Born of parents of senatorial rank in one of the British provinces, at

the age of sixteen Patrick was carried off by a party of marauders, and

sold as a slave amongst the northern Irish.[344] Six years he passed

in captivity before he was enabled to effect his escape; and upwards

of twenty more elapsed, the greater part of which he probably spent

amongst the monasteries of Gaul, before he returned to settle in the

land of his birth, where his kindred earnestly entreated him to remain.

But he had long felt an ardent desire to effect the conversion of the

heathen Irish, and listening at length to the promptings of his fervent

zeal, he revisited the scene of his early captivity, and undertook the

holy task in which he was destined to be blessed with such complete

success. His lengthened residence in Gaul must have familiarised him

with the system so prevalent in that quarter; and the manner in which

Patrick appears to have planted his religious communities throughout

the provinces of Ireland, evinces the extent to which he had been

affected by the monastic spirit of the age.

Eusebius, Bishop of Vercelli, about the middle of the fourth century,

was the first to introduce into Western Europe the custom of the bishop

and his clergy residing together according to monastic rule, and to

familiarize the inhabitants of cities with the presence of ascetics,

hitherto confined to the desert and the wilderness. His example was

followed by Augustine of Hippo, and Martin of Tours; and through the

latter, the founder of monachism in the Gallic provinces, the system

appears to have penetrated into the British Isles. Beda has left upon

record a description of the Church of Lindisfarne, founded by Aidan

in the best days of the Gaelic Church, which identifies the customs

of that bishopric, still remaining in force at the time of the Norman

Conquest, with the practice of Eusebius and Augustine.[345] Nor is it

necessary to adduce the traditionary relationship between St. Martin

and the Apostle of Ireland, as a proof how largely the Churches, which

preceded the mission of Austin to the Anglo-Saxons, must have been

indebted for their characteristic features to the celebrated Bishop of

Tours.[346]

Many of the Gaelic monasteries were founded in remote and inaccessible

situations; but the most important appear to have been placed, in

exact imitation of the Abbey of Tours, at a short distance from the

capital, or chief fortress, of the neighbourhood. Such was the case

at Armagh, Lindisfarne, and St. Martins near Canterbury--that ancient

British church which is said to have retained the early privilege of

maintaining a bishop within its walls down to the time of the Norman

Conquest.[347] Here the bishop dwelt with his clergy, and the rest of

the brethren, of whom the great majority were laymen. All were bound

to the observance of the same Rule; and all, as monks, were under the

superintendence of the abbot of the community. In one point, however, a

wide difference was observable between the constitution of the Gaelic

Church, and the ecclesiastical system elsewhere prevailing; and this

peculiar variation from the general rule may, in a great degree, be

attributed to the circumstances under which monachism was originally

introduced amongst the Gaelic people.

After Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire, the

ecclesiastical system was naturally much influenced by the political

institutions of a highly civilized and artificial state of society.

The bishop and the city were inseparably connected; the diocese was

not unfrequently bounded by the city walls; and when a large country

district was included within the limits of the episcopal jurisdiction,

the Diocesan was assisted by one or more Chorepiscopi, or Country

Bishops, whose duties were strictly confined to that part of the

diocese from which their name was originally derived. Nothing, indeed,

more convincingly demonstrates how completely the Christianity of

early times must have been confined to the cities of the Empire,

than the epithet of _Pagans_, or “Country people,” which was

used to distinguish those who persisted in adhering to the antiquated

superstitions of their heathen forefathers. To the two great Christian

divisions of clergy and laity, a third was added, when the increasing

multitudes of ascetics and anchorites were collected by various

pious men, and established in communities as cænobites; and when the

ordination of certain members of the fraternity--which in early times

was exclusively composed of laymen--and the introduction of the system

into cities, brought these societies within the jurisdiction of the

bishop, the authority of the Secular Head of the diocese clashed with

that of the Regular Superior of the monastery, and frequently became

a matter of dispute. Accordingly, the submission of the monks to the

Diocesan, in ecclesiastical matters, was strictly enforced, by the rule

laid down in various councils of the fifth and sixth centuries, “that

no monastery should be erected without the consent of the bishop of the

diocese.” In societies already existing, the limits of episcopal and

abbatial jurisdiction were carefully defined, whilst a few monasteries

preserved the privilege of retaining within their walls a bishop

expressly for their own community, as was the case in the abbeys of St.

Denis, and of St. Martin at Tours.

Such was the manner in which the abbot eventually assumed a subordinate

position beneath the recognized Head of the clerical order, wherever

the monastery was introduced upon a state of society, amongst which

a settled ecclesiastical system had long prevailed. But neither

regular dioceses, nor secular clergy, existed in Ireland at the

time when Patrick disseminated throughout that country the rule,

and the discipline, with which he had become familiarized in Gaul.

Monachism may be said to have brought in Christianity; and the Faith

was ingrafted on the Rule, rather than the Rule on the Faith. The

monastery was all in all, and the whole scheme of Church government

was based upon a monastic foundation. Instead of dioceses under the

jurisdiction of metropolitan and suffragan bishops, wide districts were

under the sway of different monasteries, the greater number dependant

upon some leading community, like that of Armagh, or Iona. It is not to

be supposed, however, that there were no bishops.[348] Every monastic

establishment of any pretension possessed one bishop, sometimes

several, within the walls; but as the prelate was without a diocese, he

was in an anomalous, and in some measure in a subordinate situation.

It was amongst the privileges of the monastery of Bobbio, founded in

Italy by the Irish Columbanus, that the bishop of the diocese was

never allowed to enter the precincts of the abbey except for clerical

purposes alone; and the position in which the Italian prelate must have

been placed, during the brief period for which he remained amongst the

brotherhood of Bobbio, was the normal condition of a bishop in the

Gaelic and British Churches. As a priest, he was the ecclesiastical

Head of the whole community, upon whom he alone could confer orders;

whilst as a monk he observed the same rule as the rest of the brethren,

asserting no authority in this respect over the abbot, who, as the

Regular Superior of the Fraternity, became in reality the leading

churchman of the district.

Tithes and parishes were unknown, and the income of the community was

originally derived exclusively from dues and altar offerings; though,

by degrees, lands were conferred upon monasteries, fines were levied

upon offenders against certain laws, and the greater abbots asserted

their right to a _cuairt_ or _visitation_, similar to that

enjoyed by the secular princes of the age.[349] The promulgation of the

different laws, of which the infringement was punishable by fine, and

the progresses of the great Abbots of Armagh upon their Visitations,

with the tribute levied upon such occasions, are frequently to

be met with in the Irish annalists after the commencement of the

eighth century,[350] and as all fines, tributes, and other temporal

advantages, fell to the share of the Regular Superior of the monastery,

it is easy to conceive how the abbacy, rather than the bishopric, grew

to be the object of an Irish or Scottish churchman’s ambition.[351]

About the same time occurs the first mention of a personage, second

only in importance to the abbot--the Herenach, or lay tenant of the

lands of the monastery, answering in many respects to the Advocatus

Ecclesiæ upon the Continent. According to the invariable custom of

the Gaelic system of tenure, the possessions of the community, or

Termon lands, were made over to a tenant, generally some powerful

chieftain of the neighbourhood, in whose family the office remained as

an inalienable duchas, and who acted as the abbot’s deputy, or maor,

retaining the invariable _third_ as his prerogative.[352]

A hundred years passed away after the mission of St. Patrick before a

diversity of Rules crept into the Gaelic church, and a different mode

of celebrating the service was introduced, amongst some of the Irish

monasteries, from Britain.[353] In another century arose the question

about Easter and the Tonsure, causing a temporary breach between the

churches of the South of Ireland--which conformed to the practice of

the Western Church towards the middle of the seventh century--and the

churches of the North which, together with those of the Picts and

Scots, and their Anglo-Saxon followers, clung to their ancient usage

till the close of the same century, or the beginning of the next,

when the Britons alone remained consistent in their attachment to the

Eastern tonsure, and to the erroneous cycle.[354] Long before the

death of Beda flagrant abuses had crept into the English Church, and

the venerable historian laments the condition into which most of the

monasteries had fallen throughout the dominions of Northumbria.[355]

Very similar causes to those which brought about such results in

England, were rife both in Ireland and in Scotland; and the Gaelic

Church had varied widely from its original form and spirit, when it

presented to the astonished eyes of the dignified prelates of the

Roman Church in the twelfth century a picture, in which the abuses of

encroachment and neglect had left but the shadow of a long forgotten

system of church government. The greater abbacies had become the

hereditary appanages of powerful families, where they were not still

the objects of bloody contention; and the leading members of the septs,

who filled the office of abbot, had sometimes ceased even to be in

holy orders.[356] The Termon lands were leased out as the hereditary

property of Herenachs, members generally of the same families that

possessed the abbacies; whilst the vast communities of monks, that

Eastern peculiarity which formed so prominent a feature of the Gaelic

Church in her best days, had dwindled into small bodies of Culdees,

the representatives of the clerical portion of the brotherhood--the

_twelve_ companions so invariably attending the abbots of the

early period--who were frequently as remarkable for the amount of their

private wealth, as their predecessors, in the times of Columba and

Aidan, had been renowned for their disinterested reluctance to acquire

property of any description.[357]

The Scottish Church, at the commencement of the twelfth century, must

have presented many similar features to those which met the eyes of

the English prelates in Ireland, towards the close of the same period.

The whole of ancient Alban had once been subject to the ecclesiastical

jurisdiction of the Abbots of Iona, until the dispute between the

members of that community and the Pictish king Nechtan appears to have

resulted in transferring the supremacy to the Superior of Abernethy;

who, in turn, yielded the predominance to the abbot or bishop of

Dunkeld, after the establishment of that monastery by Constantine

Mac Fergus. The primacy was eventually transferred during the reign

of Cyric, from the foundation of Constantine to the establishment

endowed by his brother Angus; and, from that period, the ecclesiastical

jurisdiction of St. Andrews extended in exact proportion with the

temporal authority of the kings of Scotland.[358] Each of the provinces

that were originally independent must, at one time, have possessed

its own monastery and bishop; but as the district kings sunk under

the dominion of the supreme sovereign, the bishops either disappeared

altogether, or became subordinate to, and dependant on, the Bishop

of St. Andrews; so that only three or, at most, four sees existed in

Scotland when David ascended the throne.[359] One of these must have

been the bishopric of Glasgow, created, or revived, by the king during

the lifetime of his predecessor Alexander; whilst the three remaining

sees were St. Andrews, Dunkeld, and Moray.[360] In two of the latter

the old abbacies had become hereditary appanages of the reigning

family, and the jurisdiction of the sees of St. Andrews and Dunkeld

embraced the whole of Scotland immediately dependant upon the royal

authority; whilst the North remained under the superiority of the

monastery, whichever that may have been, in which the earlier Bishops

of Moray were accustomed to fix their residence; thus demonstrating how

completely the two great provinces of _Scotia_ and _Moravia_

must at one period have been divided between the rival families of

Atholl and Moray.

The first step towards remodelling the Scottish Church was Alexander’s

re-grant of the ancient donation of the Pictish Angus to the monastery

of St. Andrews; but many years elapsed before David was enabled to

complete the measures which his brother had only commenced. Five

other bishoprics were added to the four already existing, and the

sees of Dunblane, Brechin, Aberdeen, Ross, and Caithness, were

created, or revived, in districts where hitherto the abbacy, rather

than the bishopric, had been predominant; but it was long before all

the Scottish dioceses attained the footing of regularly established

bishoprics, like those of Glasgow and St. Andrews. In Dunkeld, the

peculiar district of the royal family, all difficulties were originally

overcome, by electing the last abbot of the Culdee monastery to be the

first bishop of the remodelled see; but very little provision was made

for the Canons before the episcopate of Geoffrey, towards the middle

of the following century. In Aberdeen, the power of appointing Canons,

and constituting a Chapter in his Cathedral, was conferred by Papal

Bull upon Bishop Edward; but the first record of a constitution dates

from the episcopate of Peter Ramsay, about 1259; whilst in Moray, the

Chapter was first created by Bishop Bryce Douglas about the year 1220.

