Fifteen years elapsed without any diminution in the friendship of

Rognwald for his youthful colleague; Madach and his royal cousin sunk

into the grave; and the elder earl departed for the Holy Land, leaving

Harald in charge of the earldom.[467] The same year witnessed the last

expedition, in which a Norwegian king enacted the part of a pirate in

the western seas; Eystein, in a time of profound peace, inflicting

upon the unoffending inhabitants of the English and Scottish coasts

a repetition of the ravages of his heathen predecessors. Amongst the

sufferers was Harald, who was surprised and captured off Thurso, but he

regained his liberty at the price of several marks “in gold,” and an

acknowledgment of his dependance upon Norway;[468] though he was less

fortunate some years later, when his cousin Erlend Haraldson arrived to

claim his share in the earldom. Erlend, who appears to have succeeded

to the authority of his uncle, Ottir of Thurso, had taken advantage

of the absence of Rognwald to obtain from the youthful king of

Scotland, Malcolm the Fourth, a confirmation of his right to the half

of Caithness, and he now demanded a similar division of the islands.

Harald demurred to his claims unless they were confirmed by the Court

of Norway, nor would he consent to acknowledge Erlend as his colleague,

even after his rights were recognized by the Norwegian kings, till the

defection of Sweyne Asleifason forced from him a reluctant acquiescence

in this arrangement. Not content with depriving Harald of half the

earldom, Erlend carried off the Earl’s mother, the still beautiful

Margaret, bearing her to that singular fort of Mousa, in the Shetland

Isles, of which the remains still exist to excite the curiosity of

modern times; where he defended his prize with such tenacity, that he

forced Harald to consent to their marriage, and this singular union of

a nephew with his aunt is related in the Saga without a comment![469]

After a lengthened absence in the Holy Land, Rognwald returned from

Palestine to find Erlend established in his place. In this dilemma the

Bonders were assembled, whose unanimous verdict pronounced Rognwald

to be the lawful representative of one line of their rulers; and as

it then remained for them to determine which of the other earls was

entitled to the remaining share in the islands, their decision was

given in favour of Erlend. Their award was probably just, but Harald

could hardly be expected to acquiesce in it. Retiring to the mainland

he sought the assistance of his kinsmen, and when he reappeared in

the Orkneys in the following spring, Rognwald immediately declared in

favour of his early friend. But the redoubtable Sweyne Asleifason, who

espoused the side of Erlend, long upheld the cause of the latter earl,

by his courage and counsels, until the confederates, watching their

opportunity, surprised and slew their rival whilst he was stupified

by the effects of his potations.[470] Rognwald did not long survive

their victory, falling a victim to the revenge of Thorbiorn, the

former guardian of Harald, [Sidenote: A. D. 1158.] who waylaid and

assassinated the earl whilst hunting in the dales of Caithness. His

surviving colleague conveyed the body to Thurso, from whence, after a

lapse of thirty years, [Sidenote: A. D. 1188.] it was removed to the

cathedral church of Kirkwall, when the name of the murdered Rognwald

was enrolled in the Calendar of the Saints.[471]

In this manner Harald found himself, at the age of five and twenty, in

undisputed possession of the earldoms of Caithness and the Orkneys.

In appearance, as well as in character, he must have resembled his

maternal ancestor Thorfin; for, like that earl, he is described as

“tall, strong, and hard-featured,”[472] and he raised his power, by

his talents and military prowess, to a height unprecedented since the

days of his formidable predecessor. To Sweyne Asleifason, his early

friend and subsequent opponent, he appears to have been thoroughly

reconciled. Sweyne was a genuine type of the chieftain of that era, a

veritable representative of that numerous class which viewed, with such

suspicious jealousy, the curtailment of their lawless liberty by the

introduction of a novel system of government. The spring and autumn he

dedicated to agriculture; a scanty crop was rudely sown and as rudely

gathered in: the summer was devoted to a course of piracy; and the

winter was spent in revelry. Such were still the habits of life amongst

the chieftains of the north and west of Scotland; and in earlier times,

as in Scandinavia and Northern Germany, the practice had been similar

throughout the whole country, with the sole difference, that the

dwellers upon the coasts were rovers by sea, and the inhabitants of the

interior were plunderers by land.[473]

For nearly forty years Harald remained in the contented enjoyment of

his two earldoms, acknowledging a nominal dependence upon the crowns

of Scotland and Norway, but in all other respects as untrammelled as

the most independent of his maternal ancestors. He was married to a

sister of Duncan, Earl of Fife, and this connection with one of the

firmest partizans of the reigning family may have kept him steady in

his allegiance. At length, at the mature age of sixty and upwards, he

transferred his affections to a daughter of Mac Heth, and he married

the object of his elderly love after divorcing his former wife by

one of those summary processes which lingered latest, with other

barbarisms, in the extreme north. The union was inauspicious, as might

have been expected; a daughter of Mac Heth could not fail to remind

her husband of her hereditary claims upon Moray, and, yielding too

readily to the suggestions of ambition, ere long Harald seized upon the

province.[474]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1196]

It was the intelligence of these proceedings on the part of the earl

that now brought William in haste from the south; for he had already

suffered too much from such a cause to think lightly of a rebellion

in the northern Highlands. Meeting Harald’s son, Thorfin, in the

neighbourhood of Inverness, he defeated him with ease, killing Roderic,

a partizan, apparently, of the family of Mac Heth;[475] whilst Harald

retreated as the king advanced, until at length, despairing of success,

he fled to his ships in the hope of escaping to the Orkneys. But

the earl was doomed to misfortune; an adverse gale detained him in

port, and he was compelled to become a reluctant eyewitness of the

destruction of his castle at Thurso, and of the unwonted spectacle of

a royal army ravaging the extremity of Caithness. Submission was now

the only course left open, and he was fain to purchase the withdrawal

of the hostile army by promising to surrender the enemies of the king,

to place his son Thorfin as a hostage in the hands of William for his

own fidelity, and to resign half the earldom of Caithness to Harald

Ericson.[476]

Satisfied with the earl’s concessions, the king withdrew from his

territories; again proceeding northwards as far as Nairn in the

course of the same autumn, to await the fulfilment of the treaty. On

his return from hunting late one evening, he found Earl Harald in

attendance with two children, his nephews, whom he offered in the place

of his own son as hostages for his fidelity and allegiance. Surprised

at this evasion of their agreement, the king demanded the reason of

it, remarking upon the absence of Thorfin, whom Harald had promised as

a hostage. The earl’s reply was remarkable, though it could scarcely

be considered satisfactory. Thorfin, he said, was his only son, and he

was reluctant to part with the sole heir of his earldom; and as for the

enemies of the king whom he had promised to deliver into his hands,

they had actually accompanied him as far as the port of Lochloy, within

a few miles of Nairn, when he had suffered them to escape, reflecting

that their doom was certain if once surrendered to the king.[477] As it

is impossible that the earl could have imagined for one moment that

William would permit so palpable an evasion of their treaty, it can

only be supposed that, repenting of his promise as he approached Nairn,

he preferred braving the royal anger by conniving at the escape of his

prisoners, to surrendering friends, and probably connections, of his

own, or of his wife, to the certain doom of death; or the even worse

alternative of perpetual imprisonment, with probable mutilation or loss

of sight. William and his barons in council--the peers of the earl,

before whom he was immediately arraigned--at once pronounced him guilty

of a breach of fealty, declaring that he had thereby forfeited his

liberty; and he was carried in the train of William to the south, and

retained in custody until, upon the arrival of his son Thorfin, he was

released from captivity, and permitted to return to the Orkneys.[478]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1197.]

But the earl had not yet reached the conclusion of his troubles;

for Harald Ericson, after receiving a grant of half the earldom of

Caithness from the king of Scotland, sailed to Norway, and obtained a

recognition of his right, from King Suerer, to a similar partition of

the Orkneys. This Harald, generally known as the younger earl, was a

son of Ingigerda, the only child of Rognwald; but the elder Harald,

unmindful of his early friend, seems to have ignored the claims of

his heir to a partition of the earldom. A band of followers, however,

was easily collected in Norway, and so little was the elder earl

prepared for an attack, that, upon the arrival of his competitor in

the Orkneys, he fled precipitately to Man. He was shortly followed by

Harald Ericson; but again eluding pursuit, he returned suddenly to the

Orkneys, visiting with summary vengeance all who had declared for the

younger Harald. He had lost no time in the interval in gathering his

own partizans, and, upon the return of his opponent from the Western

Isles, he no longer shrunk from a contest for which he was now fully

prepared.

The rival earls met near Wick, in Caithness; victory declared for the

elder Harald, and the last descendant of Erlend Thorfinson perished

upon the field of his defeat. Availing himself of the protection of

the bishops of Ross and of St. Andrews, the conqueror sought the

Scottish Court, and hastened to offer a large sum for the restitution

of that portion of Caithness which had been conferred upon his deceased

competitor. The king promised his consent if the earl would comply with

his conditions, and agree to take back his former wife, and surrender

Bonaver, the son of Ingemund, together with his chaplain, Lawrence,

as additional hostages for his allegiance. Which of these conditions

was distasteful to the earl the chronicler has failed to specify; but,

in the opinion of Harald, half the earldom of Caithness would have

been too dearly purchased at such a price; and upon the refusal of

the proposed terms, William, without further parley, sold the fief to

Ronald, king of Man.[479]

According to the usual custom of the age, Ronald placed his

_Maors_, or deputies, over his newly acquired earldom, whilst

Harald, retreating to the Orkneys, busied himself in preparations for

the forcible recovery of his possessions; and suddenly reappearing in

Caithness with an overpowering force, he drove out all who opposed him,

treating the bishop of the diocese with savage cruelty for a supposed

predilection to the cause of his rival.[480] Although Christmas was

approaching, William lost no time in hastening to the scene of action,

first retaliating the barbarities of the earl upon his unfortunate

hostage Thorfin; but by the time the king reached Caithness, Harald

had escaped to the Orkneys, returning immediately upon the departure

of the royal army. William again marched to the north in the following

spring, and again the earl sought refuge amongst his islands; but as

such a fruitless contest was harassing to both parties, without being

beneficial to either, it was at length terminated by Harald, who,

[Sidenote: A. D. 1202.] placing himself under the safe conduct of the

Bishop of St. Andrews, tendered his submission to the king at Perth,

and was permitted, for a sum of 2000 pounds of silver, to enjoy his

earldom in peace during the brief remainder of his life.[481]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1198.]

