In the account which Mr. George Chalmers gives of the Antiquities of
Linlithgowshire in his _Caledonia_, there is no notice of the
inscription on the Cat-stane taken; but, with a degree of vagueness of
which this author is seldom guilty, he remarks, that this monolith "is
certainly a memorial of some conflict and of _some_ person."[147]
Is it not possible, however, to obtain a more definite idea of the
person who is named on the stone, and in commemoration of whom it was
raised?
In the extracts that have been already given, it has been suggested, by
different writers whom I have cited, that the Cat-stane commemorates a
Scottish king, Constantine IV., or a Pictish king, Geth. Let us first
examine into the probability of these two suggestions.
1. CONSTANTINE?--In the olden lists of our Scottish kings, four King
Constantines occur. The Cat-stane has been imagined by Lord Buchan and
Mr. Muckarsie to have been raised in memory of the last of these--viz.,
of Constantine IV., who fell in a battle believed by these writers to
have been fought on this ground in the last years of the tenth century,
or about A.D. 995. In the _New Statistical Account of Scotland_, the
Reverend Mr. Tait, the present minister of Kirkliston, farther speaks of
the "Catstean (as) supposed to be a corruption of Constantine, and to
have been erected to the honour of Constantine, one of the commanders in
the same engagement, who was there slain and interred."[148]
In the year 970 the Scottish king Culen died, having been "killed
(according to the Ulster Annals), by the Britons in open battle;" and in
A.D. 994, his successor, Kenneth MacMalcolm, the founder of Brechin, was
slain.[149] Constantine, the son of Culen, reigned for the next year
and a half, and fell in a battle for the crown fought between him and
Kenneth, the son of Malcolm I. The site of this battle was, according to
most of our ancient authorities, on the Almond. There are two rivers of
this name in Scotland, one in Perthshire and the other in the Lothians.
George Chalmers places the site of the battle in which Constantine fell
on the Almond in Perthshire; Fordun, Boece, and Buchanan place it on the
Almond in the Lothians, upon the banks of which the Cat-stane stands.
The battle was fought, to borrow the words of the Scotichronicon, "in
Laudonia juxta ripam amnis Almond."[150] _The Chronicle of Melrose_
gives (p. 226) the "Avon"--the name of another large stream in the
Lothians--as the river that was the site of the battle in question.
Wynton (vol. i. p. 182) speaks of it as the "Awyne." Bishop Leslie
transfers this same fight to the banks of the Annan in Dumfriesshire,
describing it as having occurred during an invasion of Cumbria, "ad
Annandiae amnis ostia."[151]
Among the authorities who speak of this battle or of the fall of
Constantine, some describe these events as having occurred at the
source, others at the mouth of the Almond or Avon. Thus the ancient
rhyming chronicle, cited in the Scotichronicon, gives the locality of
Constantine's fall as "ad caput amnis Amond."[152] _The Chronicle of
Melrose_, when entering the fall of "Constantinus Calwus," quotes the
same lines, with such modifications as follows:[153]--
"Rex Constantinus, Culeno filius ortus,
Ad caput amnis Avon ense peremtus erat,
In Tegalere; regens uno rex et semis annis,
Ipsum Kinedus Malcolomida ferit."
Wyntown cites the two first of these Latin lines, changing, as I have
said, the name of the river to Awyne, almost, apparently, for the
purpose of getting a vernacular rhyme, and then himself tells us, that
"At the Wattyr hed of Awyne,
The King Gryme slwe this Constantyne."[154]
If the word "Tegalere" in the _Melrose Chronicle_ be a true
reading,[155] and the locality could be identified under the same or a
similar derivative name, the site of the battle might be fixed, and the
point ascertained whether it took place, as the preceding authorities
aver, at the source, "water-head" or "caput" of the river; or, as
Hector, Boece and George Buchanan[156] describe it, at its mouth or
entrance into the Forth at Cramond; "ad Amundae amnis ostia tribus
passuum millibus ab Edinburgo."[157] A far older and far more valuable
authority than either Boece or Buchanan, namely, the collector of the
list of the Scottish and Pictish kings, extracted by Sir Robert Sibbald
from the now lost register of the Priory of St. Andrews,[158] seems also
to place the death of King Constantine at the mouth of the Almond, if we
interpret aright the entry in it of "interfectus in Rathveramoen" as
meaning "Rath Inver Amoen,"--the rath or earth-fortress at the mouth
of the Amoen.[159]
Even, however, were it allowed that the battle in which Constantine
perished was fought upon the Almond, and not upon the Avon, on the
stream of the former name in the Lothians and not in Perthshire, at the
mouth and not at the source of the river, there still, after all,
remains no evidence whatever that the Cat-stane was raised in
commemoration of the fall of the Scottish king; whilst there is abundant
evidence to the contrary. The very word "Inver," in the last of the
designations which I have adduced, is strongly against this idea. For
the term "Inver," when applied to a locality on a stream, almost
invariably means the mouth of it,[160] and not a site on its
course--such as the Cat-stane occupies--three miles above its
confluence. Nor is there any probability that an inscribed monument
would be raised in honour of a king who, like Constantine, fell in a
civil war,--who was the last of his own branch of the royal house that
reigned,--and was distinguished, as the ancient chroniclers tell us, by
the contemptuous appellation of _Calvus_. There is great reason, indeed,
to believe that the idea of the Cat-stane being connected with the fall
of Constantine is comparatively modern in its origin. Oral tradition
sometimes creates written history; but, on the other hand, written
history sometimes creates oral tradition. And in the present instance a
knowledge of the statements of our ancient historians in all probability
gave rise to such attempts as that of Mr. Wilkie--to find, namely, a
direct record of Constantine in the Cat-stane inscription. But when we
compare the inscription itself, as read a century and a half ago by
Lhwyd and Sibbald, and as capable of being still read at the present
day, with the edition of it as given by Lord Buchan, it is impossible
not to conclude that the idea of connecting the legend with the name of
Constantine is totally without foundation. For, besides minor errors in
punctuation and letterings, such as the total omission in Lord Buchan's
copy of the inscription of the three last letters VLO of "TVMVLO," the
changing of VETTA to VIC, etc., we have the two terminal letters of
JACIT--viz. the IT, changed into the seven-lettered word CONSTAN,
apparently with no object but the support of a theory as to the person
commemorated in the legend and the monolith. Most assuredly there is not
the very slightest trace of any letters on the surface of the stone
where the chief part of the word CONSTAN is represented as
existing--viz., after JACIT. It would be difficult, perhaps, to adduce a
case of more flagrant incorrectness in copying an inscription than Mr.
