, and Domnall son of Ruadri, but there is nothing

to show what the connection of these Mormaers with each other was or

when they lived, but the dignity then passes to a family called Mac

Dobharcon.[64] Two brothers, Domhnall son of Mac Dobharcon, 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.

[Sidenote: Toisechs of Buchan.]

The same valuable record, however, makes a further revelation 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 Mormaers 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 Achad Toche Temni, and it is added that ‘one was Mormaer and

the other was Toisec.’[65] Then Cathal, son of Morcunt, gives

Achadnagleree; and Domhnall mac Giric, the fourth Mormaer named, and

Maelbrigdi, son of Cathal the Toisech, gives Pett in Mulenn; and finally

Colban, Mormaer of Buchan, and Eva, daughter of Garnait (the previous

Mormaer), his wife, and Donnachac, 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 Matan, 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 Ruadri, 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 Rosabard. 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 thawith the land, but also standing in a relation

to the tribe or clan which occupied them as their leader.[66] 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

Ruadri, 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 expression 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 Moreb_, or king of Moray, is recorded, as we have seen, in

1080.

[Sidenote: Seven earls first appear in reign of Alexander the First.]

On the death of Eadgar, the successor of Malcolm III., his brother

Alexander the First ruled as king over Scotland 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, 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 institutions 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

provinces, 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 Dunbar, and who probably represented that

part of Lothian attached to Alexander’s kingdom. 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.[67] The six persons,

however, who bear the title of Comes are Beth, Mallus, Madach, Rothri,

Gartnach, and Dufagan, and of these we can identify four. Mallus is

undoubtedly the Mallus Comes Stradarniæ or Earl of Stratherne, who took

such a prominent part in the Battle of the Standard.[68] Madach is that

Maddach, _Jarl of Atjoklum_, or Earl of Atholl, said in the Orkneyinga

Saga to be the son of Melkolfr or Melmare, brother of Malcolm the

Third.[69] Rothri appears in a charter in the Book of Deer, granted in

the eighth year of King David, as Ruadri, 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 resemblance of the name of the latter to Dubican, who

appears at an earlier date as Mormaer of Angus, leads to the supposition

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 hitherto found in connection with these districts bearing

the title of Mormaer; 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.[70]

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 Dunfermline, 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 ‘hujus privilegii testes

et assertores,’ and these are headed by five earls—viz., Ed Comes,

Constantinus Comes, Malise Comes, Rotheri Comes, and Madeth Comes.[71]

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.[72] Constantin,

however, appears in two documents in the Chartulary of St. Andrews, in

which he is described as Earl of Fife. In the first, which is the

memorandum 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 virorum fide dignorum scilicet Constantini Comitis de

Fyf viri discretissimi.’ The second is a perambulation of the boundaries

of Kirkness and Lochore, when the king sends his messengers through the

province of Fyf and Fothrithi, and summons many of their people in one

place—viz., Constantinem Comitem de Fyf virum discretum et facundum cum

satrapys et satellitibus et exercitu de Fyf et Macbeath Thaynetum de

Falleland (Falkland), etc. The dispute is then referred to ‘tres viros

legales et idoneos,’ the first of whom is ‘Constantinus Comes de Fyf

magnus judex in Scotia.’[73] We thus see that one of the principal

functions of these old Mormaers, 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 witnesses the second, but neither can be identified.[74]

During the entire reign of David the First 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 designation, and the

first witness who follows the earls and precedes the chancellor is

Gillemichel Makduf. In the foundation 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.

[Sidenote: Policy of David I. to feudalise Celtic earldoms.]

There is no doubt that David’s object, on his accession to the throne,

was to feudalise the whole kingdom, by importing feudal forms and feudal

holdings into it, and to place the 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 connected was not a

purely territorial one. It was more a relation towards the tribes who

peopled it than towards the land. 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 Comes or Earl bestowed upon him, 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;[75] and a

similar feudal investiture of the earldom of Angus in the person of

Gillibride 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, Gillibride

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 appears to have been his confirmation of the grants to the

monastery of Dunfermline, 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 thus

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 temporary 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 Ros 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.’[76]

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 the Boy of Egremont, and as grandson

of King Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm III. by Ingibiorg, widow of

Earl Thorfinn of Orkney, had a direct claim to the throne, which would

commend itself both to the Gaelic and to the Norwegian population in

preference to the descendants of the Saxon princess Margaret.[77]

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 manlyly

Swne skalyd all that cumpany,

And tuk and slwe.[78]

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 Ross, as the clan bearing the name

of Ross are called in Gaelic _Clan Ghilleanrias_, or descendants of

Gillandres, and may have led the revolt which drove Malcolm macHeth out

of the earldom.