The six years over which these disturbances in the extreme north of

Scotland extended had not been destitute of other events of importance,

for, on the 24th of August 1198, the question of the succession to the

Scottish throne had been finally set at rest by the birth of a prince,

to whom the name of Alexander was given. [Sidenote: A. D. 1201] Three

years afterwards, according to the usual custom of the age, William

summoned the barons of his realm to swear fealty to his infant heir

at Musselburgh; the Earl of Huntingdon imitating the example of the

Scottish nobles, and performing homage to his youthful nephew about

four years later.[482] [Sidenote: A. D. 1205] By the death of Richard,

in the year following the birth of Alexander, [Sidenote: A. D. 1199]

the relations between the English and Scottish kings had once more

become unsettled. Doubt and mistrust overshadowed England, bishops

and barons strengthening their castles, and preparing for the contest

anticipated between the uncle and his nephew; whilst numbers of the

continental vassals of the English crown openly declared for Arthur.

Following the course invariably adopted upon such occasions by all

aspirants to the crown, John possessed himself of the late king’s

treasures at Chinon, and this important point secured, he dispatched

the Archbishop of Canterbury across the Channel, with William the

Mareschal, and Geoffry Fitz Peter, the Justiciary of England,

empowering them to pledge his royal word to all whose allegiance

appeared doubtful, that full justice should be rendered on the arrival

of the king to every faithful adherent of his cause. William, as might

have been expected, had seized upon the opportunity afforded by John’s

uncertain position to revive his claims upon the northern counties;

but the royal deputies, after the council held at Northampton, forbade

the Scottish envoys, who had arrived there, to cross to Normandy,

prevailing upon the Earl of Huntingdon, one of the principal of the

dubious adherents who had been gained over at the recent meeting, to

notify to his royal brother that he should await the arrival of the

king. A similar request was conveyed directly from John by Eustace

de Vesci, who bore a promise to his wife’s father--for Eustace had

married Margaret, one of William’s natural daughters--that complete

satisfaction should be afforded him in all that he sought, if he would

only refrain from immediate hostilities.[483]

Soon after his coronation upon Ascension day, John gave audience to

William de Hay, and the priors of May and Inchcolm, who, in the name of

the Scottish king, demanded a full restitution of his “patrimony”--the

northern counties; promising liege and faithful service if he gained

his suit, but threatening, in case of refusal, to win his rights by

the sword. The reply of John was characteristically evasive;--“If your

king, my very dear cousin, will come in person, I will do him right in

this and in all that he demands.” The bishop of St. Andrews, with Hugo

Malebise, were made the bearers of this message to William, whilst,

that no point of courtesy or ceremonial might be omitted, the bishop of

Durham was directed to proceed at once to the frontiers and escort the

Scottish king to the place of meeting.

John reached the appointed rendezvous at Nottingham upon Whitsunday,

but the king of Scotland declined to come, only sending word by

Malebise and the bishop that, if his demands were not immediately

granted, he would resent the refusal by a declaration of war. John

stipulated for a further truce of forty days, promising a final answer

at the end of that time; but after collecting a powerful army,

and placing the counties in question under the charge of William

d’Estoteville, he hastened to embark for Normandy within a fortnight,

leaving the Scottish envoys, who had hurried after him to the coast, to

convey what answer they pleased to their king.[484]

At length perceiving that the promises of John had been merely

subterfuges for gaining time, William prepared to put his threats

into execution; but the proper season for action had already passed

away, and the English barons, not yet disgusted by the falsehood and

tyranny of John, had for the present declared in his favour. A natural

feeling of anxiety oppressed the mind of William as he recalled the

events of his early manhood, and remembered the consequences of his

former war with England. His kingdom was still unsettled, his health

was beginning to fail, whilst his heir was still a mere child, and

Scotland had hardly yet recovered from the disastrous state of anarchy

into which she had been plunged by the capture of her king at Alnwick.

Impressed with gloomy forebodings, the king determined upon passing the

night by the shrine of his sainted ancestress at Dunfermline; where

his reluctance to engage in hostilities assuming the form of a warning

dream, he dismissed his army on the following morning, assuring them

that he had been forbidden by a heavenly vision to attempt the invasion

of England.[485]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1200.]

William had given up all present thoughts of open war, but he refused

to listen to any overtures from John, declining to meet the English

king at York in the following Lent, whilst he cultivated an alliance

with Philip of France, and a marriage was negotiated between the young

prince of Scotland and an infant French princess, the daughter of

Agnes de Meranie.[486] The rumour of this alliance seriously alarmed

John, and after the second of his numerous coronations, he dispatched

a distinguished embassy with letters of safe conduct to the borders,

to propose an interview with the king of Scotland, and to escort him

for this purpose to Lincoln. With the Bishop of Durham and the Sheriff

of Northumberland were associated the Earl of Hereford and the Lords

de Vesci and de Ros, the nephew and sons-in-law of William, who, with

the Earls of Huntingdon and Norfolk, and a brilliant retinue of other

barons, awaited the arrival of the Scottish king on the frontiers, and

conducted him, with every mark of respect, to the place of meeting.

Here, upon a neighbouring hill, which was at that time without the city

of Lincoln, William performed homage to John “for his right saving his

own right;” [Sidenote: 22d Nov.] swearing fealty upon the cross of the

Archbishop of Canterbury--a breach of the usual custom, explained by

one of the chroniclers as arising “because there was no sacred book

at hand.” The question about the northern counties was again brought

forward for discussion, but with no satisfactory result, although a

final decision was again promised at the end of another six months;

and the king of Scotland, who had in reality gained nothing beyond

his ordinary feudal advantages by his journey, was obliged to rest

contented with the empty honour of returning to his own kingdom under

the same distinguished escort that had accompanied him to Lincoln.[487]

The interview between the kings had not been of a nature to promote

any real feeling of cordiality; for William had again proved from

experience that the promises of John were merely empty words, whilst he

had permitted his crafty rival to discover how little real importance

he need attach to the threats of a Scottish war. No more dangerous

knowledge could have been acquired by a prince of such a character

as John, who, in his subsequent transactions with the Scottish king,

turned this backwardness to his own account, evidently presuming upon

the reluctance of William to venture upon the chances of a war.

A rupture, however, had almost occurred through the contemplated

erection of a castle at the mouth of the Tweed, for the purpose of

commanding the Scottish burgh of Berwick, with its important fortress;

thus endangering the prosperity of the foremost commercial town in

Scotland, and neutralizing the cession of one of the keys of the

Lothians, restored by the charter of Cœur de Lion. It was impossible

for William to overlook so dangerous an encroachment, and whenever the

English attempted to begin the building, the Scots drove them away by

force, levelling their work with the ground; proceedings which were

more than once repeated, until, upon his return from the disastrous

campaign of 1203, John hastened to the north of England, [Sidenote: A.

D. 1204.] where he was met upon the frontiers at Norham by William, who

was hardly recovered from one of those dangerous attacks of illness

to which his advancing years appear to have rendered him liable. The

conference was stormy, and the kings parted in anger; but John was

either too much occupied with the French war to add another to the

list of his open enemies, or he treated the whole affair with his

usual fickle levity, and in spite of the hostile character of their

interview, their kingdoms remained in a state of nominal peace.[488]

However averse he might have been to risk the chances of hostilities,

William was evidently a very cool friend to England during the next

five years, eagerly testifying his devotion to the papal see when the

interdict was levelled against John, and receiving in return from Pope

Innocent a bull, or rescript, fully confirming every liberty and

immunity that had at any time been conferred upon the king, church, or

kingdom of Scotland, by the head of the Roman Church.[489] He appears,

also, to have set on foot a negotiation for procuring a foreign

alliance for one of his children;[490] [Sidenote: A. D. 1209.] but the

fears of John were by this time aroused, and he marched with an immense

army to the north, in the determination of calling William to account

for destroying his castle at Tweedmouth, for aiming at an alliance with

his open enemies, and for negotiating the intended marriage without

consulting the suzerain of whom he held his English fiefs. To guard

against the chances of invasion, William occupied a strong position

in the neighbourhood of Roxburgh, where he gave audience to the

envoys of John, who, upon reaching Norham, dispatched a safe conduct

to the Scottish king, with a requisition to meet him at Newcastle;

but three days after his arrival at the place of meeting, and before

their conference had resulted in any satisfactory conclusion, it was

unexpectedly interrupted by the sudden illness of the Scottish king,

and all further proceedings were broken off after a temporary truce had

been arranged.[491]

The return of health revived the reluctance of William to yield to

the demands of John, and, after ascertaining the sentiments of his

baronage and clergy in a council held at Stirling, he dispatched the

bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, with William Comyn and Philip de

Valoniis, the Justiciary and Chamberlain of Scotland, charged with so

decided an answer to the English king, that John’s fury was aroused to

the utmost pitch, and he issued immediate orders for the assemblage of

his army, and the reconstruction of the castle at Tweedmouth. William,

upon learning the result of his embassy, hurried from Forfar towards

the Lothians, deputing the bishop of St. Andrews to convey a qualified

refusal to the incensed John. Arrived at Edinburgh, the king was met by

Sayer de Quinci, Earl of Winchester, and Robert de Ros, who had already

reached the future Scottish capital, and dwelt upon the wrath of their

royal master, and the magnitude of the army with which he was hurrying,

by forced marches, to the north.[492]

Without awaiting the return of the bishop of St. Andrews, William

dispatched a third embassy to avert, if possible, the impending

war; and when the bishop reached his royal master at Traquair with

intelligence that the English army was fast approaching the borders,

the reverend envoy was commissioned, for the third time, to return in

the utmost haste to John, and to use every effort to delay his advance

until the Scottish army could be concentrated upon the frontiers.[493]

By the time John reached Bamborough, towards the close of July, his

formidable preparations for hostilities had fully attained the end upon

which he had probably calculated, by working upon the fears of his

opponent. A brave and warlike army was ranged along either frontier,

prompt and ready for a contest, but advancing years and increasing

infirmities had bowed the once fierce and haughty spirit of the

Scottish king, who was now as averse to risk the chances of war as, in

early manhood, he had been eager in courting its dangers. Under such

circumstances the result could not long remain in doubt, and William,

yielding his consent to the conditions imposed by John, covenanted to

pay 15,000 marks for his “good will” (in other words for peace, and for

the confirmation of his fiefs and privileges, which appear to have been

in danger of forfeiture), and for the performance of certain conditions

specified in their mutual charters. Hostages were to be given by the

Scottish king for the payment of the stated sum within two years.[494]

Two of his daughters, Margaret and Isabella--the third was probably

under age--were to be delivered into the charge of John, and to be

suitably married according to the tenure of their secret arrangement;

whilst, in return, one of the articles of the treaty provided against

the erection of a castle at Tweedmouth at any future period. The final

settlement of the treaty took place at Northampton, and, within ten

days from its completion, the Scottish princesses were placed in the

hands of the English Justiciary at Carlisle.[495]

From the date of this arrangement a close alliance existed between

the kings, and still further to cement their union, [Sidenote: A.