Wilkie's and Lord Buchan's reading of the Cat-stane legend affords. Mr.
Gough, in his edition of Camden's _Britannia_ (1784), only aggravates
this misrepresentation. For whilst he incorrectly states that the
inscription is "not now legible," he carelessly changes Mr. Wilkie's
alleged copy of the leading word from CONSTAN to CONSTANTIE, and
suppresses altogether the word VIC.
GETUS, GWETH, or GETH?--I have already cited Mr. Lhwyd's conjecture that
the Cat-stane is "the tomb of some Pictish King," and the opinion
expressed by him and Mr. Hicks, that taking the V in the Latin VETTA of
the inscription as equal to the Pictish letters G or Gw, the name of the
Pictish king commemorated by the stone was Getus, "of which name,"
observes Mr. Lhwyd, "I find three Pictish kings." In the analogous
account sent by Mr. Hicks to the _Philosophical Transactions_ along with
Mr. Lhwyd's sketch of the Cat-stane, it is stated that the person's name
on "this Pictish monument" was Gweth or Geth, "of which name," it is
added, "were divers kings of the Picts, whence the vulgar name of
Ketstone."
It is unnecessary to stop and comment on the unsoundness of this
reasoning, and the improbability--both as to the initial and terminal
letters--of the surname VETTA in this Latin inscription being similar to
the Pictish surname Geth or GETUS, as Lhwyd himself gives and writes it
in its Latin form. Among the lists of the Pictish kings, whilst we have
several names beginning with G, we have some also commencing in the
Latinised forms of the Chronicles with V, as Vist, Vere, Vipoignamet,
etc.
But a much more important objection exists against the conjecture of Mr.
Lhwyd, in the fact that his memory had altogether misled him as to there
having been "three" Pictish kings of the name of "Getus," or "divers
kings of the Picts of the names of Geth or Gweth," to use the words
employed in the _Philosophical Transactions_.
Lists, more or less complete, of the Pictish kings have been found in
the Histories of Fordun and Winton, in the pages of the Scalacronica and
Chronicles of Tighernach, in the Irish copy of Nennius, in the extracts
published by Sir Robert Sibbald and Father Innes from the lost Register
of St. Andrews, and in the old Chronicum Regum Pictorum, supposed to be
written about A.D. 1020, and preserved in the Colbertine Library.
None of these lists include a Pictish king of the name of Getus, Geat,
or Gweth. Some of the authorities--as the Register of St. Andrews,
Fordun, and Winton--enter as the second king of the Picts Ghede or Gede,
the Gilgidi of the _Chronicum Regum Pictorum_; and this latter chronicle
contains in its more mythical and earlier part the appellations Got,
Gedeol, Guidid, and Brude-Guith; but none of these surnames sufficiently
correspond either to Mr. Lhwyd's statement or to the requirements of the
inscription.
But whilst thus setting aside the conjectures as to the Cat-stane
commemorating the name of a Scottish King Constantine, or of a Pictish
King Geth, I would further remark that the surname in the inscription,
namely--VETTA FILIUS VICTI--is one which appears to me to be capable of
another and a more probable solution. With this view let us proceed then
to inquire who was
VETTA, _the son_ of VICTUS?
And _first_, I would beg to remark, that the word Vetta is still too
distinct upon the Cat-stane to allow of any doubt as to the mere name of
the person commemorated in the inscription upon it.
_Secondly_, The name of Vetta, or, to spell the word in its more common
Saxon forms, Wetta or Witta, is a Teutonic surname. To speak more
definitely, it pertains to the class of surnames which characterised
these so-called Saxon or Anglo-Saxon invaders of our island, and allied
Germanic tribes, who overran Britain upon the decline of the Roman
dominion amongst us.
Bede speaks, as is well known, of our original Teutonic conquerors in
the fifth century as coming from three powerful tribes of Germany;
namely, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. "Advenerant autem de tribus
Germaniae populis fortioribus, id est, Saxonibus, Anglis, Jutis" (lib. i.
c. 20).[161] Ubo Emmius, in his _History of the Frisians_, maintains
that "more colonies from Friesland than Saxony, settled in Briton,
whether under the names of Jutes, or of Angles, or later of the
Saxons."[162] Procopius, who lived nearly two centuries before Bede, and
had access to good means of information from being the secretary of the
Emperor Belisarius, states that at the time of his writing (about A.D.