In Caithness, the establishment dates from about 1245, the service

before that time having been performed by a single priest, owing to

the impoverishment, through war, of a see which appears to have owed

little or nothing, in the way of endowment, to the Norwegian Magnates

of the Orkneys. Dunblane was in a very similar condition about the same

period; for although endowed by Gilbert of Strathearn with one-third of

his earldom (if Fordun is to be credited) fifteen years after the death

of this munificent patron the see had been ten years vacant through

poverty--a single chaplain, as in Caithness, celebrating divine service

in a church without a roof--a state of affairs which was remedied by

Bishop Clement in 1238.[361] With the revival of these sees by David,

the rule of discipline sanctioned by the Roman Church was introduced

into the Scottish monasteries; and wherever the authority of the Crown

was paramount, the numerous Culdee societies, which were scattered

in every direction over the face of the country at the beginning of

the twelfth century, were either suppressed altogether, or deprived

of their most important privileges. The state of the Scottish Church

at this period, and the nature of the changes brought about by David,

may be best appreciated from a sketch of the royal proceedings in the

diocese of St. Andrews, the principal bishopric of the kingdom.

A Prior and twelve Culdees constituted the College of Kilrimont, better

known under the subsequent name of St. Andrews. The possessions, which

they held in common, were small and poor; their private property,

which was inherited or acquired by the gifts of friends and penitents,

was large and valuable, reverting, upon the death of the possessors,

to their wives, children, or relatives. Upon seven of the community

devolved the duty of ministration at the altar; but the service was

never performed before the high altar of St. Andrews except upon

state occasions, in the presence of the king or the bishop; and at

other times the Culdees celebrated their office, after their own

peculiar manner, in a remote corner of the church. From the frequent

allusion to Seven Churches amongst the early religious societies in

Ireland and Scotland, it is probable that in ancient times each priest

officiated in a separate chapel, set apart for his own particular

ministration.[362] The altar-offerings were divided into seven

portions; one for the bishop, another for the hospital--that invariable

appendage of a Culdee monastery, which alone survived the changes

introduced by David; whilst the remaining five became the property of

the five Culdees, who never officiated at the altar, on the condition

of entertaining all pilgrims and strangers when the hospital (which

contained six) was full; and upon such occasions the host was decided

upon by lot. The origin of this custom may, probably, be traced to the

practice amongst the early Religious, of giving up the greater part of

the altar-offerings to a common fund, to be administered by the members

of the community who did not officiate at the altar, in relieving the

poor, and in exercising the duties of hospitality to pilgrims and

strangers. No Culdee, after his election, continued to dwell in the

same house with his wife and family.[363]

The privilege of electing the abbot, the bishop, and every member of

the community, was vested in the Culdees, who exercised, within the

walls of their monastery, the same rights that belonged in secular

affairs to the district and provincial chieftains. The right of blood

was as predominant amongst the ecclesiastics as it was all prevalent

amongst the laity of the Gaelic people; and as the abbot represented

the original Founder of the monastery, and came in time to be chosen

from the leading family of the district, so the Culdees appear to have

been selected from amongst the members of the same race who could

claim the privilege of Founder’s kin. Latterly, the abbots of the

greater monasteries in Scotland became altogether lay functionaries,

proprietors of the abbey lands, out of which the remainder of the

community were supported.[364] They seem to have resembled the Herenach

rather than the abbot of the Irish Gael; whilst those ecclesiastical

duties and prerogatives, which were very generally exercised by the

Irish abbots until the arrival of the English prelates in that country,

appear to have been divided in Scotland between the bishop and the

prior.[365]

After the establishment and endowment of the Regular Priory of St.

Andrews by David in 1144, nearly all the privileges originally

belonging to the Culdees of Kilrimont were transferred to the Canons

Regular. The Culdees themselves were permitted to retain their

possessions for their own lives, or to embrace the Regular life and

become Canons of the newly-founded Priory;[366] but the members of

smaller Culdee establishments, like that of St. Servans on Loch

Leven, were treated with far less ceremony; and when their possessions

were disposed of in other quarters, they were peremptorily ordered to

conform to the Regular discipline, on pain of summary ejectment from

their monastery.[367] Whilst the lesser religious houses were thus

converted into small dependant priories, filled with Regular monks, the

more important communities seem frequently to have retained one part of

their ancient establishment, and to have become “Hospitallers;” so much

so, that in the succeeding century, the name of “_Kildey_” is used

as an equivalent for a Hospital.[368]

The condition of the Culdees, after the reign of David, varied

according to the circumstances of the dioceses in which they were

placed. None can be traced to the south of the Forth, where they

appear never to have existed; nor within the limits of the see of

Moray, in which they must undoubtedly have been suppressed, upon the

forfeiture of the ancient earls of the province. In Aberdeen, only

those establishments seem to have been retained which were dependant

on the bishop of St. Andrews; whilst little or nothing is known of

the existence of Culdees in Ross and Caithness, though they probably

lingered for some time amidst the mountains of those remote districts.

In the bishoprics of St. Andrews and Dunkeld they remained in the

character of Hospitallers, retaining the tithes of certain parishes,

with the privilege of electing the prior and other members of their

fraternity, subject to the approval of the bishop. But the case was

widely different in the dioceses of Brechin and Dunblane, where the

Culdees long shared in the privileges of the Chapter--a compromise that

must be attributed to the peculiar circumstance of those bishoprics, in

which the church-lands were held by powerful feudatories, whom it would

have been dangerous and impolitic to offend.[369]

But even in those dioceses in which the church lands had reverted to

the crown, either through hereditary succession, or from the forfeiture

of their earlier possessors, the Culdees, chosen from amongst the

leading provincial families, were far too powerful a body to submit

without a struggle to the loss of their former privileges.[370] It

appears to have been their object to establish themselves as Regular

Canons, independent of the authority of the bishop; and they were

occasionally assisted in their endeavours to promote their aim by the

earl of the province, with whom they were frequently connected by the

ties of relationship. At the opening of the thirteenth century, the

Bishop of St. Andrews was obliged to obtain a Papal Bull to prevent

the refractory brethren of Monymusk from exchanging the character of

Hospitallers for that of Regular Canons; though the Culdees, who seem

to have enlisted in their behalf the Earl of Mar and the Bishop of

Aberdeen, eventually obtained their object, and before the middle of

the same century, they were addressed by the pope as Regular Augustine

Canons.[371]

Frequent contests between the Culdees of Kilrimont and the Prior and

Canons of St. Andrews can be traced in the Register of that Priory.

The Culdees seem to have been connected with the Comyns and their

adherents, and to have profited by the preponderance of the national

party during the stormy minority of Alexander the Third; for not only

was a Papal Bull issued in favour of the married clergy of Scotland,

representing that they were unjustly debarred from their rights,[372]

but the Prior and Culdees were about this time converted, by the

authority of a similar document, into the Provost and Chapter of St.

Mary’s; though a proviso was introduced into the latter Bull to secure

the privileges of the Canons of St. Andrews.[373] For a short time

the Provost and Chapter of St. Mary’s appear to have been placed on

a similar footing with the Culdee Chapters of Brechin and Dunblane,

and to have re-established a claim to share in the election of the

Bishop of St. Andrews; but they were once more reduced to their former

subordination after the state of Scotland became more settled, and when

the national party came to terms with the opposite faction, to which

the Canons of St. Andrews appear to have adhered.[374]

At the close of the century the Culdees again make their appearance,

when they elected their provost, William Comyn, to the bishopric of St.

Andrews, and as they still followed the fortunes of the party which now

supported Balliol, their appeal to Rome, in support of this election,

was backed by the whole interest of Edward of England.[375] The pope,

however, decided against the Culdees, and as they were now connected

with the losing side, they shared in the downfall of the Balliols,

and were finally subjected to the jurisdiction of the bishop of St.

Andrews.[376] From this time nothing more is heard of the Culdees,

though their monastery still existed in dependance on their former

rivals; and as in the sister island the Reformation found a prior and

twelve Culdees amongst the recognized clergy at Armagh, so at the same

era in Scotland, a prior and twelve prebendaries still remained in

the little monastery of Kirkheugh, humble representatives of the once

powerful and high-born Culdees of Kilrimont.

CHAPTER XI.

MALCOLM THE FOURTH--A.D. 1153–1165.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1153.]

Six months had barely elapsed since the death of David before the

evil consequences of a minority became apparent, and the peace of

Scotland was again disturbed by the attempts of the Moray family

upon the Crown. Malcolm Mac Heth, the head of the race, had married

a sister of Somerled Mac Gillebride, the ancestor of the Lords of

Argyle, an energetic and ambitious chieftain, who raised the power of

the _Oirir-Gael_ to a height hitherto unexampled, and who now

sought still further to increase that power by establishing one of his

sister’s children upon the throne. [Sidenote: 1st Nov.] Upon the very

day on which the King of England and the Duke of Normandy solemnly

pledged their mutual faith to the ratification of a lasting peace, the

storm burst over the south-western coasts of Scotland, and a desultory

war seems to have lingered throughout the ensuing winter, amidst the

mountains of the west, until an offer of the kingdom of the Isles, in

the following year, called away the most formidable supporter of the

rebellion.[377]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1103.]

When the death of the Norwegian Magnus relieved the Islands from the

dominion of his son Sigurd, Man again reverted to its former ruler

Lagman Godfreyson, though the remainder of his reign was disturbed

by the unceasing attempts of his brother Harald to obtain a share in

the government. Harald, at length falling into his brother’s hands,

was punished by the loss of his eyes; [Sidenote: A. D. 1108.] and

soon afterwards, Lagman, filled with remorse at his own cruelty,

undertook an expiatory pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which he never lived

to accomplish. At the date of his death, his youngest brother, Olave,

was residing at the English Court; but the nobility of the Islands,

passing him over, apparently on account of his extreme youth, solicited

the appointment of a regent, or guardian to the youthful heir, from the

Irish king Murketagh O’Brien; who, gladly acceding to their request,

dispatched his brother’s son, Donald Mac Teige, to fill that office

during the minority of Olave. Donald had already given considerable

trouble in his own country, and a desire to get rid of an impracticable

kinsman may have had its weight in the selection of Murketagh; but

three years of mis-government exhausted the patience of the Manxmen,

the regent was expelled in a general rising, and a successor was this

time sought for, in the opposite direction, from Norway. [Sidenote: A.

D. 1111.] The change was hardly for the better, for Ingemund, the next

governor, impatient at the idea of filling a subordinate situation, on

his arrival at the Lewis, summoned the chieftains of the Northern Isles

to meet upon a stated day, and choose him for their king. He and his

Norwegians, however, conducted themselves in the meantime with such

unrestrained licentiousness, that the Islesmen, carefully guarding the

outlets, set fire to the residence of their king-elect, who perished

with all his followers in vain attempts to escape from the flames.[378]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1112]

Four years had elapsed since the death of Lagman, when Olave, who was

now probably of age, assumed the government of his father’s kingdom. He

is described as a peaceful prince, voluptuous and devout--a combination

of opposite features in the same character, by no means confined to

that age--and his residence at the Court of Henry the First appears to

have assimilated his character in some respects to that of the Scottish

David, with whom he is also said to have cultivated a close alliance.