D. 1210.] the prince of Scotland proceeded in the following year as

far as Alnwick, where, upon the 10th of May, he performed homage to

John as liegeman for all the fiefs held by his father of the English

crown; and it was probably upon this occasion that the English king,

after receiving the half of the sum of 15,000 marks, in token of amity

remitted the payment of the remainder.[496]

William, however, in his anxiety to avoid an encounter with John,

appears to have deeply offended many of his own powerful subjects, to

several of whom the English connection had all along been distasteful.

All the advantages of the English fiefs belonged solely to the

royal family; and as it was of little or no importance to many of

the Scots that the brother of their king should enjoy the earldom of

Huntingdon, or that their sovereign should be received with certain

ceremonies whenever he absented himself from his own dominions to

attend the English Court, they looked with jealousy and discontent

at the concessions extorted from William, through his double anxiety

to prevent hostilities, and to avoid the forfeiture of his English

fiefs and privileges. The treaty concluded at Northampton had been in

direct contradiction to the wishes of the nation, and ere long William

discovered that, in his solicitude to avert the evils of a foreign war,

he had re-kindled the embers of civil discord at home.

The discontent must have been widely disseminated which first

threatened to explode in the south. Thomas de Colvill, a powerful

baron in constant attendance at the court of Scotland, was accused of

conspiring against his liege lord, and detained in Edinburgh Castle

until he was permitted to redeem his treason by the payment of a fine,

and was subsequently dispatched, in a species of honourable captivity,

as a hostage to the king of England.[497] The storm which had thus

threatened the southern, or feudalized, division of the kingdom was

shortly destined to burst in all its fury upon the distant north and

west, where a Mac William still existed in the person of Godfrey, one

of the sons of Donald Bane. Ireland, as usual, had been his home when

he was not amongst the western isles of Scotland, where he had never

ceased to assert the claims of his family; and either Godfrey, or some

of his partizans, had probably been amongst those “enemies of the

king” whom the Earl of Caithness had suffered to escape at Lochloy. No

time could have been more favourable for the revival of his pretensions

than a period of general discontent, and his partizans in Ross, with

all the disaffected clans of the neighbouring provinces, invited him to

cross from Ireland, with promises of their warmest support.[498]

But in the course of the same autumn, and before the arrival of

Godfrey, the lives of William and his family were threatened by an

unexpected danger from a totally different quarter. The king, with

his brother and the prince of Scotland, was staying with the court at

Perth, when a sudden inundation, occasioned by a spring tide meeting

the swollen waters of the Tay, menaced the town and its inhabitants

with destruction. The old hill-fort at the junction of the Almond with

the Tay was swept away in the deluge, carrying along with it many

houses, and destroying the bridge and an old chapel, whilst the royal

party were at one time in imminent danger, escaping with difficulty the

fury of the flood.[499]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1211]

It was winter when Mac William arrived in Ross, and six months elapsed

before an army could be dispatched to operate with effect against

him, the king following by easy marches, as well as his debilitated

condition would allow. Each party pursuing their usual tactics, the

campaign was opened on the royal side by the construction of two

forts, or rather, perhaps, by the repair of the buildings, which had

been raised in the previous war to command the most important points

in the district;[500] whilst Godfrey, carefully avoiding a battle,

endeavoured to harass the royal army by continued surprises and night

attacks. Steadily pursuing the course which he had proposed to follow

in his campaign against Donald Bane, the king placed 4000 men under

the command of the Earls of Atholl and Buchan, with Malcolm of Mar and

Thomas the Durward, ordering them to penetrate the recesses of the

mountains in every direction, and force Mac William to an encounter.

Godfrey’s place of strength was upon an island, where he had collected

his treasure and supplies; and here he was at length discovered and

brought to bay by the royal leaders. The struggle was most obstinate,

for the rebels were animated by despair; victory, however, declared for

the royal arms, Godfrey with a few of his companions escaping, though

with difficulty, amongst the clefts and thickets of the neighbouring

mountains.[501]

Satisfied with his success, William returned with the main body of his

army to the south, leaving Earl Malcolm of Fife in charge of Moray.

His departure was the signal for the reappearance of Godfrey, who

suddenly presented himself in force before one of the royal castles,

and commenced preparations for a siege. Alarmed at the prospect of an

attack, and the probable consequences of its success, the garrison

offered to capitulate on condition that their lives were spared; and as

Godfrey willingly agreed to their terms, they were permitted to depart

in safety, and the fort was burnt to the ground.[502]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1212.]

The tidings of Godfrey’s proceedings reached William in the winter,

when any hope of taking the field amongst the northern mountains

with the least probability of success was frustrated by the unusual

severity of the season; and as he had calculated upon his forts

securing the advantages gained in the preceding campaign, he was

incensed and embarrassed at this unexpected loss. A renewal of such

a doubtful contest as the struggle in which he had been engaged with

his cousin, the elder Mac William, was an anxious prospect at his time

of life, and he naturally felt inclined to draw yet closer the ties

connecting him with his English ally.[503] Ere the winter passed

away the two kings met once more, and for the last time, at Durham;

their conference was adjourned from that place to Norham, where the

queen of Scotland is said to have exerted her influence with both

parties to obtain the treaty of mutual alliance, which was concluded

upon this occasion. [Sidenote: 7th Feb.] Both kings are said to have

agreed, that, in case of the death of either, the survivor should be

bound to protect and support the youthful heir in securing the rights

of his crown; William conceding to John the privilege of marrying

his son Alexander, now in his fourteenth year, according to his own

pleasure during the next six years, so that the alliance was suitable

to the dignity of the Scottish crown; at the same time confirming his

own, and his son’s, liege homage to the English prince Henry, saving

their fealty to John. The Scottish prince then accompanied the king

of England, upon his return, to the south, and received the honor of

knighthood at St. Brides in Clerkenwell, where John held high festival

in Mid-Lent.[504]

[Sidenote: 4th Mar.]

With his mind set at rest upon the subject of the English alliance,

William prepared to bend all his remaining energies to the suppression

of the dangerous rebellion in the north. About the middle of June a

considerable force was dispatched to the scene of action, the prince of

Scotland accompanying the army to prove himself worthy of his golden

spurs; and the reserve was to have followed by easy marches, under the

immediate orders of the king, when its departure was arrested by the

welcome intelligence of the capture of the head of the rebellion. The

Earl of Fife, during a temporary absence from his command, left the

province under the charge of the Justiciary, William Comyn, Earl of

Buchan, into whose hands the adherents of Mac William, terror-stricken

apparently at the magnitude of the royal preparations, had just

surrendered their leader. The earl had already reached Kincardine

with his prisoner, whom he was in haste to present to William before

death robbed him of his prize--for Godfrey had resolutely refused

all nourishment since his capture--when he was met by a significant

message from the king, that he had no desire to see his enemy; and the

unfortunate Mac William was at once beheaded, and hung up by the feet,

lest starvation should anticipate his doom.[505]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1213]

The ensuing winter once more found John upon the Scottish frontier.

Whilst on the march in the preceding summer to repress the revolt of

Llewellyn, he had received letters from William, as well as from his

own natural daughter Joanna, the wife of the Welsh prince, warning him

against the intentions of his own barons, if he involved himself in the

intricacies of a mountain warfare in Wales.[506] The coincidence of the

arrival of similar warnings from quarters so far apart, aroused his

fears lest the intelligence should be true; and returning in haste to

London, he sent to his principal barons, demanding hostages for their

allegiance and good faith. All obeyed the royal command except Eustace

de Vesci and Robert Fitz Walter; the former, too deeply implicated

apparently to entrust himself within the power of John, at once seeking

refuge with his father-in-law in Scotland. The flight of De Vesci was

amongst the causes which brought John to the north, for it appears that

he had already written to William to claim the fugitive as a traitor.

Norham, as usual, was the place chosen for the conference; but William,

who had been for some time detained at Newbattle by another severe

attack of illness, was unable to proceed farther than Haddington; and

John, who had every reason for desiring, at this period of his reign,

to draw still closer the bonds of union between himself and his fellow

king, earnestly adjured him to depute the young Prince Alexander in

his place, holding out magnificent promises to induce compliance. The

aged king was inclined to send his son, some of his advisers agreeing

with him; but the majority of his council strongly opposed the project,

objecting to entrust the heir of Scotland within the power of John,

of whose intentions they were, not unnaturally, suspicious. They

were fearful, also, lest the English king should detain Alexander as

a hostage for the delivery of De Vesci, and as William eventually

deferred to their opinion, John was obliged to relinquish all hope of a

conference, and return disappointed to the south.[507]

During William’s contest with Earl Harald, Olave, the earl’s

brother-in-law, and John Halkelson, sailed from the Orkneys to assist

the son of the Norwegian Regent Erling in placing Sigurd Magnusson upon

his father’s throne. Their fate was most unfortunate; the flower of the

Orkneys assembled around the banner of Olave perishing, with both their

leaders, in the disastrous battle of Floravagr; and their ill-omened

expedition entailing the wrath of the conqueror upon Harald, who only

made his peace with the indignant Sverer by yielding up to Norway the

whole of the Shetland Isles. It was a diminished and impaired dominion,

therefore, which Harald, upon his death in 1206, left as an inheritance

between his three sons; [Sidenote: A. D. 1206.] Heinrek succeeding to

his claims upon Ross, whilst David and John divided his possessions

in Caithness and the Orkneys, the latter, upon the death of David,

becoming the sole possessor of both his father’s earldoms.[508] To

ensure the submission of Earl John to his authority, William, during

the summer of 1214, proceeded as far as Moray, [Sidenote: A. D. 1214.]

when the earl, unwilling to provoke the hostility of his sovereign,

yielded at once to his terms, giving up his daughter and heiress as

a hostage for his fidelity and allegiance. The king then returned by

easy journeys towards the south, but he had far over-taxed his feeble

strength, having risen from a bed of sickness to ensure the tranquil

succession of his son. As he approached the Forth he expressed a wish

to be carried to Stirling, a place for which he appears to have felt

an especial fondness; and here he lingered over the autumn within the

walls of that royal castle, from whence his failing sight could gaze

upon one of the fairest prospects of his native land. He was never

destined to see another year, and on Thursday, the 4th of December,

he breathed his last, expiring in the seventy-third year of his age,

and within five days of entering upon the fiftieth of a chequered and

eventful reign.[509]

Few materials remain for estimating the personal character of William

beyond the actions ascribed to him in the chronicles of the period.