548) three numerous nations possessed Britain, the Angles and Frisians
([Greek: Angeloi te kai phrissones]), and those surnamed, from the
Island, Brittones.[163] Modern Friesland seems to have yielded a
considerable number of our Teutonic invaders and colonists; and it is in
that isolated country that we find, at all events, the characteristics
and language of our Teutonic forefathers best preserved. In his _History
of England during the Anglo-Saxon Period_, the late Sir Francis Palgrave
remarks, "The tribes by whom Britain was invaded, appear principally to
have proceeded from the country now called Friesland. Of all the
continental dialects (he adds), the ancient Frisick is the one which
approaches most nearly to the Anglo-Saxon of our ancestors."[164] "The
nearest approach," according to Dr. Latham, "to our genuine and typical
German or Anglo-Saxon forefathers, is not to be found within the four
seas of Britain, but in the present Frisian or Friesland."[165] At
present, about one hundred thousand inhabitants of Friesland speak the
ancient or Country-Friesic, a language unintelligible to the surrounding
Dutch, but which remains still nearly allied to the old Anglo-Saxon of
England. Some even of their modern surnames are repetitions of the most
ancient Anglo-Saxon surnames in our island, and, among others, still
include that of Vetta or Witta; thus showing its Teutonic origin. In
discussing the great analogies between ancient Anglo-Saxon and modern
Friesic, Dr. Bosworth, the learned Professor of Anglo-Saxon Literature
at Oxford, incidentally remarks, "I cannot omit to mention that the
leaders of the Anglo-Saxons bear names which are now in use by the
Friesians, though by time a little altered or abbreviated. They have
Horste, Hengst, WITTE, Wiggele, etc., for the Anglo-Saxon Horsa,
Hengist, WITTA, Wightgil, etc."[166]
But Witta or Vetta was not a common name among our more leading
Anglo-Saxon forefathers. Among the many historical surnames occurring in
ancient Saxon annals and English chronicles, the name of Vetta, as far
as I know, only occurs twice or thrice.
I. It is to be found in the ancient Saxon poem of _The Scop_, or
_Traveller's Tale_, where, among a list of numerous kings and warriors,
Vetta or Witta is mentioned as having ruled the Swaefs--
"Witta weold Swaefum."[167]
The Swaefs or Suevi were originally, as we know from classical writers,
a German tribe, or confederacy of tribes, located eastward of the old
Angles; and Ptolemy indeed includes these Angles as a branch of the
Suevi. But possibly the Swaefs ruled by Wittan, and mentioned in _The
Scop_ in the preceding line, and in others (see lines 89 and 123), were
a colony from this tribe settled in England.
II. In the list of the ancient Anglo-Saxon Bishops of Lichfield, given
by Florence of Worcester, the name "Huita" occurs as tenth on the
roll.[168] Under the year 737, Simeon of Durham enters the consecration
of this bishop, spelling his name as Hweicca and Hweitta.[169] In a note
appended to Florence's Chronicle, under the year 775, his death is
recorded, and his name given as Witta.[170]
III. The name Vetta occupies a constant and conspicuous place in the
lineage of Hengist and Horsa, as given by Bede, Nennius, the Saxon
Chronicle, etc. In the list of their pedigree, Vetta or Witta is always
represented as the grandfather of the Teutonic brothers.
The inscription on the Cat-stane further affords, however, a most
important _additional element_ or criterion for ascertaining the
particular Vetta in memory of whom it was raised; for it records the
name of his father, Victus or Victa. And in relation to the present
inquiry, it is alike interesting and important to find that in the
genealogy given by our ancient chronicles of the predecessors of Hengist
and Horsa, whilst Vetta is recorded as their grandfather, Victi or Wecta
is, with equal constancy, represented as their great-grandfather. The
old lapidary writing on the Cat-stane describes the Vetta for whom that
monument was raised as the son of Vecta; and the old parchment and paper
writings of our earliest chroniclers invariably describe the same
relationship between the Vetta and Victa of the forefathers of Hengist
and Horsa. Thus Bede, when describing the invasion of England by the
German tribes in the time of Vortigern, states that their "leaders were
two brothers, Hengist and Horsa, who were the sons of Victgils, whose
father was Vitta, whose father was Vecta, whose father was Woden, from
whose stock the royal race of many provinces deduces its origin," "Erant
autem filii Victgilsi, cujus pater Vitta, cujus pater Vecta, cujus pater
Voden, de cujus stirpe multarum provinciarum regum genus originem
duxit."[171] In accordance with a common peculiarity in his orthography
of proper names, and owing also, perhaps, to the character of the
Northumbrian dialect of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, Bede spells the
preceding and other similar surnames with an initial V, while by most
other Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, and in most other Anglo-Saxon dialects,
the surnames are made to commence with a W. Thus, the Vilfrid,
Valchstod, Venta, etc., of Bede,[172] form the Wilfrid, Walchstod, Wenta
(Winchester), etc., of other Saxon writers. In this respect Bede adheres
so far to the classic Roman standard in the spelling of proper names.
Thus, for example, the Isle of Wight, which was written as Wecta by the
Saxons, is the Vecta and Vectis of Ptolemy and Eutropius, and the Vecta
also of Bede; and the name Venta, just now referred to as spelled so by
Bede, is also the old Roman form of spelling that word, as seen in the
_Itinerary_ of Antonine.
The _Saxon Chronicle_ gives the details of the first advent of the
Saxons under Hengist and Horsa in so nearly the same words as the
_Historia Ecclesiastica_, as to leave no doubt that this, like many
other passages in the earlier parts of the _Saxon Chronicle_, were mere
translations of the statements of Bede. But most copies of the _Saxon
Chronicle_ were written in the dialect of the West Saxons, and,
consequently, under A.D. 449, they commence the surnames in the pedigree
of our Saxon invaders with a W,--as Wightgils, Witta, Wecta, etc.;
telling us that Hengist and Horsa, "waeron Wihtgilses suna, Wihtgils
waes Witting, Witta Wecting, Wecta Wodning," etc.