He instituted, or remodelled, the bishopric of the Isles, establishing

a priory at Rushen, which he filled with a body of monks from Furness

Abbey, conferring upon the latter monastery the privilege of electing

the bishop of the Isles. Their first choice was unfortunate, and Olave

became the patron of that singular bishop, Wimund, whose vagaries,

towards the close of David’s reign, have been already noticed in a

preceding chapter.[379]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1152.]

Towards the close of a long and peaceful reign, Olave dispatched his

son Godfrey to Norway, to obtain from Inge, who then ruled over that

kingdom, a confirmation of his claim upon the throne of the Isles.

Hardly had Godfrey left his home, when the three sons of the blind

Harald, landing upon the coast of Man, asserted their claim to a share

in the kingdom, as the lawful inheritance of their father. Olave

agreed to submit the question to the general assembly of the Manxmen,

and, on the 29th of June, both parties met at Ramsay, when Ronald

Haraldson, rising under pretence of opening the conference, struck the

unsuspecting Olave to the ground with his battle-axe, and proclaimed

himself and his brothers kings of the Isles. [Sidenote: A. D. 1153.]

Their usurpation, however, was of short duration, for upon the return

of Godfrey Olaveson from Norway, the whole of the island chieftains at

once declared in favour of Olave’s heir; and the sons of Harald, who

were made over to their kinsman, suffered the usual punishment of a

cruel age for their treacherous outrage upon his father.[380]

Shortly after his return to Man, overtures were made to Godfrey to

cross over to Dublin and place himself at the head of the Northmen of

Fingal, or Dublin _Ostmen_ as they now began to be called. He

willingly responded to the invitation, but by adopting this course, and

by some of his subsequent proceedings, he appears to have provoked the

serious enmity of one of the leading magnates of the Isles. After the

conquest of Man by Godfrey Crovan, the original clans, whose connection

with the Northmen of Dublin and the Isles has been already noticed,

were confined to the north of the island; whilst the south, partitioned

out amongst the Islesmen who had contributed to the success of Godfrey,

remained in the possession of their descendants, and became the seat

of the government, the locality of the episcopal see, and the favoured

portion of the island. The names of the leaders in the sanguinary

battle of Sandwirth, Ottir and Mac Maras, point to the different

descent of their followers; and it appears to have been the policy of

Godfrey Crovan and his descendants to preserve the distinction between

North and South, and to maintain their own ascendancy by holding the

balance between the two races.[381]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1142.]

About ten years before Godfrey became connected with the Dublin

Ostmen, Reginald Mac Torquil, a grandson of Jarl Ottir who fell at

Sandwirth--and, perhaps, also a member of the old Hy Ivar race, which

probably still lingered in the north of Man--had either been chosen,

or deputed, to assume the government of the Dublin Norsemen, this

leadership remaining in the possession of his descendants until the

capture of Dublin by the English.[382] The arrival of the king of

Man must have interfered with the authority of Reginald, and, upon

his return home, Godfrey appears to have directed his enmity still

further against the family of Reginald by depriving Thorfin Ottirson

of his possessions in the island. [Sidenote: A. D. 1156] Thirsting for

vengeance Thorfin sought out Somarled, who had married the sister of

Godfrey Olaveson, undertaking to place one of the great chief’s sons

upon the throne of the Isles in right of his maternal ancestry. Most

readily was the offer accepted, and Thorfin, accompanied by Somarled’s

eldest son Dugal, sailed amongst the northern islands, exacting the

submission of their chieftains to the joint heir of the Isles and the

Oirir-Gael, whilst Somarled, on his part, prepared to support his

son’s claim with a powerful fleet of eighty vessels. [Sidenote: 6th

Jan. A. D. 1157.] The proceedings of Thorfin could scarcely

escape the notice of Godfrey, and he was fully prepared to meet

the confederates when they appeared off the coasts of Man, where a

desperate and bloody battle, lasting through a whole winter’s night,

and terminating in favour of Somarled, led to the partition of the

islands; the permanent cession of all the _Sudreys_, or Southern

Hebrides, striking a fatal blow at the ancient ascendancy of the

Gall-Gael. Not content, however, with his partial success, the lord of

the Oirir-Gael aimed at the possession of the remainder, [Sidenote:

A. D. 1158.] and in the following year, landing in Man, he completed

his conquest by the reduction of that island, Godfrey flying before

his sister’s husband, and passing the next seven years in exile at the

court of Norway.[383]

The defection of Thorfin from Godfrey Olaveson was, probably, as fatal

in its consequences to the sons of Mac Heth as it was advantageous

to their powerful kinsman; for in the very year in which Somarled,

relinquishing his attacks upon Scotland, turned all his energies

towards acquiring the kingdom of the Isles, Donald Mac Malcolm was

captured in Galloway, [Sidenote: A. D. 1156.] and sent to share his

father’s imprisonment in Roxburgh Castle.[384] Three and twenty years

of hopeless captivity must have bowed the spirit of the forlorn

prisoner, and despairing of success when his son became the partner

of his dungeon, Malcolm Mac Heth came to terms with his enemies.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1157.] No account remains of the nature of the

transaction by which he at length repurchased his liberty; of the

claims which he relinquished, or of the concessions extorted by his

opponents. Once only his name occurs in the chartularies of the period,

when it appears amongst the signatures of the leading nobles who were

in attendance at the court of their youthful sovereign at Dunfermlyn;

and then, with one solitary and insignificant exception, the name of

the once mighty leaders of the ancient race of Moray disappears for

ever from the page of history.[385]

Three years had elapsed since the death of Stephen, and a very

different monarch now filled the throne of England. A true descendant

of the Norman conqueror, Henry Fitz Empress seems to have reunited, in

his own character, the different qualities bequeathed by his mighty

ancestor between his younger sons, and, together with the politic

sagacity of his maternal grandfather, the young king displayed all

the fiery passions of Rufus. Astute, ambitious, and little scrupulous

about the means by which his ends were attained, his first aim was

to re-establish the royal authority upon the destruction of the

all but independent power achieved by many of the greater nobles.

William Peveril, Hugo Mortimer, and the great Earl of Yorkshire--the

same William Albemarle who won his earldom upon Cutton Moor--were

either reduced to submission, or driven from the realm; and the once

all-powerful Bishop of Winchester deemed it prudent to consult his

safety in flight, seeking a surer refuge with his treasure in the

monastery of Clugny. In pursuance of a similar line of policy, after

the death of the Earl of Northampton, upon whom Stephen had conferred

the Honor of Huntingdon, had again placed that fief at the disposal

of the English king, Henry caused it to be notified to the young

king of Scotland, that he expected the restoration of all the fiefs

in the North of England which had been held by David in the name of

the Empress Queen. Such was the light in which Henry now chose to

regard the feudal dependance of the northern counties upon the king of

Scots; for of all the contracting parties who joined in the treaty of

Carlisle, eight years before, he alone survived, and, secure in the

possession of the throne of England, he little regarded the word he

had plighted in his days of exile and adversity to the firmest friend

of his early youth.[386] Compliance was the only course left open to

Malcolm, [Sidenote: A. D. 1157.] and meeting Henry at Chester, he made

a formal resignation of the three northern counties, with the castles

of Carlisle, Bamborough, and Newcastle on Tyne, putting forward his

claims upon Huntingdon on the same occasion, and receiving immediate

investment of the Honor, upon the same terms of homage as it had been

held by David in the days of the first Henry.[387] [Sidenote: A. D.

1158.] In the following year the two kings again met at Carlisle,

but the honour of knighthood which he appears to have expected was

not conferred upon Malcolm, as a coolness had arisen about some

long-forgotten point connected, probably, with the performance of

feudal service for the fief of Huntingdon; for, in the ensuing year,

after Malcolm had accompanied the English king in the expedition

against Toulouse, [Sidenote: A. D. 1159.] which was rendered abortive

through the royal scruples about attacking a town which contained

the person of his own feudal superior the king of France, the

coveted ceremony was performed at Tours, and the young king returned

immediately to Scotland.[388]

The departure of their king to render feudal service as an English

baron, was viewed with general disapproval by the Scots, to whom

this phase of the English connection appears to have been always

distasteful. For nearly twenty years David and his grandson had enjoyed

in succession the advantages of their English fiefs, without the burden

of their feudal obligations; as during the lifetime of Stephen, and for

the first three years of his successor’s reign, no king of Scotland had

ever met an English sovereign except at the head of a hostile army.

Under these circumstances, the cession of all the advantages which had

been acquired by David, the revival of a closer feudal connection with

England, above all, the departure of the king for France, in direct

opposition to the wishes of the great body of his native followers,

aroused a spirit of disaffection; a formidable conspiracy appears to

have been set on foot during his absence in France, and in his anxiety

to win his spurs in the service of Henry, Malcolm risked the loss of

his crown.

A veil of deep mystery enshrouds the proceedings of the conspirators.

Foremost amongst their number was Ferquhard, Earl of Strathearn, whose

father, Malise, had been the spokesman of the discontented Scots at the

battle of the Standard; together with a certain Gilleanrias Ergemauche,

and five other magnates, or “Mayster men,” as Wynton calls them,

including perhaps the Earl of Ross and the Lord of Galloway, or his

sons. [Sidenote: A. D. 1160.] Malcolm was holding his court at Perth,

soon after his return from France, when the confederates suddenly

surrounded the city, intending, either to secure the person of the king

and dictate their own terms, or, as one historian affirms, to place his

brother William on the throne. None of the race of Malcolm Ceanmore

ever failed in the hour of danger, and the young king displayed, in

this crisis, all the hereditary courage of his ancestry. Promptly

assuming the offensive, he at once attacked the conspirators, drove

them from the field, and following up his first success, led an army

into Galloway, in the determination of crushing the insurrection at its

source.[389]

The history of Galloway is a blank from the time when the father of

Kenneth the First was slain upon the borders of Kyle, until the age in

which the mutinous spirit of its unruly contingent to David’s army more

than counterbalanced the utmost efforts of their reckless valour. Three

centuries of antagonism appear to have engendered a feeling of bitter

hostility between the Galwegians and their neighbours of Scottish

Cumbria and the Lothians; whilst their continual encroachments upon the

ancient kingdom of Strath Clyde must, from a very early period, have

tended to throw the people of that province upon the protection of the

Scottish kings, and materially to advance the policy which eventually

placed a branch of the Mac Alpin family upon the Scoto-Cumbrian throne.

At some remote era the Lord of Galloway became dependant upon the king

of Scotland, and Fergus, the first known prince of the province, was

an attendant on certain state occasions at the royal court, whilst he

acknowledged the superiority of his contemporary David by the payment

of a certain tribute in time of peace, and by a contingent of turbulent

soldiery in war; resembling, in other respects, an ally rather than a

vassal, and enjoying a considerable degree of independence within his

hereditary dominions. He married Elizabeth, a natural daughter of Henry

the First, and Afreca, his daughter by this union, became the wife of

Olave and the mother of Godfrey, kings of Man and the Isles; the latter

connection, apparently, involving him in the attempts of Somerled, Mac

Heth, and others, who opposed the reigning family, either in the hope

of advancing their own rival claims, or through a repugnance to the

introduction of a novel system. It was in Galloway that Donald Mac Heth

sought his last retreat, and amidst the mountains and moors of the same

locality the discomfited conspirators seem to have hoped, after their

defeat at Perth, to elude the pursuit of Malcolm. Twice was the king

baffled in his attempts to penetrate the province; as much, probably,

from the natural difficulties of the country, as from the magnitude

of the opposition he encountered; but on the third occasion he was

successful. Fergus, reduced at length to liege submission, retired,

either of his own accord or from compulsion, into the monastery of

Holyrood, where he died in the course of the following year; the

whole of Galloway, thoroughly subdued, was brought into direct feudal

subjection to the Scottish crown; and a conspiracy, which at one time

threatened to entail the loss of a crown, through the energy and

abilities of the youthful sovereign, or of his advisers, terminated in

the acquisition of a principality.[390]

But Malcolm was never destined to fulfil the high promise of his

youthful career, the delicacy of constitution, bequeathed by Queen

Margaret to so many of her descendants, early developing itself in her

grandson’s eldest child. [Sidenote: A. D. 1163.] Three years after the

conquest of Galloway, during his progress towards the south, he was

overtaken by a dangerous illness at Doncaster; though his days were not

yet numbered, and he recovered sufficiently to carry out the original

purpose of his visit to England, concluding an alliance with Henry that

promised to ensure a firm and lasting peace.[391] He is also stated to

have been present shortly afterwards at Woodstock, to tender his homage

to the younger Henry, as his grandfather had done to the empress-queen,

with the usual reservation of fealty to the elder king.[392]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1164.]