Newbridge, perhaps a prejudiced authority, contrasts him unfavourably

with his brother Malcolm, regarding many of his misfortunes in the

early part of his career as punishments for his addiction to worldly

pleasures, and attributing the comparative peace and prosperity of his

later years--meaning the period of Richard’s reign--to the beneficial

effects of his marriage with Ermengarde de Bellomont.[510] He was a

great man, however, in the opinion of the archdeacon of Brecknock,

Giraldus Cambrensis, and worthy of praise in many things, one blot

only resting upon his glory--throughout the whole length and breadth

of Scotland his will alone decided the disposal of church patronage,

expressly imitating, in this respect, the policy of the English

kings, stigmatized by the archdeacon as “the enormous abuses of the

Norman tyranny in England.”[511] Giraldus wrote in the spirit of a

churchman of the twelfth century; but it must at least be admitted

that it tells not a little for the energy of William’s character, that

in his contest with the Church of Rome, in the very zenith of her

power, he was successful; neither legate nor pope bending him from

his purpose, though they launched anathemas at his head, and were

supported by Henry, at that time feudal overlord of Scotland. But

though high-spirited and impetuous, even to rashness, in his youth and

manhood, William appears to have been broken down by repeated attacks

of illness as he advanced in life; and the reckless knight-errant,

who rushed upon seven times his numbers at Alnwick, grew into an

over-cautious sovereign, who aroused the discontent of his subjects,

and risked the newly recovered independence of his kingdom, by his

inordinate dread of the consequences of a rupture with England. Some

allowance may be made for his anxiety to carry out the policy of his

grandfather, and re-annex to the Scottish crown the appanage of his

early years, which his brother had resigned at Chester; but from the

comparative ease with which his successor crushed every rebellion

within a few years of his accession, firmly established the royal

authority over the whole mainland of Scotland, and vindicated on every

occasion the liberties of his crown and kingdom, it is very evident

that William carried his caution too far; and though circumstances

may have been more favourable to his son, the temporizing policy of

William towards the close of his life must have increased, rather

than diminished, the difficulties of his situation. From the use of

the lion rampant upon his seal, a device which has since become the

well-known cognizance of Scotland, he was very frequently known as

“William the Lion;” and the names of _Rufus_ and _Garw_--or

the Rough--have also been applied to him, indicating, apparently, some

distinguishing feature in his character, or personal appearance.[512]

By his marriage with Ermengarde de Bellomont, he left four children; an

only son, Alexander, who succeeded to the throne, and three daughters,

Margaret, Isabella, and Marjory. Margaret, the eldest, was married to

Hubert de Burgh, and left an only daughter, Magota, who died apparently

at an early age. Isabella became the wife of Roger Bigod, Earl of

Norfolk; and Marjory, who appears to have been celebrated for her

beauty, which made a deep impression upon the susceptible heart of

Henry the Third, was subsequently united to Gilbert the Mareschal, Earl

of Pembroke, both the younger princesses dying without issue.

The lengthened reign of William was the era of the more complete

development of David’s changes in church and state; and Scotland, at

the opening of the thirteenth century, was fast progressing towards

the condition of a thoroughly feudalized kingdom in her more settled

portions. Traces of her earlier institutions, however, were still

abundant; the more lenient custom, for instance, of the allodial

system, by which the property of the felon was not confiscated

but descended at once to the heir, was confirmed as the general

law of Scotland, the strict feudal theory being, in other words,

relaxed in favour of “ancient custom;” though where the homicide, or

cattle-lifter, escaped the penalty of the crime by flight, his property

reverted to the lord, the heir only succeeding on the death of the

forfeited proprietor. Even sedition against the king did not disinherit

the heir, if the property was not held directly of the crown; but for

treason against the royal person both life and lands were irretrievably

forfeited. Another concession in favour of “ancient custom,” perhaps,

is traceable in the permission granted to the kindred of a murdered

man to take full legal vengeance on the homicide, even when under

the protection of “the king’s peace,” if they could prove that their

consent had not been obtained to compromise the feud; though, from the

wording of the law in question, this relaxation of the royal power of

pardoning the highest offences, may have been confined to the case of

a murdered witness. In most other respects the usual feudal customs

were generally established; the charter was required as a necessary

document for every freeholder--a stringent enactment being levelled

against all who were convicted of forging such evidence of rights to

which they were not entitled; and the Visnet was fast becoming the

recognised law of the land. Galloway alone formed an exception, in

this point, to the rest of Scotland, retaining her ancient code; no

Galwegian being judged by “the verdict of the neighbourhood,” except

at his especial demand; but very strict rules were laid down for its

substitute, “the wager of battle,”--a fine of _ten cows_ being

enacted for speaking during the progress of a judicial combat; he who

raised his hand, or made a sign, being “at the king’s mercy.” The fines

assessed at Dumfries by “the Judges of Galloway,” appear, indeed, to

have been heavier than in Scotland proper; and the regulations about

collecting the king’s _Can_ in this turbulent province, are marked

with a degree of severity which seems to point to a state of society

in which the royal imposts were still regarded as unwelcome novelties,

all recusants being mulcted in _a hundred cows_, and bound to

pay one-third more than the original demand. Agriculture was still a

subject of legislation, and the regulations of David, which discouraged

pasturage, were repeated; the barons and greater clergy being exhorted

“to live like lords and masters upon their own domains, not like

husbandmen and shepherds, wasting their lands and the country with

multitudes of sheep and cattle, thereby troubling God’s people with

scarcity, poverty, and utter _hership_.” Constant travelling with

a retinue unnecessarily large, was also a social feature which it was

still necessary to discountenance; as well as _sorning_, or living

at free quarters; and unnecessary exaction of _herbary_, or food

and lodging for the night; the repetition of David’s laws on all these

points displaying the tenacity with which the native baronage clung to

the habits of an earlier age, the sole difference noticeable in the

later enactments of William pointing to one of those changes from a

simpler state of society, which the progress of civilization is sure to

introduce upon “the good old times”--the herbary which, in the time of

David, was to be given “for the sake of charity,” in the reign of his

grandson was to be duly recompensed--_with pence_.[513]

But though the regulations of David still continued to be the

groundwork of the Scottish constitution, certain modifications were

introduced by William which tended still further to increase the power

of the crown. In the fifteenth year of his reign, “on the Monday before

the festival of St. Margaret” in 1180, in one of these great assemblies

of the whole Frank-tenantry of the kingdom, lay and ecclesiastical,

in which the germs of future parliaments are traceable, and which,

on this occasion, was held at Stirling, it was agreed that, for the

future, none were to hold ordinary courts of justice, or a court of

ordeal, whether “of battle, iron, or water,” except in the presence

of the sheriff, or of one of his serjeants; though, if the official,

after due summons, failed to attend, the court might be held in his

absence. At the same time, the four great pleas, which had been

removed from the jurisdiction of burgh provosts and baron baillies

in the reign of David, were reserved absolutely for the crown.[514]

Seventeen years later, in 1197, perhaps in consequence of abuses in

the exercise of authority, these minor courts were further regulated

by an ordinance passed in a similar “Parliament” held at Perth, and

attended by “the Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Thanes, and Community

of the Realm;” in which the great barons were pledged to give no

support to law-breakers, whether their own followers or others, and to

take no money for remission of judgment after sentence had been duly

passed; all failing in their duty, in either of these points, being

condemned to forfeit for ever their right to hold a court.[515] The

regulations of David about the great royal _moots_, and about

the sheriffs’ courts, were also modified at some period of William’s

reign; and it was ordered that two great assemblies were to be held

yearly at Edinburgh and Peebles, at which every freeholder was bound

to attend, unless prevented by sickness, or other sufficient cause. In

every province the sheriff was to hold a court every forty days--in

this particular following the Norman, or Frank, rather than the Saxon

custom; but bishops, abbots, earls, and probably the greater barons

who enjoyed “the rights and custom of an earl,” were now excused

from personal attendance, appearing by their Seneschals or Stewards,

and only being bound to attend in person upon the court of the royal

justiciary, or of his deputy.[516] Henceforth the privilege of a

“Regality” was confined to the greater barons or clergy, upon whom it

was conferred by royal favour; a sure sign of the progress of order,

and of the royal authority. It may be remarked that a Regality in

the feudal period was generally on some frontier; or was a district

made over to some powerful noble to control, as he best might, by the

strong hand; and in England, the sole provinces of this description

were the _Palatinates_ of Chester and Durham, the former on

the Welsh frontier, the latter upon the borders of that turbulent

Northumbrian province which, at one period, could be scarcely reckoned

as an integral, or settled, portion of either England or Scotland.

David probably interfered but little with the privileges of the ancient

earls within their immediate possessions, limiting his innovations

upon their earlier duties and prerogatives to the introduction of the

royal _Vicecomes_: but William was enabled to advance a step

further; the royal authority was becoming firmer, and was now made

paramount throughout the settled portion of Scotland, except where the

greater barons or higher clergy were specially privileged; though the

right to execute within the precincts of his own barony the homicide

taken “red-hand,” or the robber captured with the stolen cattle, still

remained the privilege of every baron who claimed the jurisdiction of

“pit and gallows.”