Ethelwerd, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman, who himself claimed to be a
descendant of the royal stock of Woden, has left us a Latin history or
Chronicle, "nearly the whole of which is an abridged translation of the
_Saxon Chronicle_, with a few trivial alterations and additions."[173]
In retranslating back into Latin, the Anglo-Saxon names in the genealogy
of Hengist and Horsa, he makes the Wecta of the _Saxon Chronicle_ end
with an R,--a matter principally of interest because, as we have already
seen, some have supposed the corresponding name in the Cat-stane to
terminate with an R. Speaking of Hengist as leader of the Angles[174]
Ethelwerd describes his pedigree thus:--"Cujus pater fuit Wihtgels avus
Wicta; proavus WITHER, atavus Wothen," etc. In a previous page,[175] the
same author tells us that "Hengest et Horsa filii Uuyrhtelsi, avus eorum
Uuicta, et proavus eorum Uuithar, atavus eorum Uuothen, qui est rex
multitudinis barbarorum."
In the preceding paragraphs we find the same authors, or at least the
scribes who copied their writings, spelling the same names in very
diverse ways. All know how very various, and sometimes almost endless,
is the orthography of proper nouns and names among our ancient
chroniclers, and among our mediaeval writers and clerks also. Thus Lord
Lindsay, in his admirable _Lives of the Lindsays_, gives examples of
above a hundred different ways in which he has found his own family name
spelled. In the _Historia Britonum_, usually attributed to Nennius, the
pedigree of the Saxon invaders of Kent is given at greater length than
by Bede; for it is traced back four or five generations beyond
Woden[176] up to Geat, and the spelling of the four races from Woden to
Hengist and Horsa is varied according to the Celtic standard of
orthography, as cited already from Edward Lhwyd--namely, the Latin and
Saxon initials V and W are changed to the Cymric or British G, or GU. In
the same way, the Isle of Wight, "Vecta" or "Wecta," is spelled in
Nennius "Guith" and "Guied;" Venta (Winchester) is written Guincestra;
Vortigernus, Guorthigernus; Wuffa, king of the east Angles, Guffa; etc.
etc. In only one, as far as I am aware, of the old manuscript copies of
the _Historia Britonum_, is the pedigree of Hengist and Horsa spelled as
it is by Bede and all the Saxon writers, with an initial V or W, as
Wictgils, Witta, Wecta, and Woden. This copy belongs to the Royal
Library in Paris, and the orthography alone sufficiently determines it
to have been made by an Anglo-Saxon scribe or editor. Of some
twenty-five or thirty other known manuscripts of the same work, most, if
not all, spell the ancestors of Hengist with the initial Keltic GU,--as
"Guictgils, Guitta, Guechta"--one, among other arguments, for the belief
that the original and most ancient part of this composite _Historia_ was
penned, if not, as asserted in many of the copies, by Gildas, a
Strathclyde Briton, at least by a British or Cymric hand. The account
given in the work of the arrival of the Saxons is as follows:--"Interea
venerunt tres ciulae a Germania expulsae in exilio, in quibus erant Hors
et Hengist, qui et ipsi fratres erant, filii Guictgils, filii Guitta,
filii Guechta, filii Vuoden, filii Frealaf, filii Fredulf, filii Finn,
filii Folcwald, filii Geta, qui fuit, aiunt filius Dei. Non ipse est
Deus Deorum Amen, Deus exercitum, sed unus est ab idolis eorum quae ipsi
colebant."[177] In this pedigree of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa,
it is deserving of remark that Woden, from whom the various Anglo-Saxon
kings of England, and other kings of the north-west of Europe generally
claimed their royal descent, is entered as a historical personage,
living (according to the usual reckoning applied to genealogies) about
the beginning of the third century, and who could count his descent back
to Geat; while the Irish and other authorities affect to trace his
pedigree for some generations even beyond this last-named ancestor.[178]
According to Mallet, the true name of this great conqueror and ruler of
the north-western tribes of Europe was "Sigge, son of Fridulph; but he
assumed the name of Odin, who was the supreme god among the Teutonic
nations, either to pass, among his followers, for a man inspired by the
gods, or because he was chief priest, and presided over the worship
paid to that deity."[179] In his conquering progress towards the
north-west of Europe, he subdued, continues Mallet, "all the people he
found in his passage, giving them to one or other of his sons for
subjects. Many sovereign families (he adds) of the north are said to be
descended from those princes." And Hengist and Horsa were thus, as was
many centuries ago observed by William of Malmesbury, "the
great-great-grandsons of that Woden from whom the royal families of
almost all the barbarous nations derive their lineage, and to whom the
Angles have consecrated the fourth day of the week (Wodens-day), and the
sixth unto his wife Frea (Frey-day), by a sacrilege which lasts even _to
this time_."[180]
Henry of Huntingdon, in his _Historiae Anglorum_, gives the pedigree of
Hengist and Horsa according to the list which he found in Nennius; but
he changes back the spelling to the Saxon form. They were, he says,
"Filii Widgils, filii Wecta, filii Vecta, filii Woden, filii Frealof,
filii Fredulf, filii Fin, filii Flocwald, filii Ieta (Geta)." Florence
of Worcester follows the shorter genealogy of Bede, giving in his text
the names of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa as Wictgils, Witta, and
Wecta; and in his table of the pedigrees of the kings of Kent spelling
these same names Wihtgils, Witta, and Wehta.[181]
In giving the ancient genealogy of Hengist and Horsa, we thus find our
old chroniclers speaking of their grandfather under the various
orthographic forms of Guitta, Uuicta, Witta, Vitta; and their
great-grandfather as Guechta, Uuethar, Wither, Wechta, Wecta, and Vecta.
In the Cat-stane inscription the last--Vecta or Victa--is placed in the
genitive, and construed as a noun of the second declension, whilst Vetta
retains, as a nominative, its original Saxon form. The older chroniclers
frequently alter the Saxon surnames in this way. Thus, Horsa is
sometimes made, like Victa, a noun of the second declension, in
conjunction with the use of Hengist, Vortimer, etc., as unaltered
nominatives. Thus, Nennius tells us,[182] "Guortemor cum Hengist et
Horso ... pugnabat." (cap. xlvi.) According to Henry of Huntingdon,
"Gortimer ... ex obliquo aciem Horsi desrupit," etc. (Lib. ii.)