One more triumph was in store to grace the closing years of his career.

Within a year or two of the liberation of Malcolm Mac Heth from

Roxburgh Castle, the lord of the Oirir-Gael appears to have made his

peace with the king of Scotland; though for some unknown cause, in the

year 1164, he again broke out into open rebellion, landing suddenly

on the coast of Renfrew with the whole force of Argyle and the Isles,

strengthened by a body of auxiliaries from Ireland. Hardly had he set

foot on shore before he fell, with his son Gillecolum--tradition says

by treachery--and his followers dispersing, as usual, upon the death of

their leader, returned at once to their island homes. Thus perished,

in an obscure skirmish, the mightiest and most formidable of Malcolm’s

enemies; the chieftain who raised the power of the Lords of Argyle upon

the ruins of the ancient kingdom of the Gall-Gael.[393]

The defeat of Somerled was the final event in Malcolm’s reign, for the

hand of death was already upon him, and, on the 9th of December 1165,

[Sidenote: A. D. 1165.] he sunk into the grave, at the early age of

twenty-four. His premature decease lent an interest to his memory, and

may, in a great measure, have led the historians of the succeeding

generation to invest the character of the king with the qualities

which were supposed, in those days, to constitute the attributes of a

saint upon earth. A certain effeminacy of appearance, resulting from

his constitutional delicacy, may have originated the epithet of “the

Maiden,” by which he was so often known; and though the same cause may

have undoubtedly affected the tone of his mind, so far from having

been an ascetic recluse, as he is frequently represented--more fit to

wear the cowl than to wield the sword--whenever Malcolm appears in

history, he stands forward as a prince of exceeding promise and spirit.

His reign was principally taken up in quelling the disaffection of

different powerful magnates, above all, of Somerled, whose hostility

only ceased with his life; and the character of the young king may be

best estimated by the successful result of those measures, through

which he secured the direct feudal submission of the principality of

Galloway, and the total cessation of all internal revolt during the

early years of his successor.[394]

A singular policy--recalling to mind the compulsatory migrations of

conquered races in the remote era of the early eastern empires--has

been attributed by Fordun to this king; who is supposed, by that

historian, to have transplanted the original inhabitants of Moray

from their ancient province, repeopling the district with settlers

from other parts of his dominions.[395] If such a proceeding was ever

carried out, it may have originated in the arrangement with Malcolm

MacHeth; but though it is impossible to pronounce with absolute

certainty upon the accuracy of Fordun’s statement, it is very difficult

to imagine that such a measure could have extended throughout the

Highland portion of the district subsequently erected into an earldom

for Randolph. The race, the language, and many of the customs of the

mountaineers, remained unchanged at a comparatively recent period; and

whilst the lowlands and the coast of Moray, which had already been

partitioned out amongst the followers of David, would have presented

comparatively few obstacles to such a project, it is hardly possible to

conceive how it could ever have been successfully put into execution

amidst the wild and inaccessible mountains of the interior. It appears,

therefore, most reasonable to conclude, that Malcolm only carried out

the policy pursued by his grandfather ever since the first forfeiture

of the earldom; and that any changes that may have been brought about

in the population of this part of Scotland--and which scarcely extended

below the class of lesser _Duchasach_, or small proprietors--are

not to be attributed to one sweeping and compulsatory measure, but to

the grants of David and his successors; which must have had the effect

of either reducing the earlier proprietary to a dependant position, or

of driving into the remoter Highlands all who were inclined to contest

the authority of the sovereign, or to dispute the validity of the royal

ordinances, which reduced them to the condition of subordinates.

CHAPTER XII.

WILLIAM THE LION--1165–1214.

Amongst the earliest acts of William after his accession was the

performance of feudal service for the fief of Huntingdon, accompanying

Henry for this purpose upon one of his numerous expeditions into the

French territories. [Sidenote: A. D. 1166.] By his ready acquiescence

on a point about which his brother had at first demurred, he may have

hoped to influence the English king in favour of his claim upon the

northern counties; but if he entertained such expectations he was

doomed to disappointment, as Henry limited his grant to the Honor of

Huntingdon.[396]

William, however, was not of a disposition to submit with patience

to the denial of his rights--for thus would he have characterised

his claims; and he was ready to enter warmly into any confederacy

promising to extort from the fears of Henry the cession of the coveted

fiefs. Two campaigns against the Welsh, conducted with more than

equivocal success; the continued hostility of Louis of France; and a

doubtful contest with the newly made Archbishop of Canterbury, whose

former reputation as a man-at-arms was destined to be eclipsed by

his subsequent renown as a martyr,[397] heightened the difficulties

of Henry’s situation: and his exasperation was increased against the

king of Scotland, whose envoys at the French court, uniting with the

representatives of the Welsh princes, were eager to enter into a league

with the enemies of the English king.[398] [Sidenote: A. D. 1168.]

But the hostility of William was not yet to be openly displayed, for

a peace was concluded between the French and English kings, and the

opportunity of attacking the latter at a disadvantage passed away.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1170.] It was with an appearance, therefore, of

renewed cordiality, that William and his brother David appeared at

the court of Henry, to assist at the coronation of his eldest son at

Westminster; when both the Scottish princes, taking the oaths of fealty

and allegiance to the younger Henry, swore upon the sacred relics to be

true to the heir of England, saving, as usual, their fidelity to his

father.[399] But in spite of these professions of mutual friendship,

the alliance in reality was hollow and insincere, the refusal of the

northern counties still rankled in the breast of William, and an

opportunity for enforcing his claim was not long wanting.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1173.]

Never did the fortunes of the second Henry appear more prosperous than

at the very moment when the flight of his eldest son to the court of

France, suddenly revealed the extent of the intrigues which were based

upon the disaffection of his own children. Whilst the elder king was

occupied in strengthening his defences upon the frontiers of France

and in securing the important services of twenty thousand Reiters

of Brabant, the younger Henry was busily corrupting the unfaithful

adherents of his father, and lavishing grants upon the allies whose

assistance he wished to purchase. The promise of Northumberland to

William, and the offer of the fief of Cambridge to his brother, the

Earl of Huntingdon, secured the active co-operation of both the

Scottish princes;[400] and towards the close of summer, whilst the

attention of the elder Henry was fully occupied in Normandy, the

frontiers of England were suddenly invaded from the north.

Siege was laid to Werk and Carlisle, whilst the main body of

irregulars, according to the usual tactics of Scottish armies, was

dispatched to lay waste the surrounding country. The Bishop of Durham

appears to have secretly favoured the confederates, and the Scots were

allowed a free passage through the lands of his diocese;[401] but their

further progress was checked, before long, by tidings of the approach

of a powerful force under the orders of Richard de Lucy, and Humphrey

de Bohun, the Justiciary and Constable of England. Raising the siege

of Carlisle, William retired across the borders, closely followed

by de Lucy and de Bohun, who were beginning to retaliate upon the

Lothians the ravages of the Scottish army in England, when the arrival

of messengers from the south, brought the unwelcome intelligence of

the landing of the Earl of Leicester on Michaelmas Day. Negotiations

were hastily opened with the Scottish king, and so well did the English

commanders succeed in concealing the real state of affairs, that they

obtained a truce until the following January, and were thus enabled to

lead back their army to oppose the Earl of Leicester, and to bend all

their energies towards confronting the novel danger.[402]

During the whole of the ensuing winter the war was carried on in

England without intermission, whilst, with the singular policy of the

age, a truce existed in all other quarters; thus enabling the partizans

of Henry, in his own kingdom, to unite their forces for the purpose of

crushing the Earl of Leicester.[403] [Sidenote: A. D. 1174.] At the

expiration of the truce in January, the payment of 300 marks, offered

by the barons of Northumberland through the medium of the bishop of

Durham, purchased from William a further cessation of hostilities until

Easter; and when the term of this second truce had also expired, the

armies of the allies[404] at length appeared in the field. Whilst

Louis prosecuted the war in Normandy, and the Count of Flanders, with

the younger Henry, meditated a descent upon England, William again

crossed the Borders with an army, strengthened by a body of mercenaries

from the Low Countries;[405] his brother David proceeding at once

to the south, as the earl had been chosen to command the English

confederates, now left without a head through the capture of the Earl

of Leicester.[406]

Leaving a division of his army to blockade Carlisle, William led the

main body into Northumberland. Brough and Appleby were captured without

resistance, and the castles of Liddel, Warkworth, and Harbottle, fell,

in succession, into the hands of the Scots, who then retraced their

steps to Carlisle. A close blockade extorted a promise of surrender

from the castellan, Robert de Vaux, if no relief arrived before

Michaelmas; for his provisions were beginning to fail, and he suspected

the townsmen--attached, probably, to the memory of David, who had

often made Carlisle his residence--of a favourable inclination towards

the Scots. William then marched to invest Prudhoe Castle, upon the

southern bank of the Tyne, where he was joined by Robert de Mowbray,

the youngest of the victors of Northallerton, who, sorely pressed by

the warlike bishop of Lincoln, eagerly advocated the advance of the

Scots into Yorkshire, before the fall of his last castle of Thirsk,

placing his eldest son in the hands of William as a hostage for the

sincerity of his request. William promised to march to his assistance,

but, warned of the approach of the Yorkshire barons, he relinquished

his intention of relieving Thirsk, and, raising the siege of Prudhoe

Castle, commenced his retreat towards the north.[407]

As he approached his own frontiers, the king dispatched the greater

part of his army, under the command of Duncan, Earl of Fife, with

instructions to disperse his forces over the face of the country,

and carry out the usual tactics of Scottish warfare. In order to

extend the circuit of his operations, Earl Duncan subdivided the

forces committed to his charge, entrusting two separate divisions to

Richard de Moreville and the Earl of Angus; whilst with the main body

under his immediate command he entered Warkworth upon the morning of

Saturday, the 13th of July; and the inhabitants of that place, no

longer protected by the garrison of the castle, fell an easy prey

to his followers. The town was burnt to the ground, and more than a

hundred miserable beings, who, in the vain hope of safety, had fled to

the Church of St. Lawrence, were torn from its sacred precincts and

massacred with remorseless cruelty. Little did Earl Duncan imagine,

as he contemplated the ruins of the burning church, that within a few

short miles the fate of Scotland was trembling in the balance.[408]

Upon reaching Newcastle, late on the evening of the 12th of July, the

Yorkshire Barons, so often destined to render good service to England,

found that the Scottish army had retreated; when a difference of

opinion arose as to the expediency of a further pursuit. Several of

their number urged that they had already done enough in frustrating

the intentions of the enemy against their own neighbourhood, and that

it would be merely courting unnecessary danger to pursue eight thousand

armed men with only four hundred horsemen. But there were others

amongst their ranks who argued that much might be done by a compact and

well-equipped body of knights, whilst the Scottish army was dispersed

over the country, and whilst William was still in ignorance of their

approach; and by the arguments and the authority of those who were in

favour of an advance, the hesitation of the dissentients was at length

overcome, and the bolder counsels prevailed.[409]

At earliest dawn upon the 13th, the Barons set out from Newcastle. A

dense fog overhung the country, appearing to increase as they advanced

northwards; and it was still early, though they had ridden fast and

far, when several of the party began to suggest the expediency of a

return, urging, that in their utter ignorance of their own locality,

as well as of the position of the enemy, they might be blindly rushing

upon unknown perils.[410] But Balliol, with a resolute determination

that has often extricated brave men out of difficulties, refused to

listen to such suggestions, avowing his own intention of proceeding at

all risks, and the waverers were ashamed to turn back. Onwards they

pressed, whilst close upon their right lay Warkworth, swarming with

the Scottish foe; but enshrouded in the obscurity of the friendly mist

they passed the river Coquet in safety, and continued their adventurous

progress. The fog rolled away as the morning advanced, displaying to

the delighted eyes of the little band the friendly walls of Alnwick,

and they were hastening with alacrity towards its welcome shelter, when

they perceived a small body of about sixty knights, who were engaged

in tilting in a neighbouring meadow. The tilting party was composed

of William and his attendant suite, who paid little or no attention

to the approach of a band of horsemen, mistaking them for a party of

Earl Duncan’s mounted force returning to the Scottish camp, until a

nearer view of the advancing barons revealed the English cognizances.