In pursuance of his usual line of policy, William also carried out the

ecclesiastical and commercial measures of his predecessors, ordering

the general payment of tithes and dues throughout the kingdom, defining

the means by which his edicts were to be put in force, and assimilating

the dioceses of Aberdeen and Moray to the model bishoprics of Glasgow

and St. Andrews.[517] More than this he appears to have been unable to

effect, for the church lands in the sees of Brechin and Dunblane were

still in the possession of great lay feudatories, disinclined as yet to

restore the property to the bishops, and too powerful to be rendered

discontented by any overprompt measures of alienation. Even in Dunkeld

the chapter was not as yet provided for; Ross was in a chronic state

of rebellion during the greater part of this reign; and Caithness was

at this time hardly more than a nominal province of Scotland. Only one

religious foundation is ascribed to William, the monastery of Arbroath,

which he dedicated to the memory of Thomas à Becket, with whom he

is sometimes said to have been on terms of familiar intimacy at the

English court in his earlier years; and from the date of this tribute

to the memory of the martyred archbishop, which was completed and

endowed within a very few years after the king’s return from captivity,

it would certainly appear as if William had been very much impressed at

the time by the peculiar circumstances of his capture.[518]

Though David may be regarded unquestionably as the founder of the

Scottish burghs, many were indebted to William for the earliest

charters confirmatory of their original privileges. Monopoly was,

as usual, ensured to the privileged class within the walls, no one

being allowed to sell the produce of his lands or flocks except

to burgesses;[519] commerce, thus forbidden to the nobility, was

confined to the burgher class; and the result was the same all over

Europe. There is not a trace amongst the Teutonic people, in early

times, of that broad line of distinction which grew up in a later age

between the soldier and the merchant, the man of arms and the man of

commerce--though the few actual trades, or rather handicrafts, of the

period, were probably confined to the unfree. “Biorn the merchant”

was the son of a king, and the spirit of commerce was strongly

developed amongst the early Northmen. But the burghers claimed it as

their exclusive privilege, and their monopolies were fostered and

encouraged, stringent laws prohibiting the _upland_ nobility

from entering into competition with the freemen within the walls; and

accordingly they soon grew to despise pursuits in which they were

thus precluded from engaging. No such restrictions existed in Italy,

and her merchants were amongst the noblest in the land. Elsewhere the

exclusive monopolies of a _Roturier_ class very much contributed

to stamp commerce, in the Middle Ages, as a pursuit generally confined

to the low-born. David’s commercial, like his religious, foundations

were principally to the southward of the Forth--his views were directed

towards Northumberland--and though many of his burghs were planted

to the northward of that river, and particularly in the forfeited

province of Moray, it is from the confirmatory charters of William

that their existence is first discovered. Not a few additions were

also made by William to the number of Scottish burghs--foremost in

importance to future ages the bishop’s burgh of Glasgow--and Galloway,

Scottish Cumbria, and the northern and eastern coasts of Scotland

proper, were studded with commercial garrisons. Berwick still appears

to have monopolized the foreign trade, and its importance may be best

appreciated by the clause inserted in one of the treaties between John

and William, engaging the English king to stop the further progress

of the castle at Tweedmouth, which had evidently been intended

to aim a fatal blow at the most flourishing emporium of Scottish

commerce.[520] But it was upon the northern and eastern coasts of

_Scotia_ proper, and upon that portion of the northern coast

which had been reclaimed from _Moravia_ by the establishment

of Inverness, that the progress and advancement of the kingdom were

most marked in William’s reign. David’s favourite residences appear

to have been generally in the south and centre of his kingdom, but

William was often in the north, and many of his charters are dated

from Forfar and Aberdeen, and from the Moray burghs of Nairn, Forres,

Elgin, and Inverness. The latter burgh was a thorough garrison, and

in return for certain privileges which its inhabitants enjoyed over

other burgesses, they were bound to keep in good repair the ditch and

rampart, which the king had thrown up around the town. Most of the

great families which are still to be found in this quarter--Chisholms,

Roses, Bissetts now represented by the Frasers, and others--are of

Scoto-Norman origin, descendants of the auxiliaries planted in, by the

Scottish kings, “in the times of eld,” to defend the lands they had won

from the supporters of Mac Heth, or Mac William; their names, though

they have long been enrolled most worthily in the ranks of “Scottish

Highlanders,” yet recalling the time in which the ancient house of

Moray was finally crushed by the power of the rival house of Atholl;

and when the hereditary earldom of Macbeth was the real _march_

of royal Scotland towards the north, held by the disciplined valour

of the Normans. Inverness was the key of the lowlands of Moray, and

in many respects an outpost of civilization, from which, in the next

reign, the royal power extended still further over the north and west.

The views of David were turned southwards, and he never ceased to hope

that the ancient territories of the Northumbrian Ealdormen might yet

be numbered amongst the appanages of the Scottish crown. But William,

in his later years, if the Scottish version of his secret treaty with

John is correct, was ready to waive his claims upon Northumberland; and

as the unsubstantial vision of the fair English earldom faded from his

sight, he may have directed his attention more exclusively to his own

kingdom, and have inaugurated that wiser line of policy which, in the

course of his son’s reign, united the whole of the Scottish mainland in

loyal obedience to the king.

END OF VOL. I.

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Amm. Marc._ l. 28, c. 8. In a treatise, “de situ Britanniæ,”

palmed off upon Richard of Cirencester, the district beyond the

northern wall is erected into a province, and called _Vespasiana_, a

name which in itself is a palpable blunder of the age which attributed

every Roman relic in Scotland to the time of Agricola. The work abounds

in internal evidence of its falsity. Vespasiana is said to have

received the name in honour of the Flavian family, and in compliment

to Domitian “in whose reign it was conquered” (l. 2, c. 6, s. 50),

and with _Mæata_ to have been lost under Trebellius, the successor of

Lucullus, who had been put to death by Domitian (l. 2, c. 2, s. 16):

but of these two provinces, which must have been created by his own

father-in-law, Tacitus, writing during the reign of Trajan, displays a

profound ignorance. Valentia again, the creation of Theodosius, about

369, is said to have been made a consular province by Constantine, who

died two and thirty years before! (l. 1, c. 6, s. 3.) Such are a few

specimens of the stupid blunders of its fabricator Mr. Bertram.

[2] _Nen. Geneal._ The See of Dôl, in Brittany, dates its rise from the

flight of Bishop Samson from York.

[3] _Nen. Geneal._--_Llywarch_, _Marwnad Urien_ and _Taliesin_, quoted

by _Carte_, vol. i. p. 209, and by _Turner, Ang. Sax._, bk. 2, c. 4. A

translation of the latter poem will be found in _Camb. Reg._ v. 3, p.

433, fully justifying the regrets of Turner “that any historical poem

should be translated into verse.” A tract of hill and moor, stretching

from Derbyshire into Scotland, is often known in the early chroniclers

as “Desertum,” the waste or desert. The battle in which Ida fell was

probably the famous “battle of Badon,” which, according to Taliesin,

“avenged the blood of the lords of the north,” and Urien was, I

suspect, the “good and valiant uncle,” for opposing whom Gildas blames

Maelgwn Gwynnedd.

[4] _Tigh._ 502, 574. _Adam. Vit. Col. (Reeves)_, App. 2, p. 435. _Bed.

Ecc. Hist._, l. 3, c. 3. According to Beda, the grant of Iona was made

by the Pictish king, and the question is a matter of dispute--as what

question in early Scottish history is not? Dr. Reeves, the learned

editor of Adamnan, is inclined to a compromise, Conal granting, and

Bruidi confirming, the grant.

[5] _An. F. M. (O’Donovan)_, 554, and Note; and _Adam. Vit. Col.

(Reeves)_, _passim_. The great family of the _Hy Nial_ supplied the

_Ardrighs_ or kings paramount of Ireland, uninterruptedly from the dawn

of authentic history, until their power was shaken by the Northmen.

The northern branch was subdivided into the _Cinel Eogan_ and _Cinel

Conal_, more familiarly, but less accurately, known as Tyrone and

Tirconnell; the southern into _Clan Colman_ and _Siol Aodh Slane_.

[6] _Tigh._ 563. _Bed. Hist. Ecc._, l. 3, c. 4, 5, 26. _Adam. Vit.

Col. (Reeves)_, l. 1, c. 37; l. 2, c. 35. _Craig Phadrick_ is supposed

by Dr. Reeves to represent the _Rath_ of Bruidi. The southern Picts

had been already converted by Ninian, a British bishop, according to

Beda (l. 3, c. 4); and if the conjecture is correct which assigns this

conversion to the early part of the fifth century, it must have been

effected during their temporary occupation of the province of Valentia.

If reliance can be placed on traditional chronology, the migration

of _Cynedda Gwladig_, the ancestor of the “noble tribes” of Wales,

from _Manau Guotodin_--supposed to mean the “Debateable Land” between

Picts, Scots, Angles, and Britons [_Adam. Vit. Col. (Reeves)_, p. 371,

d.]--must have taken place about the same period, and was caused,

probably, by the encroachments of the Picts.

[7] _Beda_--as above.

[8] _Bed. Hist. Ecc._, l. 5, c. 24. _Tigh._ 717. The foundation of

Abernethy is ascribed by the chronicle of the Picts to a Nectan, who

lived 300 years before this reign, but I suspect the later builder of

the “stone church” was the real founder. Innes (Ap. ii, v.) quotes

from the book of Paisley, “In illa ecclesiâ (Abernethy), fuerunt tres

electiones factæ quando non fuit nisi unus solus episcopus in Scociâ.

Tunc enim fuit ille locus principalis regalis et pontificalis per

aliqua tempora tocius regni Pictorum.” As the “primacy” originally

vested in Iona, passed subsequently to Dunkeld and St. Andrews,

neither of which were in existence before the early part of the ninth

century, it may be inferred that, during the intervening period, it

remained with Abernethy. It was usually vested in the _Cowarb_, or

representative of the original founder; and its leading privileges

were the _Lex_, or right to _Can_ and _Cuairt_--tribute and free

quarters--and other dues.

[9] _Bed. Hist. Ecc._, l. 3, c. 1, 3.

[10] _Bed. Hist. Ecc._, l. 2, c. 5; l. 3, c. 24; l. 4, c. 2, 12. _Edd.

Vit. Wilf._, c. 19. The _tenero adhuc regno_ of Eddius is changed by

Malmesbury (_de Gest. Pont._) into _teneram infantiam reguli_, an

expression scarcely applicable to Egfrid, who was twenty-five when he

ascended the throne. Thus inaccuracies creep into history.

[11] _Bed. Hist. Ecc._, l. 4, c. 26. _Nen. Geneal. Tigh._ 686. _An.

Ult._ 685. According to Nennius, no Saxon tax-gatherer ever again took

tribute from the Picts. Tribute and a foreign bishop--or abbot--were

the true tests of dependence at this period. _Tulachaman_ seems to

have been the place often known as _Rath-inver-aman_--“the fort at the

mouth of the river Almond,” where vestiges of it are I believe still

traceable. _Dun Ollaig_ was probably a place at which Talorcan of

_Atholl_ was killed some years later.

[12] _Tigh._ 726, 728, 729. _An. Ult._ 728. _Bed. Hist. Ecc. Contin._

740, 750.

[13] _Adam. Vit. Col. (Reeves)_, p. 370, note A, p. 435.