The double and distinctive name of "Vetta filius Victa," occurring, as
it thus does, in the lineage of Hengist and Horsa, as given both (1) in
our oldest written chronicles and (2) in the old inscription carved upon
the Cat-stane, is in itself a strong argument for the belief that the
same personage is indicated in these two distinct varieties of ancient
lettered documents. This inference, however, becomes still stronger when
we consider the rarity of the appellation Vetta, and the great
improbability of there having ever existed two historic individuals of
this name both of them the sons of two Victas. But still, it must be
confessed, various arguments naturally spring up in the mind against the
idea that in the Cat-stane we have a memorial of the grandfather of
Hengist and Horsa. Let us look at some of these reasons, and consider
their force and bearing.
_Some Objections considered._
Perhaps, as one of the first objections, I should notice the doubts
which some writers have expressed as to such leaders as Hengist and
Horsa having ever existed, and as to the correctness, therefore, of that
genealogy of the Saxon kings of Kent in which Hengist and Horsa are
included.[183]
The two most ancient lists of that lineage exist, as is well known, in
the "Historia Britonum" of Gildas or Nennius, and in the "Historia
Ecclesiastica" of Bede.
The former of these genealogical lists differs from the latter in being
much longer, and in carrying the pedigree several generations beyond the
great Teutonic leader Woden, backwards to his eastern forefather, Geat,
whom Mr. Kemble and others hold to have been probably the hero Woden,
whose semi-divine memory the northern tribes worshipped. Both
genealogical lists agree in all their main particulars back to
Woden--and so far corroborate the accuracy of each other. Whence the
original author of the _Historia Britonum_ derived his list, is as
unknown as the original authorship of the work itself. Some of Bede's
sources of information are alluded to by himself. Albinus, Abbot of St.
Augustine's, Canterbury, and Nothhelm, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, "appear," observes Mr. Stevenson, "to have furnished Bede
with chronicles in which he found accurate and full information upon
the pedigrees, accessions, marriages, exploits, descendants, deaths and
burials of the kings of Kent."[184] That the genealogical list itself is
comparatively accurate, there are not wanting strong reasons for
believing. The kings of the different seven or eight small Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms of England all claimed--as the very condition and charter of
their regality--a direct descent from Woden, through one or other of his
several sons. To be a king among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, it was
necessary, and indeed indispensable, both to be a descendant of Woden,
and to be able to prove this descent. The chronicles of most ancient
people, as the Jews, Irish, Scots, etc., show us how carefully the
pedigree of their royal and noble families was anciently kept and
retained. And surely there is no great wonder in the Saxon kings of Kent
keeping up faithfully a knowledge of their pedigree--say from Bede's
time, backwards, through the nine or ten generations up to Hengist, or
the additional four generations up to Woden. The wonder would perhaps
have been much greater if they had omitted to keep up a knowledge, by
tradition, poems, or chronicles, of a pedigree upon which they, and the
other kings of the Saxon heptarchy, rested and founded--as descendants
of Woden--their whole title to royalty, and their claim and charter to
their respective thrones.[185]
But a stronger objection against the idea of the Cat-stane being a
monument to the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa rises up in the
question,--Is there any proof or probability that an ancestor of Hengist
and Horsa fought and fell in this northern part of the island, two
generations before the arrival of these brothers in Kent?
It is now generally allowed, by our best historians, that before the
arrival of Hengist and Horsa in Kent, Britain was well known at least to
the Saxons and Frisians, and other allied Teutonic tribes.
Perhaps from a very early period the shores and comparative riches of
our island were known to the Teutons or Germans inhabiting the opposite
continental coast. "It seems hardly conceivable," observes Mr. Kemble,
"that Frisians who occupied the coast (of modern Holland) as early as
the time of Caesar, should not have found their way to Britain."[186] We
know from an incident referred to by Tacitus, in his Life of Agricola,
that at all events the passage in the opposite direction from Britain to
the north-west shores of the Continent was accidentally revealed--if
not, indeed, known long before--during the first years of the Roman
conquest of Scotland. For Tacitus tells us that in A.D. 83 a cohort of
Usipians, raised in Germany, and belonging to Agricola's army, having
seized some Roman vessels, sailed across the German Ocean, and were
seized as pirates, first by the Suevi and afterwards by the Frisians
(_Vita Agricolae_, xlv. 2, and xlvi. 2). In Agricola's Scottish army
there were other Teutonic or German conscripts. According to Tacitus, at
the battle of the Mons Grampius three cohorts of Batavians and two
cohorts of Tungrians specially distinguished themselves in the defeat of
the Caledonian army. Various inscriptions by these Tungrian cohorts have
been dug up at Cramond, and at stations along the two Roman walls, as at
Castlecary and Housesteads. At Manchester, a cohort of Frisians seems to
have been located during nearly the whole era of the Roman
dominion.[187] Another cohort of Frisian auxiliaries seems, according to
Horsley, to have been stationed at Bowess in Richmondshire.[188]
Teutonic officers were occasionally attached to other Roman corps than
those of their own countrymen. A Frisian citizen, for example, was in
the list of officers of the Thracian cavalry at Cirencester.[189] The
celebrated Carausius, himself a Menapian, and hence probably of Teutonic
origin, was, before he assumed the emperorship of Britain, appointed by
the Roman authorities admiral of the fleet which they had collected for
the purpose of repressing the incursions of the Franks, Saxons, and
other piratical tribes, who at that date (A.D. 287) ravaged the shores
of Britain and Gaul.[190]
In the famous Roman document termed "Notitia utriusque Imperii," the
fact that there were Saxon settlers in England before the arrival of
Hengist and Horsa seems settled, by the appointment of a "Comes Littoris
Saxonici in Britannica."[191] The date of this official and imperial
Roman document is fixed by Gibbon between A.D. 395 and 407. About forty
years earlier we have--what is more to our present purpose--a notice by
Ammianus Marcellinus of Saxons being leagued with the Picts and Scots,
and invading the territories south of the Forth, which were held by the
Romans and their conquered allies and dependants--the Britons.