One moment of reflection would have warned the king not to imperil the

whole fortune of the war upon such an unequal contest; but no such

thoughts crossed the mind of William, and, with the hasty exclamation,

“Now will it be seen who is a true knight,” he dashed at once against

the enemy with all the reckless gallantry of a knight-errant. The

result can be easily imagined. His horse was immediately slain--for

this was no tilting match, and his opponents aimed at securing their

prize--and before he could disengage himself from the dying charger,

William was a helpless captive. His nobles determined to share his

fate; many of his suite, who had not been present at the catastrophe,

riding in and surrendering to the English barons to avoid the

imputation of deserting their sovereign; and, before the close of the

same fatal Saturday, the Barons of Yorkshire again entered Newcastle

with their illustrious captive in their charge.[411]

On the following morning the royal prisoner was removed, for greater

security, to Richmond castle; and the important intelligence of his

capture was forwarded in haste to London, where Henry had by this time

arrived. Alarmed at the assemblage of the hostile fleet, and anxious

to be upon the spot to oppose the threatened invasion, he had crossed

from Barfleur in a gale of wind, undeterred by the elements which held

his enemies wind-bound at Gravelines, reaching Southampton in safety

on the evening of the 8th of July. All that night, and the following

day, he is said to have hurried on, without rest or refreshment beyond

bread and water, to the tomb of the murdered Becket, at whose shrine

either policy, or repentance, dictated the performance of a penance,

that, to the ideas of the present age, appears degrading. After he

reached London, fatigue and excitement threw him into a fever, from

which he was only partially recovered, when the messenger of Ranulph de

Glanville, standing by the side of his bed on the morning of Thursday

the 18th, aroused him from sleep, before daylight, with the welcome

intelligence of William’s capture. All remembrance of his illness

vanishing at the joyful tidings, before the close of the same day

Henry departed for the north; and ere a fortnight had elapsed from the

date of his misfortune, the royal captive was removed from Richmond

castle, his legs were fettered under the body of a horse, and in this

degrading position he was presented to Henry at Northampton.[412]

The effects of the calamity which had befallen the king of Scotland

were at once instantaneous and decisive. His own army, stunned for the

moment, only recovered to break out, as usual, into mutual dissension

and strife. Gilbert and Uchtred, the lords of Galloway, hurrying

homewards, destroyed the castles which had been built in their province

to secure the authority of the king, drove out the royal officers, and

then dispatched gifts and envoys to the English king with the offer

of their fealty and submission. The Scots availed themselves of the

anarchy of the moment to vent their long suppressed animosity against

the townsmen and burghers, mostly of English origin, with whom David

and his successors had filled the royal burghs and cities of their

kingdom. The Earl of Huntingdon, relinquishing his high command,

returned in haste to Scotland. Ferrers and De Mowbray threw themselves

on Henry’s mercy; Gloucester and De Clare, the waverers of the western

counties, met him with assurances of their fidelity; Hugh Bigot

dismissed his Flemish auxiliaries; and the Bishop of Durham surrendered

his castles, protesting that the presence of his nephew, the Count de

Bar, was merely for his own protection: whilst the formidable fleet,

which had threatened the invasion of the English coasts, melted away at

the news of the disaster; and the Count of Flanders, with the younger

Henry, drew off their forces from Gravelines to join Louis of France at

the siege of Rouen. Within three weeks from the date of the catastrophe

the power of Henry was re-established throughout England; and, as he

had nothing more to fear in his own kingdom, he prepared to face his

opponents in France, [Sidenote: 8th Aug.] and sailed with his Scottish

prisoners for Normandy. Such were the first consequences of William’s

fatal error, in mistaking the rash folly of “a true knight” for the

gallant bearing of a king.[413]

In another month the war was brought to a triumphant conclusion by the

elder Henry, who, at the personal request of Louis of France, set all

his prisoners at liberty, with the exception of the king of Scotland,

detaining William in fetters at Falaise until the month of December,

before the terms of his release were finally arranged.[414] They may

be briefly described as follows:--

William was to become the liegeman of his lord, the King Henry, for

Scotland, Galloway, and all his other lands, and to perform fealty

to his liege lord in the same way as other vassals. His brother, his

barons, his clergy, and all his other vassals, were to become the

liegemen of the English crown, acknowledging that they held their lands

of the English king, and swearing to support him, their liege lord,

against the king of Scotland, if the latter ever failed in his fidelity.

The Scottish Church was to acknowledge the subjection due to the

English Church; and the English Church was to possess all those rights

over the Scottish Church to which the former was justly entitled.

For the strict observance of this convention, the castles of Berwick,

Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling, were to be made over to

Henry, and to receive English garrisons, all expenses being defrayed

by the Scottish king; David, and twenty-one of the earls and barons of

Scotland, were to remain as hostages until the delivery of the castles;

while each of these noblemen was further required to give up his son,

or his next heir, as a pledge for the due performance of his part of

the treaty after his own release. Three days after the conclusion of

the convention of Falaise, William was allowed to leave his Norman

prison, and proceed, in the first instance, to England; where he was to

remain, in a state of comparative freedom, until the castles already

mentioned were delivered over to the officers of the English king.[415]

The conduct of Henry upon this occasion has been characterised by his

advocates as generous and lenient; whilst it has been stigmatised

by his opponents as harsh and illiberal. Neither view appears to be

correct. When William, conceiving himself to have been aggrieved,

united in a confederacy which, if successful, would have probably

confined Henry within the walls of a monastery for the remainder of

his life, the Scottish king was fully prepared to profit to the utmost

at the expense of his enemy’s weakness; and Henry did no more with the

captive of Falaise than William would have done had their positions

been reversed. But to maintain, as it has been sometimes asserted,

that he might have put his prisoner to death, is to argue with a total

disregard of the principles and sentiments of an age in which the

death of an independent prince, like William, would have been even

more revolting to the feelings of his contemporaries, than the public

scourging of Henry in Canterbury Cathedral would be unsuitable to the

ideas of the present time. In depriving his captive of his English

fiefs, which were justly forfeited, and in extorting liege homage for

Scotland, Henry displayed neither mercy nor leniency, simply availing

himself, to the utmost, of an opportunity for advancing his own

interests at the expense of his unfortunate rival; and his conduct was

that of an able and unsparing politician, exacting his own terms from

a fallen foe. As such, it must be judged; and, as such, it is far less

open to censure, than his repudiation in prosperity of the promises

which he made in his adversity to his earliest and most faithful ally.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1175.]

In the course of the summer after the release of William, both the

English kings, who now affected the closest intimacy and regard,

repaired in company to York: and here, upon the 10th of August, they

were met by the king of Scotland, bringing with him Earl David, no

longer lord of Huntingdon, with the bishops, abbots, earls, barons,

knights, and other freeholders of Scotland, who united with their king

in swearing fealty to the two Henries, and in ratifying the convention

of Falaise. All became the liegemen of the English kings in the

Cathedral church of St. Peter--a fabric of an earlier date than the

present noble minster--and yet further to secure the exact fulfilment

of the treaty, the clergy swore to lay their native land under an

interdict, and the laity pledged themselves to hold, as true men, to

their English suzerains, if ever William of Scotland proved unfaithful

to his oath.[416]

For fifteen years the convention of Falaise remained in full force,

and every action of Henry, down to the day of his death, exhibits

the tenacity with which he clung to its scrupulous fulfilment. Not a

papal legate was allowed to enter Scotland who had not first sworn to

do nothing detrimental to the interests of the English king, with an

additional promise to return through England--a proviso that precluded

the possibility of evasion--whilst a similar pledge was exacted from

all the Scottish clergy who attended the eleventh Council at the

Lateran. William was continually summoned to attend, as a vassal, at

the Court of his English lord; and he brought his earls and barons,

when required, to assist at the councils of their common superior. He

crossed the sea to Normandy, at the command of Henry, to submit to that

king’s decision in his dispute about the bishopric of St. Andrews;

license was granted for his expeditions into Galloway; and he conducted

the lords of that province to perform fealty to Henry, or to promise

to abide by the decrees of the English court. In short, a comparison

between the usual state of Scotland, and her condition during these

fifteen years of real feudal subjection, affords one of the clearest

and most convincing proofs of her entire freedom from all dependance

upon her southern neighbour, at every other period of her history,

before the reign of the first Edward.

The oaths of fealty and allegiance tendered in the church of St. Peter

riveted upon Scotland the yoke of feudal dependance; but her Church was

destined to vindicate with success her ecclesiastical liberties, and to

evade the claims of the English metropolitans, which a special clause

in the convention of Falaise had, to all appearance, triumphantly

established. The contest which embittered the whole of the reign of

Alexander, seems to have slumbered in the days of David, to break out

afresh in the time of his eldest grandson, Malcolm, when the papal

chair was occupied by Nicolas Breakespear, under the title of Adrian

IV., the only Englishman who ever rose to be the head of the Church of

Rome.[417] His partiality to the land of his nativity was frequently

manifested, and availing himself of the papal claim to dominion over

all the islands, founded upon the imaginary Donation of Constantine, he

willingly lent himself to the ambitious policy of Henry, authorising

that king to conquer, and exact obedience from, the people of Ireland

for the advancement of the interests of the Roman Church.[418] It is

also probable that Adrian was inclined to favour the pretensions of the

English metropolitans to the obedience of the Scottish bishops; for,

immediately upon his death, a mission was dispatched to the next pope,

[Sidenote: A. D. 1159.] and the successive appointments of the bishops

of Moray and St. Andrews to the office of papal legate for Scotland

guaranteed, for the time, the independence of the Scottish Church.[419]

Upon the death of the bishop of St. Andrews, Roger, archbishop

of York--the same prelate who was the rival and opponent of

Becket--obtained the office of legate for England, [Sidenote: A. D.