[Sidenote: Creation of additional earldoms.]

Each of the seven provinces of Scotland consisted, as we have seen, 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 the two districts of Mar and Buchan, each of

which is represented by an earl, the other provinces appear with one of

its two districts possessing an earl, and the other remaining

unrepresented. 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 macHeth Earl of Ross;

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.[79] Two years after he

added another in the district of Menteath, which, along with Stratherne,

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 1164; 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 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.

[Sidenote: Earldom of Mar.]

We have seen that during the reign of Alexander the First and the early

part of the reign of David, Ruadri or Rotheri, 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 kings

hereditary _Hostiarii_ or doorkeepers, and from that office 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 Fife, and his daughter was the

mother of Thomas de Lundin, the king’s Hostiary or Doorward, and carried

the claims of the lawful heirs into this family.[80] It is probable,

however, that this illegitimacy, though 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

Gillocher, 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.[81] 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, which, like all such holdings created at this time, was

descendible to heirs-female.

[Sidenote: Earldoms of Garvyach and Levenach.]

The policy followed by King William, with regard to these earldoms, was

checked for a time by the unfortunate result of his attempt in 1174 to

recover possession of the northern provinces of England, when he was

taken prisoner, and only recovered his liberty by surrendering the

independence of his kingdom; but soon after his liberation, when he

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 Aberdeenshire, 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 the old

Cumbrian kingdom, which appears to have received a Gaelic population,

and is nearly represented by the county of Dumbarton.[82] These

districts were probably at the time in 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 possession, 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 Lennox in favour of the head of

its Gaelic population.[83]

[Sidenote: Earldoms of Ross and Carrick.]

In 1179 William the Lion brought the people of Ross under more complete

subjection 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 southwestern 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

bestowed as an earldom upon Duncan, son of Gilbert, and grandson of

Fergus, the Celtic Lord of Galloway.

[Sidenote: Earldom of Caithness.]

Ten years after this he took advantage of the slaughter 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 Norwegian 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 Norwegian 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.

[Sidenote: Seven Earls in the reign of Alexander the Second.]

Alexander the Second, the successor of William, followed out the same

policy, but during his reign, notwithstanding the increase in the number

of the earldoms, and the feudalisation 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 first appear as taking 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.[84] With 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 the 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 Galloway, 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; Robert de

Bruce, who claimed as son of his second daughter Isabella; and John de

Hastings, as grandson of Ada, the youngest daughter. The competition 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 maintained 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.’[85] 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 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 acknowledgment 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

payment and assignment. And this is of grace, not of right.’[86]

They thus adopt the argument of Robert 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 territorial dignities, and the territory of the earldom, which

afterwards 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 represented 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.[87]

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, miserably 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.[88]

While the succession to the earldom of Atholl thus shows the light in

which the ancient Celtic earldoms were regarded, 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 Scottish 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.[89] 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 two co-heirs, one-half of the lands of

the earldom was given by King Robert Bruce to Sir John de Ross, 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 Robert 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, and Walter Cumyn is termed Earl of Menteath as

early as the year 1255. On his death in 1257 his widow married John

Russell, 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 earldoms 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 belonging to the government of the kingdom of

Scotland.’[90] And this function we find them evidently performing at

the coronation of Alexander the Second.

[Sidenote: Province of Argyll.]

The only one of the seven provinces which was required to be brought

into more direct connection with the Crown was the great district of

_Arregaithel_ or Argyll, and early in his reign Alexander annexed the

northern part to the earldom of Ross, 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

territory 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 Applecross; 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 Ross in support of the pretensions of the MacWilliam and MacHeth

families in the early part of his reign, was now created Earl of Ross,

which thus became a feudal earldom held of the Crown, by a family who

were among its most loyal supporters.[91] The insurrection which took

place a few years after in favour of Gillespic mac Eochagan, also of the

family of MacWilliam, 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 fewté

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.’

Those who fled appear to have taken refuge in Galloway, as we find

Gilescop Macihacain witnessing a charter in Galloway with a cluster of

Gaelic names along with him;[92] and as one of these names can be

connected with the district of Lochaber, while the family of that

Roderic who joined with him in his rebellion appear to have had their

main possessions in the district 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.