To understand properly the remarks of Ammianus, it is necessary to
remember that the two great divisional military walls which the Romans
erected in Britain, stretched, as is well known, entirely across the
island--the most northerly from the Forth to the Clyde, and the second
and stronger from the Tyne to the Solway. The large tract of country
lying between these two military walls formed from time to time a
region, the possession of which seems to have been debated between the
Romans and the more northerly tribes; the Romans generally holding the
country up to the northern wall or beyond it, and occasionally being
apparently content with the southern wall as the boundary of their
empire.
About the year A.D. 369, the Roman general Theodosius, the father of the
future emperor of the same name, having collected a disciplined army in
the south, marched northward from London, and after a time conquered, or
rather reconquered, the debateable region between the two walls; erected
it into a fifth British province, which he named "Valentia," in honour
of Valens, the reigning emperor; and garrisoned and fortified the
borders (_limites_ que vigiliis tuebatur et praetenturis).[192] The
notices which the excellent contemporary historian, Ammianus
Marcellinus, has left us of the state of this part of Britain during the
ten years of active rebellion and war preceding this erection of the
province of Valentia are certainly very brief, but yet very interesting.
Under the year 360, he states that "In Britain, the stipulated peace
being broken, the incursions of the Scots and Picts, fierce nations,
laid waste the grounds lying next to the boundaries (loca _limitibus_
vicina vastarent)." "These grounds were," says Pinkerton, "surely those
of the future province of Valentia."[193] Four years subsequently, or in
364, Ammianus again alludes to the Britons being vexed by continued
attacks from the same tribes, namely the Picts and Scots, but he
describes these last as now assisted by, or leagued with, the Attacots
and with the _Saxons_--"Picti, SAXONESQUE, et Scotti, et Attacotti,
Britannos aerumnis vexavere continuis." Again, under the year 368, he
alludes to the Scots and Attacots still ravaging many parts; but now,
instead of speaking of them as leagued with the Picts and Saxons, he
describes them as combined with the Picts, divided into two nations, the
Dicaledonae and Vecturiones:--"Eo tempore Picti in duas gentes divisi,
Diacaledonae et Vecturiones, itidemque Attacotti, bellicosa hominum
natio, et Scotti per diversa vagantes, multa populabuntur."
In both of these two last notices for the years 364 and 368, the
invaders are described as consisting of four different tribes. The Scots
and Attacots are mentioned under these appellations in both. But whilst,
in the notice for 364, the two remaining assailants are spoken of as
Picts and Saxons (Picti, Saxonesque), in the notice for 368 the
remaining assailants are described as the "Picts, divided into the
Dicaledonae and Vecturiones." Is it possible that the Saxon allies were
now amalgamated with the Picts, and that they assumed the name of
Vecturiones after their leader Vetta or Vecta? The idea, at all events,
of naming nations patronymically from their leaders or founders was
common in ancient times, though the correctness of some of the instances
adduced is more than doubtful. Early Greek and Roman history is full of
such alleged examples; as the Trojans from Tros; the Achaeans from
Achaeus; the AEolians from AEolus; the Peloponnesians from Pelops; the
Dorians from Dorus; the Romans from Romulus, etc. etc.; and so is our
own. The Scots from Ireland are, observes Bede, named to this day
Dalreudins (Dalriads), from their commander Reuda.[194] The Irish
called (according to some ancient authorities) the Picts "Cruithne,"
after their alleged first king, Crudne or Cruthne. In a still more
apocryphal spirit the word Britons was averred by some of the older
chroniclers to be derived from a leader, Brito--"Britones Bruto dicti,"
to use the expression of Nennius(Sec. 18); Scots from Scota "Scoti ex
Scota," in the words of the (_Chronicon Rythmicum_), etc.
The practice of eponymes was known also, and followed to some extent
among the Teutonic tribes, both in regard to royal races and whole
nations. The kings of Kent were known as Aescingas, from Aesc, the son
of Hengist;[195] those of East Anglia were designated Wuffingas, after
Wuffa ("Uffa, a quo reges Orientalium Anglorum Vuffingus
appellant"[196]). In some one or other of his forms, Woden (observes Mr.
Kemble) "is the eponymus of tribes and races. Thus, as Geat, or through
Geat, he was the founder of the Geatas; through Gewis, of the Gewissas;
through Scyld, of the Scyldingas, the Norse Skjoldungar; through Brand,
of the Brodingas; perhaps, through Baetwa, of the Batavians."[197] It
could therefore scarcely be regarded as very exceptional at least, if
Vetta, one of the grandsons of Woden, should have given, in the same
way, his name to a combined tribe of Saxons and Picts, over whom he had
been elected as leader.[198]
That a Saxon force, like that mentioned by Ammianus as being joined to
the Picts and Scots in A.D. 364, was led by an ancestor of Hengist and
Horsa is quite in accordance with all that is known of Saxon laws and
customs. As in some other nations, the leaders and kings were generally,
if not always, selected from their royal stock. "Descent" (observes Mr.