1163.]and repaired to Norham towards the close of Malcolm’s reign, to

summon the Scottish bishops to submit to his pretensions. Ingelram

the archdeacon, and Solomon the dean of Glasgow, with Walter, prior of

Kelso, were deputed to maintain the liberties of their Church; both

parties appealed to Rome, and the Scots achieved a notable triumph when

Ingelram was consecrated to the bishopric of Glasgow in spite of the

opposition of the archbishop.[420]

The dispute again languished until the concessions recently extorted

from William appeared to deal a death-blow to all the liberties

of Scotland. [Sidenote: A. D. 1176.] A great council was held at

Northampton in the January after the meeting at York, at which, in

obedience to a summons from his suzerain, William was in attendance

with the bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries of his

kingdom, as liege subjects of the English king; and at the conclusion

of the council the Scottish clergy were commanded, upon their

allegiance, and in virtue of the oath which they had already sworn,

to acknowledge their dependance upon the English Church. They denied

that any such submission was due; and in reply to the assertion of

the archbishop of York that the bishops of Glasgow and Galloway were

rightfully his suffragans, Jocelyn of Glasgow, the spokesman of the

Scottish party, affirmed that his see was “the daughter of Rome,” and

consequently independent of all other authority.[421]

But the cause of the Scottish bishops was best served by the disputes

of the English metropolitans, as the archbishop of Canterbury opposed

the pretensions of his own see to the rival claims of York; and

Henry, foreseeing that he would be called upon to decide between the

archbishops, and dreading the very idea of another collision with a

churchman, hastily dismissed the Scottish clergy without exacting

from them any admission of canonical dependance upon either see.[422]

Upon their return to Scotland a deputation immediately set out for

Rome,[423] and in the course of the same year an injunction was

obtained from the pope forbidding the archbishop of York to press his

claims except before the Roman Court:[424] and twelve years later the

dispute was finally set at rest by the declaration of Pope Clement

III., that the Church of Scotland was in immediate dependance upon the

see of Rome.[425]

But the difficulties of William were not confined to ecclesiastical

disputes, for the confusion amongst the Scottish army, after

his capture at Alnwick, was only precursory of the anarchy, and

disorganization, prevailing in the remoter provinces of his dominions

for several years afterwards. Conspicuous amongst the disturbed

districts was Galloway, for the alliance between the brothers, who

were lords of the province, lasted only as long as it was their mutual

interest to unite for the overthrow of the Scottish supremacy. The

king’s officers, or _Maors_, [Sidenote: A. D. 1174.] who appear

to have been paralyzed at the suddenness of the attack, were either

massacred or driven out of the country almost without resistance;

and fourteen years after the conquest of the principality, the royal

authority was eradicated from Galloway, in fewer weeks than it had

taken years to establish.

It then occurred to the elder brother Gilbert that his father had

suffered no rival to share his dominions; and, after ascertaining the

sentiments of his immediate adherents, he determined upon entrusting

a body of men to his son, Malcolm, with instructions to remove all

impediments from his path to undivided power. The son was worthy of the

father, and surprising the unsuspecting Uchtred in his island home,

he tore out his eyes and tongue, and then, with still more atrocious

barbarity, left him in this state to perish slowly and in agony. So

speedily had this tragedy been enacted, that when Henry dispatched his

chaplain, Roger Hoveden, from Normandy, with directions to put himself

in communication with Robert de Vaux at Carlisle, and to negotiate

with the lords of Galloway about the transfer of their allegiance to

the English crown, the envoys, upon their arrival in Galloway, found

Gilbert sole ruler of the province. He entered with eagerness upon the

subject of their mission, guaranteeing a yearly tribute of two thousand

marks of silver, and a thousand head of cattle and hogs, if Henry would

release him from his dependance upon the king of Scotland; but as the

envoys possessed no power to conclude an arrangement without submitting

the terms to Henry, they could only promise to lay the proposal before

their king, and, with this reply, they took their leave. [Sidenote:

23d Nov.] As it was late in November before they reached Galloway,

by the time they returned to Normandy the convention of Falaise must

have been decided upon, if it had not been already completed; and as

the clause accepting the homage of William for Galloway precluded

Henry from entering into a separate agreement with Gilbert, he availed

himself of the crime of the latter as an excuse for breaking off

the negotiations, and for refusing to treat upon any terms with the

murderer of “his cousin Uchtred.”[426]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1175.]

Immediately after the conclusion of the ceremony at York, Henry granted

license to William to march an army into Galloway, empowering him to

seek out and seize the murderer, and bring him before the court of his

liege lord for punishment.[427] Gilbert submitted without resistance;

and, in the autumn of the following year, William again presented

himself at the court of Henry, [Sidenote: A. D. 1176.] with the lord

of Galloway in his suite; but a fine seems to have been considered as

a sufficient atonement for fratricide, and, upon the 9th of October,

Gilbert swore fealty to the English king, giving up his eldest son

Duncan as a hostage for his allegiance, and purchasing the royal favour

at the price of a thousand marks of silver. No sooner had he returned

to his principality than, driving out of the province all who were

not of native origin, he denounced the penalty of death against every

true-born Galwegian who dared to acknowledge that he held his lands

of the king of Scots. His hatred against William was intense, and as

no fear ever seems to have crossed his mind that he might forfeit the

newly acquired favour of Henry by hostilities against his subject and

ally, until the day of his death the Galwegian prince never omitted

an opportunity of harassing and plundering the neighbouring provinces

of Scotland; nor did his estimate of Henry’s character prove to be

incorrect.[428]

Few kings who lived in that age were fortunate enough to escape a

collision with the Church of Rome, nor was William destined to be

amongst the number. His quarrel with Pope Alexander III. arose out

of a dispute connected with the bishopric of St. Andrews. Upon the

death of Bishop Richard in 1178 the chapter elected John Scot to

the vacant see; but the king, who had destined the bishopric for

his own confessor Hugh, and was not accustomed to be dictated to in

matters of church patronage, ordered his nominee to be installed and

consecrated by the Scottish bishops, [Sidenote: A. D. 1180.] whilst

the pope, espousing the opposite side, commissioned his legate, the

sub-deacon Alexis, to consecrate John. Yielding to the advice of his

clergy, William offered no opposition to this proceeding, but he swore

by the arm of St. James--his favourite oath--that the same kingdom

should not hold himself and John Scot, and after the conclusion of

the ceremony he effectually frustrated the intentions of the pope

by banishing John, with his uncle Matthew, bishop of Aberdeen, and

all his relations, from the country. Alexander, highly exasperated,

retaliated by threatening to extinguish the liberties of the Scottish

Church which he had hitherto protected, and he engaged the king of

England to interfere in his behalf, conferring the office of legate for

Scotland upon the archbishop of York, and authorizing that prelate to

excommunicate William, and to lay his dominions under an interdict if

he still persisted in his determination. [Sidenote: A. D. 1181.] It was

in vain that Henry summoned William to Normandy, where the banished

prelates had taken refuge, and endeavoured to effect an arrangement.

The king steadily refused to permit John Scot to enjoy the bishopric

of St. Andrews, offering to appoint him to the chancellorship, with

a promise of the first see that fell vacant in his dominions; and as

the pope determined with equal firmness that none but John Scot should

preside over the contested diocese, refusing to listen to any sort of

compromise, every one who acknowledged Hugh was excommunicated by the

papal legate, whilst all who denied his claim were banished by the king.

Such was the state of Scotland towards the close of the year 1181,

when, to the unfeigned delight of William, he was unexpectedly released

from his difficulties by the deaths of the aged pope and of Roger,

archbishop of York, the inveterate opponent of the liberties of the

Scottish Church. The bishop of Glasgow and the abbot of Melrose

were commissioned to set out immediately for Rome, for the purpose

of negotiating an arrangement with the new pope; and Lucius III.,

[Sidenote: A. D. 1182.] reversing the policy of his predecessor,

absolved William from the excommunication, released his kingdom from

the interdict, and forwarded to him the Golden Rose in token of

amity.[429] It was subsequently agreed that both bishops, resigning

their sees, should be reinstated by the pope, Hugh retaining the

bishopric of St. Andrews, and John Scot receiving Dunkeld; and though

six years elapsed before the dispute was brought to a final close,

after the death of Alexander no serious misunderstanding arose between

the king of Scotland and the papal see.[430]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1181.]

During the absence of William in Normandy, whilst he was in attendance

at the court of Henry upon the subject of his dispute with the

papal see, some of the leading nobility of Scotland--probably of

_Moravia_--taking advantage of the distracted state of the

kingdom, made overtures to Donald Bane, a son of William Fitz Duncan,

inviting him to assert his claim upon the throne of Scotland. This

Donald, better known as Mac William, had already put forward his

pretensions to the Scottish crown, but his attempts had been hitherto

limited to predatory incursions, nor had he ever yet obtained a

permanent footing in the country; but the old spirit of disaffection

still lingered in the north and west, where the enemies of the king

flocked to the standard of his hostile kinsman as readily as they

had once gathered around the banner of the heir of Moray, and the

insurrection soon rose to a formidable head.[431] Upon his return

to England towards the close of July, William received intelligence

of the invasion of Donald Bane, but it was not until the middle of

September that he obtained the permission of Henry to absent himself

with his attendant barons from the English court, and to take measures

for the defence of his kingdom. He at once hurried with his brother

David toward the provinces in possession of the enemy, but Mac William

appears to have avoided an encounter, and the king was obliged to

remain satisfied with strengthening his hold upon the marches and

lowlands of Ross-shire, and confining his enemy to the remoter

Highland districts, by the erection of the two castles of Eddirton and

Dunscath.[432]

Although he was now released from the interdict, William found too

much occupation, in attending to the internal dissensions of his own

kingdom, to attempt any interference in the quarrels between Henry and

his sons. Mac William in the north was still unsubdued, whilst Gilbert

of Galloway openly invaded the Lothians, plundering the country,

massacring the inhabitants, and refusing to listen to any terms of

accommodation. [Sidenote: A. D. 1184.] Such was the state of disorder

created by the Galwegians, that in the year 1184 William had assembled

an army to repress the outrages of Gilbert, when the return of Henry

from Normandy induced him to alter his intentions, and, dismissing his

followers, he hastened southwards to meet the English king. Mingled

motives may have dictated this change of purpose, though, as a vassal

of the English crown, he was not strictly justified in avenging himself

upon another vassal without the license of his superior; but at this

time particularly, he was anxious to avoid every cause of quarrel with

Henry, for the Duchess of Saxony had arrived in the train of her father

from Normandy, and William was a suitor for the hand of her daughter

Matilda. Simon de St. Liz also, upon whom the Honor of Huntingdon had

been conferred, had lately died without an heir, and the Scottish king

was equally on his guard lest any misunderstanding should interfere

with his claims upon his former fief.[433]

Henry readily promised his consent to the proposed union if a papal

dispensation could be obtained, but though the relationship was

somewhat distant--for Matilda was eight degrees removed from William

according to the old computation of the civil law, though only four by

the later canonical method of reckoning--the pope refused compliance,

and from subsequent occurrences it is not improbable that Henry was

secretly opposed to the marriage. As a set off to the failure of

his suit with Matilda, the forfeiture of Huntingdon was reversed,

and though several of the English barons put forward pretensions to

the fief, [Sidenote: A. D. 1185.] offering large sums of money for

its possession, it was restored by Henry to the Scottish king, who

immediately sub-infeoffed it to his brother David.[434]

The renewal of the grant of Huntingdon was decided upon at a council

held at London in the middle of Lent 1185, at which the king of

Scotland and his nobility were in attendance, to consult upon a

letter which had been received from Pope Lucius respecting the relief

of Jerusalem.[435] William had been recently released from one of his

bitterest and most implacable foes, for Gilbert of Galloway had died

in the preceding January. Duncan, the heir of the deceased lord, was

still residing at the court of England in his original capacity of a

hostage; but a competitor for the principality had already arisen in

Roland, the eldest son of the murdered Uchtred, who had now passed ten

years in exile at the Scottish court, where he had married Helena, the

daughter and heiress of the Constable--the same Richard de Moreville

who had been included in the excommunication of William for his

staunch adherence to the cause of his royal master. Roland, therefore,

was attached to the connection with Scotland both by interest and

inclination; he was a Scot rather than a Galwegian, and in his

attempt to recover the inheritance of his father he was assisted by a

numerous band of auxiliaries from the kingdom in which he had so long

resided.[436]

[Sidenote: 4th July.]