[14] _Bed. Hist. Ecc._, l. 1, c. 34. _Uladh_ may be said to have had

three meanings--1. Legendary Uladh, the northern kingdom of Ireland

answering very nearly to modern Ulster; 2. Historical Uladh, the

province lying to the eastward of Lough Neagh, and the rivers Bann

and Newry; 3. Uladh proper, the southern and principal portion of

the historical province, answering to the diocese of Down. The other

historical divisions were, _Iveagh_ on the south-west, answering to

the diocese of Dromore, and _Dal-Araidhe_ on the north, the “district

of the _Airds_,” or hill-country, equivalent to the diocese of Connor.

_Dalaraide_ must not be confounded with _Dalriada_. It was gradually

restricted to the northern portion, known as _Tuisceart_ or the north.

[15] _Tigh._ 723, 726, 734. _An. Ult._ 730, 732, 733, 735, 742. I

have touched very slightly upon the annals of Dalriada, a very vexed

question, which bears about as much upon the general history of

Scotland, as the early annals of Sussex might do upon the general

history of England.

[16] _Bed. Hist. Ecc._, l. 1, c. 34; l. 2, c. 4. _Nen. Geneal._

[17] _Caledonia_, b. 2, c. 2. One of the localities in which a battle

was fought during the Northumbrian civil wars in this century is called

by _Sim. Dun._, _Eildon_; by the Saxon chronicler, _Edwin’s Cliff_.

Edwin’s _burgh_ in Lothian has long supplanted any earlier name which

the locality may have borne, but upon the borders of Selkirk forest,

and in the neighbourhood of the Catrail, the British _Eildon_ has long

outlived the Anglian monarch’s _Cliff_.

[18] _Bed. Hist. Ecc._, l. 2, c. 20; l. 3, c. 1, 24. _Tigh._ 631,

632. _Nen. Geneal._ Egfrid gave to St. Cuthbert Carlisle, with a

circuit of fifteen miles, Creke with three miles--in short, all the

open country in the north of Cumberland which was thus interposed

between that district and Strath Clyde; whilst his donations of South

Gedlet and Cartmel “with its Britons,” in the north of Lancashire,

together with his grants on the Ribble and elsewhere to Wilfrid, shew

that the greater part of Lancashire must have intervened between the

Britons of English Cumbria and North Wales. Manchester and Whalley,

or Billingaheth, were also in the Northumbrian territories. _Sim.

Dun. Hist. Dun._, l. 1, c. 9. _Hist. St. Cuth._, p. 69. _Edd. Vit.

Wilf._, c. 17. _Chron. Sax._ 798, 923. Nennius states that Cadwallader

died of the great plague in Oswy’s reign, which can only refer to

the pestilence of 664, though he has been purposely confounded with

the West Saxon Ceadwalla, who died at Rome in 688. In spite of the

assertion of Gildas, that all the records of his countrymen had

perished, it was maintained that he had written a history and then

destroyed it (_Gild. Capit._ 20); and Walter Mapes, bringing a book (as

he said) from Brittany, where no other copy has ever been found, gave

it to Geoffrey of Monmouth to translate. The work is called in Welsh

the _Brut Tyssilio_, and is attributed to a certain Tyssilio living

in the seventh century, who writes familiarly of _Scotland_, _Moray_,

and _Normandy_, and brings the “Twelve Peers of France” to Arthur’s

Coronation! Granting the existence of these Twelve Peers, how could

Tyssilio, living in the seventh century, have been familiar with the

institution of Charlemagne, who died in the ninth? In the nineteenth

century the _Brut_ has been “done into English” with some very

marvellous notes, in which the curious inquirer will find Cæsar refuted

by Tyssilio, and Homer corrected by Dares Phrygius!

[19] _Bed. Hist. Ecc._, l. 4, c. 26; l. 5, c. 12, 23; _Do. contin._,

750. _Sim. Dun._, 756.

[20] I allude to the _Lex Aodh Fin_, meaning, apparently, the right

of Aodh and his family to _Can_ and _Cuairt_, which were amongst the

leading privileges of royalty. The following may explain the succession

at this period--

Fergus Feredach

| |

Fergus /--------------\ /-------------\

| Angus Bruidi Kenneth Alpin

/--------------------\ d. 761 761–3 763–75 775–8

Eoganan---d. Constantine Angus | =============

| 789–820 820–34 Talorcan Bargoit Conal MacTeige

| | | 778–82 | 784–9

Alpin Drost Eoganan | /-------------\

| 834–6 836–9 Drost Feredach Bruidi

Kenneth 782–4 839–42 842–3

843

[21] _Innes_, bk. 1, art. 8. _Caledonia_, bk. 2, c. 6, p. 302, note

A, with other authorities cited by both. The marriage of Kenneth’s

grandfather with a sister of Constantine and Angus rests solely on

tradition, but it appears the most probable solution of his peaceful

accession to the throne. The examples of Talorcan, son of _Eanfred_,

perhaps also of his cousin Bruidi son of _Bili_, which is a British

name, shews that the alien extraction of the father was no bar to the

succession of the son. Such a succession would be exactly in accordance

with the old custom mentioned by Beda, that “in cases of difficulty”

the female line was preferred to the male; _i.e._, a near connection

in the female line to a distant male heir. From not attending to the

expression “in cases of difficulty,” the sense of Beda’s words has been

often misinterpreted.

[22] The name of Heathored occurs as the last amongst the bishops

of Whithern in _Flor. Wig. App._, and his predecessor Badwulf is

alluded to by _Sim. Dun._ under 796. The topography of Galloway

and the language once spoken by the Galwegians (who acknowledged a

_Kenkinny_--_Cen-cinnidh_--not a _Pen-cenedl_) distinguish them from

the British race of Strath Clyde--the _Walenses_ of the early charters

as opposed to the _Galwalenses_. Beda, however, knew of no Picts in

the diocese of Candida Casa (_v. Appendix K_), and consequently they

must have arrived at some later period, though it would be difficult

to point with certainty to their original home. Some authorities bring

them from Dalaraide, making them _Cruithne_ or Irish Picts; and the

dedication of numerous churches in Galloway to saints popular in the

north-east of _Uladh_ seems to favour their conjecture. The name of

Galloway is probably traceable to its occupation by _Gall_, in this

case Anglian strangers.

[23] _An. Ult._ 793, 813. _Sim. Dun._ 793. _Innes_, Ap. No. V. _Myln,

Vit. Ep. Dunk. Ford_, l. 4, c. 12. This is the earliest historical

appearance of the _Vikings_ on the Scottish coasts. The name has no

connection with _king_, being derived from _Vik_ a bay, _Viking_ a

baysman. By northern law, every freeman was bound to be enrolled in a

_Hafn_, and to contribute towards building and manning a ship for the

royal service, the office of _Styresman_ being always hereditary in the

family of an _Odal-Bonder_. Thus, the royal ship, authorized to kill,

burn, and destroy in lawful warfare, sailed from the _Hafn_, whilst the

rover on his own account, stigmatized in “degenerate days” as a pirate,

put off from the _Vik_ or open bay. He was as little likely to sail

from a royal _Hafn_, as a Highland chieftain bent upon a _creagh_ to

issue from the royal castle of Inverness. Hence perhaps the name.

[24] It must always be remembered, that the change of name from _Pict_

to _Scot_ was originally merely the substitution of one arbitrarily

applied name for another--a change in the names used by chroniclers

and annalists, not by the people themselves. The names of _Picti_ and

_Scoti_ may be compared with those of _Germani_ and _Alamanni_, given

arbitrarily to the people who called themselves by names which have now

become _Deutsch_ and _Schwabe_.

[25] _Cæs. de B. G._, l. 1, c. 16; l. 2, c. 4; l. 3, c. 17; l. 5, c.

11, 22, 25, 54; l. 6, c. 32; l. 7, c. 4, 32, 33,63. _Tac. Germ._, c.

12, 42. _Am. Marc._, l. 31, c. 3. _Bed. Hist. Eccl._, l. 5, c. 10.

_Vergobretus_ is evidently the Latin form of _Fear-go-breith_, “the

Man of law,” the _Breithimh_, _Brehon_, or _Breen_; the Celtic judge,

_Toshach_, is derived from the same root as the Latin _Dux_; the

Thessalian Τάγος and the German _Toga_ bear the same meaning. It is

the title that appears on several of the early British coins under the

Latin form of _Tascio_.

[26] _Cæs de B. G._, l. 6, c. 10, 11. The _factio_ was evidently the

result of Celtic _policy_, not of Celtic _temperament_, as has been

too often represented. The policy may have gradually influenced the

temperament rather than the temperament the policy.

[27] _Cæs. de B. G._, l. 7, c. 88; l. 8, c. 12.

[28] “Legibus æduorum, iis qui summum magistratum obtinuerent excedere

ex finibus non liceret.”--_Cæs. de B. G._, l. 7, c. 33.

[29] “Convictolitanem, qui per sacerdotes more civitatis ... esset

creatus.”--_Cæs. de B. G._, l. 7, c. 33.

[30] Some such a character still exists in Japan, which is under the

divided rule of _two_ emperors; one a sacred puppet, nominally

the head of the empire, but practically kept aloof from all mundane

matters; the other known as the _Ziogoon_, or general, and the

real ruler of the empire. This example of a _double head_ to an

empire certainly bears some resemblance to the divided authority of the

old Celtic system, or rather to what that divided authority might have

become under certain circumstances.

[31] δημοκρατοῦνταί τε ὡς πλήθει is the expression of Dio (in

_Severo_). Strabo (l. 4, p. 197) describes the Gallic states as

Aristocracies, annually choosing “in ancient times”--_i.e._, before

the Roman Conquest--a ruler ἡγημόνα, and a general στρατηγὸν; in other

words, a _Vergobreith_ and a _Toshach_.

[32] _Leg. Gwyn._, l. 2, c. 18. The words of Bruce’s charter (_Thanes

of Cawdor_) are “Ita tamen quod terra quam Fergusius dictus Demster

tenet ibidem respondeat eidem Willelmo (Thano de Calder) de firma

quam reddere consuevit.” It is doubtful whether _Vercingetorix_

was a name or a title, like _Brennus_. _Cynghed_ in Welsh means

a _convention_; gorsez _cynghed_ cynnal, a convention held upon

urgency. _Ver-cinget-o-rix_ might thus mean “the man chosen king in

the convention.” The authority of the Anglo-Saxon princes, sometimes

known as _Bretwaldas_, probably resembled that of the earlier Celtic

Toshach--they were supreme _Heretogas_ rather than supreme _kings_.

Cæsar calls Vercingetorix _Imperator_; commander-in-chief.

[33] The verses ascribed to Columba will be found in the various

“Chronicles of the Picts,” of Innes, Pinkerton, and the “Irish Version

of Nennius,” _J. A. S._ The _rev_ in Mu_rev_, Fort_rev_ is probably

to be derived from _reim_ or “realm,” the names meaning “the realms

along the sea (Murray, _Muireim_ or Armorica), and along the Forth.”