Kemble) "from Heracles was to the Spartans what descent from Woden was
to the Saxons--_the_ condition of royalty."[199] All the various
Anglo-Saxon royal families that, during the time of the so-called
Heptarchy, reigned in different parts of England certainly claimed this
descent from Woden. Hengist and Horsa probably led the band of their
countrymen who invaded Kent, as members of this royal lineage; and a
royal pre-relative or ancestor would have a similar claim and chance of
acting as chief of that Saxon force which joined the Picts and Scots in
the preceding century.
If we thus allow, for the sake of argument, that Vetta, the son of
Victus, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, is identical with Vetta
the son of Victus commemorated in the Cat-stane inscription, and that he
was the leader of those Saxons mentioned by Ammianus that were allied
with the Picts in A.D. 364, we shall find nothing incompatible in that
conjecture with the era of the descent upon Kent of Hengist and Horsa.
Bede, confusing apparently the arrival of Hengist and Horsa with the
date of the second instead of the first visit of St. Germanus to
Britain, has placed at too late a date the era of their first appearance
in Kent, when he fixes it in the year 449. The facts mentioned in the
earlier editions or copies of Nennius have led our very learned and
accurate colleague Mr. Skene, and others, to transfer forwards twenty
or more years the date at which Hengist and Horsa landed on our
shores.[200] But whether Hengist and Horsa arrived in A.D. 449, or, as
seems more probable, about A.D. 428, if we suppose them in either case
to have been born about A.D. 400, we shall find no incongruity, but the
reverse, in the idea that their grandfather Vetta was the leader of a
Saxon force thirty-six years previously. Hengist was in all probability
past the middle period of life when he came to the Court of Vortigern,
as he is generally represented as having then a daughter, Rowena,
already of a marriageable age.
On the cause or date of Vetta's death we have of course no historical
information; but the position of his monument renders it next to a
certainty that he fell in battle; for, as we have already seen, the
Cat-stane stands, in the words of Lhwyd, "situate on a river side,
remote enough from any church." The barrows and pillar stones placed for
miles along that river prove how frequently it had served as a strategic
point and boundary in ancient warfare.[201] The field in which the
Cat-stane itself stands was, as we have already found Dr. Wilson
stating, the site formerly of a large tumulus. In a field, on the
opposite bank of the Almond, my friend, Mr. Hutchison of Caerlowrie,
came lately, when prosecuting some draining operations on his estate,
upon numerous stone-kists, which had mutual gables of stone, and were
therefore, in all probability, the graves of those who had perished in
battle. Whether the death of Vetta occurred during the war with
Theodosius in A.D. 364, or, as possibly the appellation Vecturiones
tends to indicate, at a later date, we have no ground to determine.
The vulgar name of the monument, the Cat-stane, seems, as I have already
hinted, to be a name synonymous with Battle-stane, and hence, also, so
far implies the fall of Vetta in open fight. Maitland is the first
author, as far as I am aware, who suggests this view of the origin of
the word Cat-stane. According to him, "Catstean is a Gaelic and English
compound, the former part thereof (Cat) signifying a battle, and stean
or stan a stone; so it is the battlestane, in commemoration probably of
a battle being fought at or near this place, wherein Veta or Victi,
interred here, was slain."[202] I have already quoted Mr. Pennant, as
taking the same view of the origin and character of the name; and Mr.
George Chalmers, in his _Caledonia_, propounds the same explanation of
the word:--"In the parish of Liberton, Edinburghshire, there were (he
observes) several large cairns, wherein were found various stone chests,
including urns, which contained ashes and weapons; some of these cairns
which still remain are called the _Cat_-stanes or Battle-stanes.[203]
Single stones in various parts of North Britain are still known under
the appropriate name of _Cat_-stanes. The name (he adds) is plainly
derived from the British _Cad_, or the Scoto-Irish _Cath_, which
signify a battle."[204] But the word under the form _Cat_ is Welsh or
British, as well as Gaelic. Thus, in the _Annales Cambriae_, under the
year 722, the battle of Pencon is entered as "Cat-Pencon."[205] In his
edition of the old Welsh poem of the Gododin, Williams (verse 38) prints
the battle of Vannau (Manau) as "Cat-Vannau."
The combination of the Celtic word "Cat" with the Saxon word "stane" may
appear at first as an objection against the preceding idea of the
origin and signification of the term Cat-stane. But many of our local
names show a similar compound origin in Celtic and Saxon. In the
immediate neighbourhood, for example, of the Cat-stane,[206] we have
instances of a similar Celtic and Saxon amalgamation in the words
Gogar-burn, Lenny-bridge, Craigie-hill, etc. One of the oldest known
specimens of this kind of verbal alloy, is alluded to above a thousand
years ago by Bede,[207] in reference to a locality not above fourteen or
fifteen miles west from the Cat-stane. For, in his famous sentence
regarding the termination of the walls of Antoninus on the Forth, he
states that the Picts called this eastern "head of the wall" Pean-fahel,
but the Angles called it Pennel-_tun_. To a contracted variety of this
Pictish word signifying head of the wall, or to its Welsh form Pengual,
they added the Saxon word "town," probably to designate the "villa,"
which, according to an early addition to Nennius, was placed there.
"Pengaaul, quae villa Scottice Cenail [Kinneil], Anglice vero Peneltun
dicitur."[208]
The palaeographic peculiarities of the inscription sufficiently bear out
the idea of the monument being of the date or era which I have ventured
to assign to it--a point the weight and importance of which it is
unnecessary to insist upon. "The inscription," says Lhwyd, "is in the
barbarous characters of the fourth and fifth centuries." Professor
Westwood, who is perhaps our highest authority on such a question,
states to me that he is of the same opinion as Lhwyd as to the age of
the lettering in the Cat-stane legend.