The summer found him in Galloway, entering upon a course of brilliant

and unchequered success. Gillepatrick, Henry Kennedy, and Samuel, the

partners of the late lord in his hostilities against Scotland, and

the leaders of the faction now in arms to secure the succession of

his son, were one after the other defeated and slain: a similar fate

was in store for Gillecolum, who appears to have held the lands of

Gilbert against either claimant, but of whom little else is known

except his incessant ravages of the Lothians; and further resistance

was soon crushed out by the vigorous measures of Roland, who inflicted

summary vengeance on all who refused to acknowledge his authority. His

residence in Scotland had converted him into a feudal baron, and he

lost no time in securing the submission of the province by rebuilding,

and garrisoning, the royal castles which had been destroyed by the sons

of Fergus, on their return after the catastrophe at Alnwick.[437]

Intelligence of Roland’s proceedings must have reached Henry in the

course of the same year, but he passed them over without notice until

his return from Normandy, [Sidenote: A. D. 1186.] when, shortly after

Christmas, William and his barons were again in attendance at the court

of England. They were treated by Henry with the most marked and studied

courtesy, for it was his object to prepare them for the marriage which

he had projected between Ermengarde de Bellomont and William; and the

anxiety of Henry to conclude a union which would confer no increase of

political importance upon his royal vassal, strengthens the supposition

that he had looked unfavourably upon the alliance with Matilda of

Saxony. Such thoughts may have passed through the mind of William,

for he delayed his final consent to Henry’s proposal until after a

lengthened conference with his barons, who were possibly influenced in

favour of the projected marriage by the prospect of regaining, as the

dowry of their future queen, the important castle of Edinburgh.[438]

As the grand object of Henry was now attained, he was at liberty to

turn his attention to the affairs of Galloway; and accordingly he

directed William, on his return to Scotland, to summon the new lord

of the province to repair to the English court, for the purpose of

rendering an account of his conduct in entering upon the lands of

Duncan, and other barons of Galloway, seizing upon their castles, and

disposing of their possessions without any reference to his suzerain.

Roland took no further notice of the summons than to strengthen the

natural defences of the country by felling trees in the passes, and by

endeavouring, in various other ways, to render the approaches to the

province impassable for an invading force. But Henry was in earnest,

and he concentrated the whole military force of England on Carlisle,

where he was met by the Scottish contingent under William and his

brother David, whom he deputed to bring Roland to his presence. They

returned at first without success, for the lord of Galloway appears

to have been reluctant to entrust himself within the power of Henry

without some pledge for his safety; but after a second mission, in

which the bishop of Durham and Ranulph de Glanville were associated

with the former envoys, and empowered to give hostages for his security

and safe conduct, Roland placed himself in the hands of the Scottish

princes, and was presented by William to the English king. It was not

the object of the latter to proceed to extremities, for as long as the

lord of Galloway admitted his dependance upon the English crown, it was

immaterial to Henry by whom the fief was held; and he was satisfied

with accepting the allegiance which Roland tendered for his father’s

lands, with his promise to abide by the decision of the English court

respecting the claims of his cousin Duncan. The three sons of the

Galwegian chieftain were then delivered over as hostages for the

fidelity of their father; William, his brother, and his barons bound

themselves on oath to enforce the adherence of Roland, if necessary, to

his English allegiance; and as a further security against a breach of

faith, the bishop of Glasgow promised, upon the relics of the saints,

to fulminate against the prince, if he proved a traitor, all the pains

and penalties incurred by a disobedient son of the Church.[439]

Such was the conclusion of the disturbances of Galloway, and from the

date of this arrangement Roland remained in undisputed possession of

the whole principality. It is impossible to say whether Duncan ever

prosecuted his claim upon his paternal inheritance; but, immediately

upon the death of Henry, William, who had all along been favourable to

Roland, conferred the district of Carrick as an earldom upon Duncan, on

condition that the new earl should resign all claims upon the lordship

of his cousin.[440] In this arrangement Duncan willingly acquiesced,

thus becoming the first possessor of the Earldom of Carrick, a

fief which was destined once more to revert to the crown, when the

illustrious great-grandson of the first earl ascended the throne of

Scotland as Robert the First. Ere long William reaped the full benefit

of having secured a firm and devoted adherent in Roland of Galloway.

[Sidenote: Sept.]

Upon his return from this expedition, Henry celebrated the marriage

of William and Ermengarde with much pomp and ceremony, placing the

palace of Woodstock at the disposal of the royal pair. After four

days spent in feasting and revelry, the young queen departed for her

husband’s kingdom, the earl of Huntingdon escorting her, with the rest

of the Scottish nobility who had been present at the celebration of the

marriage; whilst William, instead of attending upon his bride in her

progress to the north, accompanied the English king to Marlborough.[441]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1187.]

Six years had now elapsed since the establishment of Mac William

in the country, where his influence and power had increased to a

formidable extent, and the affairs of the north began to assume an

alarming aspect. The majority of the barons and thanes of Ross, and

other portions of _Moravia_, had by this time ranged themselves

beneath his banner;[442] whilst the connection of the lords of

Argyle, and the Isles, with the family of Malcolm Mac Heth, must have

disposed the leading nobles of the Western Highlands to display a very

lukewarm adherence to the royal cause. With the greater part of the

north and west either openly, or secretly, in his favour, Mac William

could also calculate upon the support of many other leading men, who

had been parties to his first establishment in the country; and the

king perceived that a crisis had at length arrived, in which he must

either immediately crush his competitor, or risk the loss of half his

kingdom.[443]

Accordingly, in the summer of 1187, all the military force of

Scotland which had not openly declared for Mac William, was ordered

to concentrate upon Inverness; and William contemplated placing

himself at the head of his army, following his rival into the remoter

Highlands, and forcing him to a decisive contest, about the result

of which he entertained little doubt. Many of his barons, however,

who were alive to the dangers of the impending campaign in a wild and

mountainous region, vehemently opposed the royal project, dreading the

repetition of some disastrous accident from the fiery and impetuous

courage of the king. They were uneasy, also, about the fidelity

of a certain portion of the royal army, who were quite as well

inclined to favour Mac William as to support the cause of the king;

and, acquiescing at length in the prudence of their advice, William

consented to remain at Inverness, and to entrust the immediate conduct

of the war to leaders upon whose ability and fidelity he could depend.

A fresh difficulty arose, after the king’s decision, from the positive

refusal of some of his principal nobles to march without the king

against Mac William. At a moment of such vital importance to the royal

cause, when the exertions of the well-affected were paralysed by this

unexpected sedition, the eyes of all the army were turned upon the Lord

of Galloway; and it was well for William that, in this crisis, he could

count upon the fidelity of that powerful baron.[444] No hesitation

marked the conduct of Roland, who at once threw the whole weight of his

influence and authority upon the side of his royal master; and when,

in consequence of the dispute, it was arranged that the main body of

the army should remain with William at Inverness, placing himself at

the head of three thousand of his own followers, upon whose fidelity he

could depend, he set out in search of Mac William, in the determination

of carrying out in person the original intentions of the king.

The fate of Scotland was decided by an accident; and it has twice been

the destiny of Inverness to witness, in its vicinity, the termination

of a contest for a crown. Upon the moor of Mamgarvy, some long

forgotten spot in that neighbourhood, the party of Roland unexpectedly

fell in with a body of the enemy, whose numbers were about equal to

their own. Neither party shunned the contest, but the royalists gained

the day, and amongst the slain was discovered the lifeless body of

Mac William. His death terminated the war, and the victor returned in

triumph to Inverness, to earn the grant of the broad lands of Galloway

with the head of his royal master’s most formidable and inveterate

opponent.[445]

The death of Donald Bane at once restored peace throughout the north

of Scotland. The strength of his cause had lain, not so much in the

devotion of his adherents to his own person, as in their disaffection

towards the reigning sovereign; and the same feelings which had

induced many of the Scottish nobles to look with indifference upon the

increase of Donald’s power, rendered them equally careless about its

extinction. No enthusiastic clansmen burned to avenge the slaughter

of their chief; for no hereditary attachment united his followers to

Mac William, like the feelings which once bound the men of Moray to the

descendants of their early kings and mormaors.[446] The cause of Mac

Heth was identified with the claims of the ancient line of Kenneth Mac

Duff; but the powerful chieftains of the North and West, who adhered to

that family from hereditary associations, must have followed the banner

of Mac William from enmity to the reigning family, or from dislike to

their feudal innovations, rather than from any clannish feeling of

attachment to the heir of Malcolm Ceanmore’s eldest son, who claimed to

be the rightful representative of the rival line of Atholl.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1188.]

Scotland had at this period almost regained the position in which she

stood before the fatal capture of her king. Galloway was at length

pacified, the north and west were no longer in open rebellion, and

Scottish men-at-arms once more garrisoned the castle of Edinburgh; but

Henry still retained Roxburgh and Berwick, the keys of the southern

frontier, and for the cession of these important fortresses William

offered to pay 4000 marks of silver. Henry signified his readiness

to restore the castles if William, in return, would agree to grant

him the tenths of the kingdom of Scotland for the projected crusade,

an arrangement to which the latter promised to consent, if he could

prevail upon his people to give their sanction to the terms; but

when the bishop of Durham, who was deputed by his king to collect

the promised aid, arrived for this purpose upon the frontiers of

Scotland, he was met between Werk and Brigham by the Scottish king,

who unexpectedly prohibited his further advance. William renewed

his original offer for the castles, explaining to the bishop, that,

personally, he was still ready to adhere to his compact with Henry;

but that upon assembling his barons and clergy in council, they had

unanimously refused to listen to the arrangement, asserting that they

would refuse to grant away the tenths of Scotland, though both kings

had sworn to levy them in person. In vain the English envoy attempted

to turn the Scots from their purpose; threats and persuasion were

equally unavailing, for the determination of the latter was inflexible;

and as the bishop was not empowered to take into consideration the

propositions of the Scottish king, he was obliged to return empty

handed to the south, and convey to his master in Normandy the impotent

result of his mission.[447]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1189.]

In the following year the ingratitude of his favourite son John, for

whose sake he had provoked the hostility of Richard, by evading the

acknowledgment of the latter as his rightful successor, completed the

ruin that fatigue and chagrin had commenced, and, early in July, Henry

of England died of a broken heart at Chinon. Earl David appears to have

been implicated in the rebellion of Richard, for Huntingdon was amongst

the fiefs granted by the latter at Tours, upon the day after the army

of the confederates was enabled, through the continued drought, to

enter that town by fording the shallow Loire.[448] The death of Henry

was fraught with most important consequences for Scotland, for Richard,

with all the enthusiasm of his impetuous nature, was burning to lead

the chivalry of Europe to the re-conquest of the Holy Sepulchre, and

as money was most essential for carrying out the crusade, in every

imaginable method he sought to procure it. The great offices of the

crown were put up for sale; the favour of the king was purchased by

his illegitimate brother Geoffry; and the earldom of Northumberland

was bought by the bishop of Durham.[449] Ten thousand marks of silver

were paid by William as the price of the independence of his kingdom

and of the restoration of the castles of Roxburgh and Berwick; and

in the following November, about six weeks after the coronation of

Richard, at which the earl of Huntingdon had assisted, bearing one

of the swords of state, the archbishop of York, with the sheriff and

barons of the shire, met William at the Tweed, and in obedience to the

commands of their sovereign, escorted him with every mark of honour to

Canterbury. Here upon the 5th of December, after duly performing “such

homage for his English dignities as his ancestors were wont to render

to the predecessors of the English king,” he received from the hands of

Richard a charter annulling all the concessions extorted by Henry at

the time of his capture; and after fifteen years of feudal subjection,

the consequences of the disastrous accident at Alnwick were at length

repaired, and the independence of Scotland re-established.[450]

CHAPTER XIII.