_Ath_-Fodla is equivalent to “Fodla _on this side_ of the Mounth,”

exactly answering to the situation of Atholl, immediately to the

southward of the Grampian range. Northwards of Atholl the country

is still known as _Badenoch_, “the district of the groves,” a name

singularly inapplicable to its present state, answering probably to

_Fidach_. _Fodh_, a word evidently derived from the same source as the

Scandinavian _Odh_, and meaning “earth, land,” is probably at the foot

of _Fodhla_ (_Fodh-lad_), or _Fo’la_, which seems to have answered

amongst the Gael very much to _Gwlad_. _Fodh_ also means “learning in

Gaelic.” The close connection between “mystic lore,” or “divination,”

and the possession of land, was not confined to the Gael; it thoroughly

pervaded the early Scandinavians.

[34] _Camb. Descr._ l. 1, c. 4. _Col. de Reb. Alb._, p. 19, 20.

_Innes_, “_Sketches, etc._,” p. 365 _et seq._ In the middle of the

seventeenth century, the second son of the Earl of Argyle was fostered

by Campbell of Glenurchy, ancestor of the Breadalbane family. “In the

Lowlands,” says Mr. Innes, “the practice was evidently common under the

civil law.” In fact, fosterage was not peculiar to the Highlanders and

Celtic people in particular, though, like many other old customs, it

remained in force amongst them long after it had disappeared elsewhere.

By Ini’s Law (63), the _fosterer_ was one of the three dependants whom

the Gesithcundman might take with him under any circumstances. The

system was admirably adapted for implanting the members of a dominant

amongst a subordinate race, who, in the course of a few generations,

must have thus become united in the ties of interest and affection

with the ruling “caste.” No such ties bound the _villein_ to his

feudal lord; and the evils and advantages arising out of each system

were totally different. It was this custom which above all others

tended to render the Anglo-Norman lords “beyond the pale,” _Hibernis

Hiberniores_. As much devotion was shewn to a _Geraldine_ as to a

_MacArthy_.

[35] _Adam._ _Vit. St. Col._, l. 3, c. 5. It was the _Vergobreith_,

not the _Toshach_, who was “consecrated” by the Druids, _v._ p. 28,

n. †. Giraldus Cambrenses has left an extraordinary description of

the barbarous rites with which the inauguration of the princes of

Cinel Conal was celebrated. He wrote from hearsay, and very probably

heightened the colouring of a picture that was exaggerated in the first

instance; for he fully participated in that rooted antipathy which

seems to have long existed between the Welsh and the Irish. Still

the words of Ailred shew that certain barbarous ceremonies on such

occasions lingered amongst the Scottish Gael in the twelfth century,

shocking the more fastidious ideas of David after he had “rubbed off

his Scottish rust.” “Unde et obsequia illa quæ a gente Scottorum in

novella regum promotione more patrio, exhibentur ita exhorruit ut

ea vix ab episcopis suscipere cogeretur” (_Twysden_, p. 348). The

conspicuous part still assigned at coronations to the Scottish “Stone

of Destiny” is as well known as are the numerous tales and fables

connected with it. In his “Essay on Tara” Mr. Petrie impugns the

identity of the stone in St. Edward’s chair with the genuine _Lia

Fail_, upon which the Ardrighs of Ireland were inaugurated at Tara;

where, in his opinion, the mystic stone of the “Tuath de Danan” still

remains in spite of the claims of the Dalriads and the fables of the

Connaughtmen. It indeed seems extraordinary that a small and migratory

tribe from the north of Antrim should have been permitted to carry off

with them the “sacred stone” of the Irish kings, and I am inclined to

look upon the Scottish _Lia Fail_ as the stone upon which the _Pictish_

kings and their successors were consecrated, its only migration, unless

it was removed from _Dunfothir_ to _Scone_, having been undertaken

at the order of Edward the First; though after the Gaelic people of

Scotland had identified their own ancestry with that of the MacAlpin

line of princes the _Lia Fail_ necessarily became mixed up with the

supposed wanderings of the latter.

[36] The early Frank kings used to migrate in this way from _manor_ to

_manor_, and the custom long prevailed amongst the Scandinavians. It

was the origin of the “_sorning_,” a word derived from the same source

as the French _sejourner_, and “_Waldgastnung_,” so often prohibited

in the old laws of Scotland and the north. The Anglo-Saxons were

perfectly well acquainted with the same custom, and lands were held for

a certain number of “night’s _feorm_”--so many nights’ free quarters

_originally_,--the name of the tenure being at length permanently

transferred to the _tenant_ and _tenement_. Hence our words _Farmer_

and _Farm_.

[37] Most of the materials for this sketch have been taken from

“Martin’s Western Isles,” the “Irish Annals,” and the “Works of the

Irish Archæological Society,” particularly the “Hy Fiachrach,” where

the subject is ably illustrated by Mr. O’Donovan in _Appendix L_. The

“Circuit of Murketagh” contains an interesting account of the manner in

which hostages and tribute were exacted, and the different methods of

proceeding with kinsmen, allies, and rivals. The theory of _Tanistry_

extended to ecclesiastical offices, and we meet with _Tanist_ bishops

and _Adbhar_ abbots; the former signifying, apparently, the successor

_actually_ chosen, the latter one _eligible_ to be chosen. Thus, and

in many other ways, the old Celtic principle of division appears to

have gradually pervaded their branch of the church. Even the careful

separation of sacerdotal _authority_ from practical _power_ seems to

have clung to the Gaelic people for some time after their conversion;

for while the Hy Nial for centuries monopolized the supreme power,

the _Primacy_ was the exclusive appanage of the Clan Colla, _a race

excluded from the throne_.

[38] A king of Atholl was amongst the rivals who succumbed to Angus

(_Tigh._ 739), and from the foundation of Dunkeld and St. Andrews by

Constantine and the second Angus, it may be gathered that the provinces

connected with those monasteries were “in the crown.” In the Irish

annals _Fortreim_ is latterly almost synonymous with the kingdom of the

Picts. Its capital, _Dun-Fothir_, was evidently the Scottish _Tara_,

and _Dundurn_ in the north perhaps the Scottish _Cashel_. Moray and

Mærne seem to have long been the leading subdivisions of the north, but

it would be difficult to name the corresponding divisions of the south.

Abernethy appears to have been connected with Strathearn, Dunkeld with

Atholl, and St. Andrews with Fife.

[39] _Lodbroka Quida. Str._, 12. The epithet of “the Hardy” is applied

to Kenneth in the _Duan_. The old chronicle continues to apply the name

of _Pictavia_ to Scotland proper, or _Alban_, and _Saxonia_ to the

Lothians; whilst the Ulster annals call the MacAlpin dynasty “Kings of

the Picts” to the close of the century.

[40] _Innes App._, No. 3.

[41] This expression, the “laws of Aodh,” may have found its way into

the chronicle without the transcriber being aware of its meaning. In

the Irish annals the _lex Patricii_ or _lex Columbæ_ alludes to the

right of visitation and other dues belonging to the representatives or

_Cowarbs_ of those saints; and the confirmation of the “lex Aodh Fin”

by the Gael may mean the recognition of the claims of his descendants,

the MacAlpin family, to _Can_ and _Cuairt_ over the provinces of the

Picts. Royal _law_ was identical with royal _supremacy_.

[42] Their first arrival, or rather permanent settlement, is placed by

the _An. Ult._ in 839. The district of _Fingall_ may derive its name

from _Fine_ gall, “the stranger clans,” as well as from _Fin_-gall,

“the white strangers.”

[43] The Fingall are sometimes supposed to have been Norwegians and

the Dugall Danes, a fanciful distinction apparently, as Thorstein

Olaveson was king of the Dugall (_An. Ult._ 874), and his father Olave

was undoubtedly a Norwegian. The Hy Ivar, chiefs of the Dugall, were

undoubtedly a Danish race, for the Northmen who slew Elli at York in

867 were Dugall, and known as _Scaldings_ or _Skioldungr_ of the royal

race of Denmark. _An. Ult._ 866. _Twysden_, p. 70.

[44] _A. F. M._, 847, 849, 850, 851. Olave “took hostages from every

clan, and tribute from the Gael.”

[45] _Innes App._, No. 3. _An. Ult._ 865, 869, 870, 872. _Sim. Dun. de

Gestis_, 866. _Ware. Antiq. Hib._, c. 24. Ivar was unquestionably the

Inguar of early English history, and perhaps Olave was the Ubba; for in

the Langfedgatel quoted by Lappenberg (_Eng. under Ang. Sax._, vol. i.,

p. 114, n. 4), Olave is substituted for Uffo, evidently the same name

as Ubba. The _Chron._ 3 ascribes the death of Olave to Constantine,

whilst the Landnamaboc says he was killed in Ireland.

[46] _An. Ult._ 856. Laxdæla Saga and Landnamaboc in _Col. de Reb.

Alb._, p. 65 to 69. The _Gallgael_ must be distinguished from their

rivals the _Oirir-Gael_, or Gael of the coasts (_i.e._, of _Argyle_).

Mr. Skene (_Highlanders_, pt. 2, c. 2) considers them to have been

identical, on the strength of a passage which, I think, scarcely bears

him out. When the fleet of Turlough O’Connor ravaged Tir Conal and

Inch Eogan in 1154 (A. F. M.), the clan Eogan sent to hire “Longus

Gallgaidhel, Arann, Cinntire, Manann et Cantair Alban” ships of the

Gallgael, Arran, Kintyre, Man, and “the coasts of Alban,” _i.e._

Oirir-Gael. Gallgael must here mean the Islesmen. The Orkneyinga Saga

(_Antiq. Celt.-Scan._, p. 180) calls the Caithness men Gaddgedlar or

Gallgael; in short, it was the name of the two races when blended,

and in later days there was a continual struggle for superiority

between the Oirir-Gael and the Gallgael--represented by the families

of Somarled and of the later kings of Man,--in which the former were

ultimately successful, uniting at length under one head the dominion

of Argyle and the Isles. There is a slight discrepancy in the accounts

of Ketil contained in the Sagas. He was leader of the Gallgael

when Harfager was an infant, and appears to have succeeded Godfrey

MacFergus, whose name betokens a mixed descent, and who died in 853

(_A. F. M._, 851). The Gallgael possessed the islands before the time

of Harfager.

[47] _Ekkialsbakka_, according to Mr. Skene “the Mounth;” according to

Johnstone, the Ochil Hills, appears to be rightly translated by Mr.