To some minds it may occur as a seeming difficulty that the legend or
inscription is in the Latin language, though the leader commemorated is
Saxon. But this forms no kind of valid objection. The fact is, that all
the early Romano-British inscriptions as yet found in Great Britain,
are, as far as they have been discovered and deciphered, in Latin. And
it is not more strange that a Saxon in the Lothians should be recorded
in Latin, and not in Saxon or Keltic, than that the numerous Welshmen
and others recorded on the early Welsh inscribed stones should be
recorded in Latin and not in the Cymric tongue.
Doubtless, the Romanised Britons and the foreign colonists settled among
them were, with their descendants, more or less acquainted with Latin in
both its spoken and written forms. As early as the second year of his
march northward for the conquest of this more distant part of Britain,
or A.D. 79, Agricola, as Tacitus takes special care to inform us, took
all possible means to introduce, for the purposes of conquest and
civilisation, a knowledge of the Roman language and of the liberal arts
among the barbarian tribes whom he went to subdue.[209] The same policy
was no doubt continued to a greater or less extent during the whole era
of the Roman dominion here as elsewhere; so that there is no wonder that
such arts as lapidary writing, and the composition of brief Latin
inscriptions, should have been known to and transmitted to the native
Britons. There was, however, another class of inhabitants, besides these
native Britons, who were, as we know from the altars and stone monuments
which they have left, sufficiently learned in the formation and cutting
of inscriptions in Latin,--a language which was then, and for some
centuries subsequently, the only language used in this country, either
in lapidary or other forms of writing. The military legions and cohorts
which the Roman emperors employed to keep Britain under due subjection,
obtained, under the usual conditions, grants of lands in the country,
married, and became betimes fixed inhabitants. When speaking of the
veteran soldiers of Rome settling down at last as permanent proprietors
of land in Britain--as in other Roman colonies,--Sir Francis Palgrave
remarks, "Upwards of forty of these barbarian legions, _some of Teutonic
origin_, and others Moors, Dalmatians, and Thracians, whose forefathers
had been transplanted from the remotest parts of the empire, obtained
their domicile in various parts of our island, though principally upon
the northern and eastern coasts, and _in the neighbourhood of the Roman
walls_."[210] Such colonists undoubtedly possessed among their ranks,
and were capable of transmitting to their descendants, a sufficient
knowledge of the Latin tongue, and a sufficient amount of art, to form
and cut such stone inscriptions as we have been considering; and perhaps
I may add, that in such a mixed population, the Teutonic elements[211]
in particular, would, towards the decline of the Roman dominion and
power, not perhaps be averse to find and follow a leader, like Vetta,
belonging to the royal stock of Woden; nor would they likely fail to pay
all due respect, by the raising of a monument or otherwise, to the
memory of a chief of such an illustrious race, if he fell amongst them
in battle.
* * * * *
Besides, a brief incidental remark in Bede's History proves that the
erection of a monument like the Cat-stane, to record the resting-place
of the early Saxon chiefs, was not unknown. For, after telling us that
Horsa was slain in battle by the Britons, Bede adds that "this Saxon
leader was buried in the eastern parts of Kent, where a monument bearing
his name is still in existence"[212] (hactenus in orientalibus Cantiae
partibus monumentum habet suo nomine insigne).[213] The great durability
of the stone forming Vetta's monument has preserved it to the present
day; while the more perishable material of which Horsa's was constructed
has made it a less faithful record of that chief, though it was still in
Bede's time, or in the eighth century, "suo nomine insigne."[214]
* * * * *
The chief points of evidence which I have attempted to adduce in favour
of the idea that the Cat-stane commemorates the grandfather of Hengist
and Horsa may be summed up as follows:--
1. The surname of VETTA upon the Cat-stane is the name of the
grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, as given by our oldest genealogists.
2. The same historical authorities all describe Vetta as the son of
Victa; and the person recorded on the Cat-stane is spoken of in the same
distinctive terms--"VETTA F(ILIUS) VICTI."
3. Vetta is not a common ancient Saxon name, and it is highly improbable
that there existed in ancient times two historical Vettas, the sons of
two Victas.
4. Two generations before Hengist and Horsa arrived in England, a Saxon
host--as told by Ammianus--was leagued with the other races of modern
Scotland (the Picts, Scots, and Attacots), in fighting with a Roman army
under Theodosius.
5. These Saxon allies were very probably under a leader who claimed
royal descent from Woden, and consequently under an ancestor or
pre-relative of Hengist and Horsa.
6. The battle-ground between the two armies was, in part at least, the
district placed between the two Roman walls, and consequently included
the tract in which the Cat-stane is placed; this district being erected
by Theodosius, after its subjection, into a fifth Roman province.
7. The palaeographic characters of the inscription accord with the idea
that it was cut about the end of the fourth century.
8. The Latin is the only language[215] known to have been used in
British inscriptions and other writings in these early times by the
Romanised Britons and the foreign colonists and conquerors of the
island.
9. The occasional erection of monuments to Saxon leaders is proved by
the fact mentioned by Bede, that in his time, or in the eighth century,
there stood in Kent a monument commemorating the death of Horsa.[216]
* * * * *
If, then, as these reasons tend at least to render probable, the
Cat-stane be the tombstone of Vetta, the grandfather of Hengist and
Horsa, this venerable monolith is not only interesting as one of our
most ancient national historic monuments, but it corroborates the
floating accounts of the early presence of the Saxons upon our coast; it
presents to us the two earliest individual Saxon names known in British
history; it confirms, so far as it goes, the accuracy of the genealogy
of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa, as recorded by Bede and our early
chroniclers; while at the same time it forms in itself a connecting
link, as it were, between the two great invasions of our island by the
Roman and Saxon--marking as it does the era of the final declinature of
the Roman dominion among us, and the first dawn and commencement of that
Saxon interference and sway in the affairs of Britain, which was
destined to give to England a race of new kings and new inhabitants, new
laws, and a new language.