WILLIAM THE LION--1165–1214.

Peace reigned throughout the northern borders of England during the

absence of her king in the Holy Land; and when Richard languished in

the dungeons of the emperor, William contributed two thousand marks

towards his ransom. [Sidenote: A. D. 1193.] No countenance was afforded

by the Scottish sovereign to the intrigues of Philip and John; but upon

the release of the royal captive, Earl David of Huntingdon was the

first to declare in his favour, and uniting with the Earl of Chester,

[Sidenote: A. D. 1194.] whose sister he had married, he joined in

besieging the strong castle of Nottingham on behalf of the liberated

king.[451]

Early in April, and shortly after the Council of Nottingham, William

met the king of England at Clipston, passing the remainder of the month

in his company. He soon found an opportunity for urging a restoration

of the dignities and honors which had belonged, as he maintained, to

his predecessors, putting forward a formal claim upon the earldom of

Northumberland, and the Honor of Lancaster, together with the counties

of Cumberland and Westmoreland--the whole territory, in short, which

had once been held by his father, Earl Henry. Richard returned an

evasive answer, alleging that he must consult his barons: and after

the council held at Northampton, in Easter week, he replied that, in

his present circumstances, it was impossible to listen to William’s

demands; as concession on his part would be attributed to his fear of

the French war, rather than to his affection for the Scottish king. As

a set off to a reply which was tantamount to a refusal, he conferred

upon William a charter of privileges, specifying that whenever the

king of Scotland attended the English court, the whole of his expenses

should be defrayed out of the English exchequer; and providing that he

should be escorted, both in arriving and on his return, by the bishops

and sheriffs of the different dioceses and counties, through which it

was necessary for him to pass in the course of his progress. William

was obliged to be satisfied with this concession; and he assisted, in

token of amity, at the second coronation of Richard, bearing, upon this

occasion, the principal sword of state.[452]

Another opportunity soon occurred for again advancing his claims. After

the conclusion of the coronation, the bishop of Durham resigned his

earldom of Northumberland into the hands of Richard, and the king was

on the point of transferring it to Hugo Bardolf, when William hastened

to offer 15,000 marks for the fief. The magnitude of the sum tempted

Richard, who was seldom proof against an offer of this description,

and, after a short deliberation, he consented to grant the earldom

without the castles--or, in other words, the pecuniary, but not the

political, advantages of the fief--a compromise which did not accord

with the views of William. He made a final effort to obtain his object

a few days before the departure of Richard for Normandy, but equally

without success, for the latter would only hold out the hope that

he might take the matter into consideration on his return from his

expedition into France; and the Scottish king, towards the close of the

month, retraced his steps towards the north in bitter chagrin at his

failure.[453]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1195.]

In the course of the following year, William was seized with an

alarming illness at Clackmannan, and, in the momentary expectation of

death, assembling his leading nobles, he made known his intention of

declaring as his successor Otho of Saxony, a son of Henry the Lion, and

subsequently emperor of Germany, on the stipulation that the prince

should marry his eldest daughter Margaret. The proposal was but coldly

received by many of his nobility; Earl Patrick of Dunbar, as the

spokesman of the dissentient party, maintaining that it was contrary

to the custom of Scotland for the crown to descend in the female line,

as long as there was a brother, or nephew, in the succession.[454]

The question was terminated for the time by the recovery of the king;

but he did not relinquish his purpose, and, at Christmas, he gave an

audience at York to the archbishop of Canterbury, who was empowered

by Richard to conduct the negotiations connected with the marriage in

question. Lothian was to be the dowry of the Scottish princess, and

the castles of that province were to be made over to the keeping of

the English king; whilst Richard engaged to bestow the earldoms of

Carlisle and Northumberland upon his nephew the Saxon prince, and to

place all the castles of those fiefs in the hands of William.[455] But

this convention was never destined to be carried out; the return of

health, and the hopes of an heir, induced William to procrastinate; and

the reasons which influenced him in entering upon the negotiation were

finally removed, three years afterwards, when his queen presented him

with a son.

It was in the year following this abortive negotiation about the

marriage of his eldest daughter with the Prince of Saxony, that the

attention of the king was directed to renewed commotions in the north;

but, to explain the origin of these disturbances, it will be necessary

to revert once more to the history of the Orkneys.

Paul and Erlend, the joint earls, who were deposed and sent prisoners

to Norway by Magnus Barefoot, never revisited their native land. They

died in exile; [Sidenote: A. D. 1199.] and about two years after Magnus

lost his life in Ireland, Hacon, the son of Paul, who had rendered good

service in the Irish expedition, [Sidenote: A. D. 1105.] obtained from

the sons of the deceased king a grant of the earldom of the Orkneys.

The sons of Erlend had been also carried off by the Norwegian king; but

Magnus Erlendson, taking advantage of a moment, when he was unobserved,

to plunge into the sea, swam to the neighbouring shore of Scotland, and

thus escaped; whilst his brother Erlend, who remained on board, lost

his life subsequently in battle.[456]

Magnus Erlendson remained quietly at the Court of Scotland until the

departure of Sigurd Magnusson for Norway, when he sailed for the

Orkneys to claim his share in the earldom. Hacon viewed his arrival

with displeasure, but as the feeling of the islanders was in favour

of his cousin, he consented to abide by the decision of the Norwegian

Court, and Magnus was shortly afterwards confirmed in the possession

of his father’s portion of the earldom. Little cordiality existed

between the earls, and they were at length upon the brink of an open

rupture, when it was agreed that they should meet upon the small

islet of Egillsey for the arrangement of their mutual differences. To

this spot, accordingly, Magnus repaired upon the appointed day, and,

faithful to the conditions of the meeting, he brought with him only a

few unarmed friends. Hacon arrived soon afterwards with a squadron of

eight ships, filled with the rovers of the sea; and as the armed crews

stepped upon the shore, the son of Erlend foresaw his doom. He met it

with fortitude and resignation; his head was severed from his body; and

the islanders, horror stricken at the perfidious murder, long venerated

their favourite earl as a martyr and a saint.[457]

Success affording leisure for repentance, Hacon sought to expiate his

crime by a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and upon his death, some years

afterwards, the earldom was divided between his two sons by different

marriages, who were known respectively as Paul the Silent, and Harald

the Eloquent. The latter, who was the younger, appears in some of the

Scottish charters as earl of Caithness, a province which then, and

long afterwards, seems to have extended as far as Dingwall.[458] The

usual jealousy existed between the brothers, ceasing only with the

life of Harald, who is said to have met his death in a mysterious

and unaccountable manner, and, as was generally supposed, through

wearing, by mistake, a poisoned garment intended for his half-brother

Paul, who was an object of hatred and aversion to Helga and her sister

Frakarka, the mother and aunt of Harald. The opportunity was not lost

upon the surviving earl, who, very easily convinced of the guilt of

Helga, banished her immediately from the islands. Her brother Ottir

was lord of Thurso, and her sister also held large possessions on the

mainland. To them accordingly she repaired, with her grandson Erlend

Haroldson and her daughter Margaret, who was soon afterwards married

to Madach, Earl of Atholl, one of the greatest nobles of the day, and

a first cousin of David, who, at this period, occupied the throne of

Scotland.[459]

Earl Paul was not destined to hold for any length of time undisputed

possession of the whole earldom, for a competitor arose in the person

of a descendant, and heir to the claims, of Erlend Thorfinson. In one

of his numerous conflicts in the western seas, Magnus Barefoot lost

an attached and faithful follower of the name of Kali, upon whose son

he conferred large possessions in the Orkneys and elsewhere, with the

hand of Gunhilda, the daughter of the elder Erlend. Gunhilda, after

the death of her brothers, became the heiress of her father’s rights;

and it was her son who now demanded his share of the earldom from the

surviving son of Hacon. His real name was Kol, the same as that of his

father, but he assumed the name of Rognwald, which was popular amongst

the Orkneymen, from his supposed resemblance to Rognwald Brusison,

who is said to have still lingered in the recollection of an aged

Norwegian queen as the handsomest man of her time.[460]

Paul refused to listen to the claims of Rognwald, though they were

supported by the authority of the Court of Norway; but Frakarka and

her sister Helga willingly agreed to further his cause, promising to

attack the earl from the mainland, whilst Rognwald assailed him from

the sea. But Paul was on the alert, holding his ground successfully

against both attacks; nor was it until some years later that Rognwald,

to whom the Shetlanders steadily adhered, [Sidenote: A. D. 1135.] was

enabled to extend his authority over the whole of the Orkneys, through

the surprise and capture of Paul by the contrivance of the Earl of

Atholl.[461]

The first step taken by the new earl was to identify his cause with the

memory of his murdered uncle, whose aid had been invoked in support

of the second and successful expedition. Policy as well as gratitude

suggested that the fortunate result should be attributed to the

intervention of the popular martyr, and Rognwald vowed that a lasting

monument should hand down the remembrance of his murdered kinsman,

and commemorate, at the same time, the manner in which the saint had

interfered in his own behalf. In accordance with his vow a stately

cathedral church arose at Kirkwall, which was dedicated in honour of

St. Magnus; but it was a work far beyond the means of the earl, and to

further its completion, he was obliged to restore their rights to the

Odallers, who were permitted to regain their ancient privileges on

payment of a large contribution in aid of the building.[462]

In the meantime the luckless Paul was conducted to the residence of the

Earl of Atholl by his captor Sweyne Asleifason, a powerful nobleman of

Caithness at feud with the earl on account of his banishment from the

Orkneys. Here he was treated with the most ceremonious courtesy. The

chair of state was resigned to him by Madach; the beautiful Margaret,

surrounded by her ladies, received him with the cordial welcome of a

sister; mummers and jesters relieved the monotony of the hour; and in

the true spirit of northern hospitality the evening was devoted to

drinking. Thus passed the leisure time of a Scottish nobleman in the

twelfth century, when he was not engaged in the more stirring pursuits

of war, or of the chase. One thing alone reminded the deposed earl

of the real position in which he stood--the doors were invariably

locked.[463]

Paul long maintained his reputation for taciturnity, but at length he

appears to have spoken, and to the purpose; [Sidenote: A. D. 1137.]

for two years after the accession of Rognwald, whilst that earl was

celebrating with his friends some festive occasion in the month of

July, their attention was attracted by the arrival of a vessel from

the south with a venerable personage on board, whose purple cloak

and quaintly trimmed beard aroused the curiosity of the Orkneymen,

until the earl’s chaplain pronounced the mysterious stranger to be a

Scottish bishop.[464] He was received with every mark of respect, and

subsequently escorted to Egillsey, the residence of William, Bishop of

the Orkneys; and the result of a conference between Rognwald and the

two prelates was the admission of the claim of Harald Mac Madach to his

uncle’s share in the earldom, in virtue of the resignation of Paul. The

rights of Harald, then a child between four and five years of age, were

confirmed at an amicable meeting, held in Caithness, by the leading

chieftains of Atholl and the Orkneys, representing “the communities”

of the respective earldoms;[465] [Sidenote: A. D. 1138.] and, in the

following spring, he was consigned to the charge of Earl Rognwald,

though his real supporters appear to have been Sweyne Asleifason and

Thorbiorn, a grandson of Frakarka, married to the sister of Sweyne, and

guardian to the youthful earl.[466]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1153.]