In 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.[93]

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 agreement. These were the earls of Dunbar, of Stratherne,

of Lennox, of Angus, of Mar, of Atholl, and of Ross; and here we find

the earls of Lennox, of Mar, and of Ross, coming in place of those of

Fife, Menteath, and Buchan; 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, Malise Earl of Stratherne, Walter Cumyn Earl of Menteath,

William Earl of Mar, Alexander (younger) Earl of Buchan, and David de

Hastings Earl of Atholl;[94] the Earls of Fife, Menteath, and Buchan

again appearing among them, and those of Lennox, Angus, and Ross 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.

[Sidenote: Seven Earls in the reign of Alexander the Third.]

In the elaborate and picturesque account which Fordun gives us of the

coronation of Alexander the Third when a boy of eight years 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 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.[95] 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 1297 they,

in conjunction with John Comyn of Badenoch, invaded England at the head

of a powerful army which met in Annandale and besieged Carlisle. The

seven earls engaged in this expedition were the earls of Buchan,

Menteath, Stratherne, Lennox, Ross, Atholl, and Mar;[96] 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 booty to

Scotland. They then 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 Ross, were taken prisoners, with

John Comyn and five other barons, with twenty-nine knights, two clerics,

and eighty-three esquires, and confined in different castles in

England.[97]

After this we hear no more of the seven earls of Scotland. As a

constitutional body possessing, or claiming 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 baronage 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.[98] Neither

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 barons.[99]

[Sidenote: State of the land in the reign of Alexander the Third.]

The state, then, of the land, as thus exhibited to us in the reign of

Alexander the Third, appears to have been this.—A large portion of the

territory of the kingdom was now held 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

‘abthaniæ’ 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 Roman 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.

[Sidenote: The Crown demesne.]

Of the mode in which the demesne land of the Crown 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

supposes it to have originated with him; but this may be regarded 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 Malcolm to have been so open-handed, or rather prodigal,

that while, according to ancient custom, he held as his own property all

the lands, districts, and provinces of the whole kingdom, he kept

nothing 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,’[100]

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 reserved nathing in propertie to himselfe but the Royale dignitie

and the Mute hill in the town of Scone,’[101] 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

kingdom 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

discriminates between three classes of persons as possessing these

lands. The lowest class were the _agricolæ_ 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 districts, the remains of

the old Celtic population. The class next above them consisted of the

_liberi_ and _generosi_, 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 Rentallers or kindly tenants of the feudal holdings. The

third class, who held directly of the Crown, were either _milites_ or

knights, who held a knight’s fee for military service, or _thani_, who

held a thanage, or _principes_ or magnates. And he defines a thanage to

be a portion of the land of a province held _ad feodofirmam_,[102] or in

feu-farm, the holder of which was subject in payment of an annual

‘census’ or feu-duty. By the _principes_, he probably refers either to

the Mormaers or Earls of the old Celtic earldoms, or to the position of

the great Celtic vassals in the western districts as chiefs of

clans.[103] 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 chaplain 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 Rothymay, called baronies; and other

lands which have no particular designation, with the towns of Aberdeen,

Cullen, and Banff.[104] 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 retained in the demesne of

two of the more westerly earldoms. In Atholl we have the thanages of

Glentilt, Crannich, Achmore, Candknock, while the great abthanrie of

Dull belonged to the Crown; and in Stratherne we find the thanages of

Strum and Dunning held under the earls, and that of Forteviot 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

we 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 of 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 Rotheric—appearing among them, the first

being the powerful Lord of Lorn, and the second the Lord of the Isles,

while the third owned large territories both on the mainland and in the

Isles.

[Sidenote: District of Argyll divided into sheriffdoms.]

One of the first acts of John Baliol, when his claim to the throne was

preferred, was to assimilate the district of Argyll and the kingdom of

the Isles to the system which prevailed in the rest of the kingdom,

which was divided into sheriffdoms, 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.[105] By this

Act, which was passed in 1292, the sheriffdom of Skye was to consist of

the lands of the earls of Ross in North Argail, that is, the western

part of the present county of Ross, 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 Rume (this had been the chief seat of the Lords

of the Isles descended from Roderic, son of Reginald), 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 MacIvor,

of Dugald of Craignish, of John, son of Gilchrist of Radulph of Dundee,

who was a Scrymgeour, whose ancestor had received a grant of Glassrie

from Alexander the Second; of Gillespie M‘Lachlan, of the earl of

Menteath who had a right 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.