Laing (_Heimskringla_, vol. 1., p. 291); “the banks of the Ekkial, or

Oikell, a river which still marks the limits of Sutherland, the ancient

_Sudrland_ of the Orkney Jarls.

[48] _Antiq. Celt.-Scand._ (_Landnamaboc_), p. 20, 21.

[49] _Chron. Sax._ 875. Halfdan was a brother of Ivar. According to

_Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun._, l. 2, c. 13, he was driven from Northumbria

very soon after he settled there, and perished miserably, slain by “his

own people.” He was probably the Albdan Toshach of the Dugall, who was

killed in battle by the Fingall in 877 at Loch Cuan, or Strangford

Lough. _An. Ult._ 876.

[50] Compare _An. Ult._ 874 with _Chron._ 3, _Innes’ Ap._ “Thorstein

ruled as king over these districts, Caithness and Sutherland,

Ross, Moray, and more than the half of Scotland”--_Landnamaboc_.

“Thorstein at length became reconciled with the King of Scots, and

obtained possession of the half of Scotland, over which he became

king.”--_Laxdæla Saga_ (_Col. de Reb. Alb._, p. 66 to 69). Such were

the results of Thorstein’s victory, which were evidently admitted

by the old chronicle in its brief notice, “Normanni annum integrum

degerunt in Pictavia.” The half of Scotland plainly refers to the

ancient territories of the Northern Picts.

[51] This account of the wars of Sigurd and Thorstein is taken from

the Sagas already quoted, the Ulster annals and Chron. 3 in Innes’s

Appendix. They must have occurred between the deaths of Olave, about

871, and of his son in 875; and the decisive conflict between the

Picts and Dugall in 875, when the former were defeated with great

slaughter (_An. Ult._), the battles of Dollar and Coach-Cochlum, two

years before the death of Constantine, _i.e._, in the same year; and

finally the death of Oistin or Thorstein MacOlave, placed by the

Ulster annals under the same date, all mark the year 875 to have

been the era of his brief triumph. All accounts agree that Thorstein

perished by unfair means. “He was betrayed by the Scots and slain in

battle.”--_Landnamaboc._ “The Scots did not keep the treaty long, but

betrayed him in confidence”--_Laxdæla Saga._ These authorities are

confirmed by the Ulster annals, which record the death of Thorstein

Olaveson _per dolum_.

[52] _Innes’, App._ 5. _Wynton_, bk. 6, c. 8. _Fordun_, l. 4, c. 16.

Macpherson, in his “Geographical Illustrations of Scottish History,”

explains the _Werdofatha_ of the Register of St. Andrews and Wynton

to mean _Wem-du-fada_, “the long black cave,” in which Constantine is

supposed to have suffered the cruel death of “the spread eagle.” The

period of this reign is easily ascertained. Under the first year the

Chronicle No. 3 places the death of Malsechnal, king of Ireland; and as

that king died on Tuesday 20th November (_A.F.M._), his death must have

occurred in 863. The same chronicle records the death of Aodh MacNial,

king of Ireland, which happened in 879, under the second year of Eocha

and Cyric (Grig), thus placing their accession, and consequently the

death of Constantine’s brother Aodh, in 878. As the reign of Aodh

lasted for only a year, that of his brother must have begun in 863 and

ended in 877.

[53] Cyric (or Ciric, the same as the French St. Cyr) was the original

name, which has been corrupted into Grig, Girg, and Gregory the Great.

It seems to be a different name from _Gregor_, which is apparently the

Scandinavian _Griotgar_. Eccles Girg or Grig is the modern _Cyrus_kirk.

Dundurn or Dunadeer, in the Garioch, appears long to have held the

same place amongst the Northern Picts as Dunfothir or Forteviot in the

South, _i.e._, it was the capital of the leading province. _Caledonia_,

bk. 3, c. 7, p. 383, note I.

[54] _Innes_, Ap. 3, 5. _Fordun_, l. 4, c. 16. _An. Ult._ 877. Eocha is

described as the _alumnus_ of Cyric, who was evidently the real king of

Scotland for the time.

[55] _Innes_, Ap. 5. _Wynton_, bk. 6, c. 9. It was probably to the

gratitude of the monks, the only chroniclers of the age, that Cyric was

partly indebted for some of his posthumous fame as Gregory the Great,

an universal conqueror. The line of Aodh appears to have been connected

with _Atholl_, which may account for the deposition of Dunkeld from its

prominent position.

[56] _Innes_, Ap. 3. The title of _Civitas Regalis_ is given to Scone

early in the next reign. The _palatium_, or royal residence of Kenneth,

was at Forteviot, the ancient Pictish capital.

[57] _Innes_, Ap. 3 and 5. _Wynton_, bk. 6, c. 9. _Fordun_, l. 4, c.

17, 18; l. 11 c. 40, 59. Wynton, Fordun, and the _Chron. Ryth._ at

the end of the _Chron. Mel._--the same evidently as that quoted by

Wynton--agree in giving eighteen years to Cyric, and placing his death

at Dundurn, Dornedeore, or Dunadeer, in the Garioch. The reigns of the

three kings extended over twenty-two years, from 878 to 900, the dates

in the Ulster annals of the deaths of Aodh and Donald; and as Eocha

reigned for eleven years (_Chron._ 5), Donald must have succeeded in

889. The Chron. No. 3 places an eclipse on St. Ciric’s Day (16th June)

under the ninth year of Eocha and Cyric. This actually occurred on 16th

June 885, in the _eighth_ year of their reign; and allowing for the

trifling inaccuracy of a year, it is evidently the eclipse referred

to. From confounding St. Ciric with St. Siriac, on whose day (8th

August 891) an eclipse also happened, both Pinkerton and Chalmers have

misdated all these reigns.

[58] _Innes_, Ap. 3, 5. _An. Ult._ 899. _Fordun_, l. 4, c. 20. Either

this king, or one of his predecessors, must have been the sufferer at

Mundingdene, a mile south of Norham, when the obedience of Guthred, son

of Hardicanute (rather a mythical personage), to the dictates of Abbot

Edred’s vision, in restoring the lands of St. Cuthbert between Tyne and

Wear to the Church, was rewarded by the intervention of the Saint in

behalf of the sacred territory, when it was invaded by a band of Scots,

who were miraculously engulphed in the yawning earth! _Sim. Dun. Hist.

Dun._, l. 2, c. 14. _Leland_, vol. i. p. 329. It is a pity the miracle

was not repeated a few years later, when Reginald Hy Ivar divided

these very lands amongst his pagan followers. What with the _sac_,

_soc_ and _infangthief_, granted by Guthred in the ninth century, the

fine of 96 Anglo-Norman pounds, and the near vicinity of the Scots to

St. Cuthbert’s territory, the story affords a very fair specimen of

the inventions by which the monks occasionally tried to give a title

to lands which they often really possessed rightfully, though without

legal proof of such right. A miracle or a victory, especially if either

were at the expense of the Scots, lent an air of sanctity or authority

to the fabrication, which it would have been impious or unpatriotic to

doubt.

[59] _Innes_, Ap. 3. _An. Ult._ 903. As the annals call the victors

“the men of Fortren,” I have rendered the _Sraith Eremi_ of Pinkerton’s

version of _Chron._ 3, Strathearn.

[60] _Innes_, Ap. 3. It probably resembled those meetings of the

Anglo-Saxon _Witan_, at which the ecclesiastical _Dooms_, so

often preceding the secular _Dooms_ in the Anglo-Saxon laws, were

promulgated, and may have had some reference to the recent elevation of

the See of St. Andrews to the primacy.

[61] _An. Ult._ 871. According to this authority, Constantine

“_procured_” the death of Artga.

[62] _An. Ult._ 876, 877. _An. Camb._ and _Brut y Tywys_, 880.

_Caradoc, Hist. Wales_, p. 38. _Caledonia_, vol. i., bk. 3, c. 5, p.

355. Chalmers gives the name of Constantine to their first leader,

whilst, according to Caradoc, Hobart was their chief when they

reached Wales. To some old tradition of this migration, and to the

encroachments of the Galwegians, the _Inquisitio Davidis_ probably

alludes:--“Diversæ seditiones circumquaque insurgentes non solum

ecclesiam et ejus possessiones destruxerunt verum etiam totam regionem

vastantes ejus habitatores exilio tradiderunt” _Reg. Glasg._ In fact it

would appear as if a Scottish party had dated its rise from the days

of Kenneth MacAlpin, and secured a triumph by the expulsion of its

antagonists, on the accession of Eocha to the Scottish throne, and by

the election of Donald in the reign of the second Constantine.

[63] _Innes_, Ap. 3. Donald and Eocha, or Eogan, were the invariable

family names (with only one exception) of the princes of Strath Clyde,

until the extinction of the race in the time of Malcolm II.

[64] _An. Ult._ 901–903. The Egill’s Saga (_Antiq. Celt.-Scand._ p.

32), in describing Olave the Red, calls him “the son of a native Scot,

by a descendant of Ragnar Lodbroc,” meaning by the expression “a native

Scot,” that his father was of Scottish descent by both parents. This

description cannot apply to Olave’s father Sitric and his brothers,

the well-known grandsons of Ivar, whose children could not possibly

have been of pure Scottish descent. It is remarkable, however, that the

name of the _father_ of Sitric and his brothers is never mentioned by

the Irish annalists, who invariably call them Hy Ivar, or _grandsons_

of Ivar (for the _Hy_ had not yet become a family prefix), whilst they

also frequently allude to Godfrey and Sitric, the sons of Ivar, and

their descendants, who never attained to the same celebrity as the

others. These latter more famous Hy Ivar appear to have been in some

way connected with the Western Isles, where their descendants were long

regarded in the light of a royal race. The first appearance of Reginald

Hy Ivar is in a naval battle off the Isle of Man; and as his family

had no footing at that time either in England, Scotland, or Ireland,

he must have recruited his fleet from amongst the Gall-Gael. Nearly

thirty years later the son of Reginald was driven from the same Western

Islands, which he probably had inherited in his childhood (for Reginald

and his brothers were young), when the English and Irish possessions

of his father fell to the share of his uncles Sitric and Godfrey.

(_An. Ult._ 942. _An. F. M._ 940.) After the death of Godfrey Mac

Fergus in 853, who figures in the genealogy of Somarled, lord of the

_Oirir-Gael_, and must have been (from his name) of Scottish descent

by the father’s side, the Isles next appear under the rule of Caittil

or Ketil, a Norwegian, but as his sons settled in Iceland after the

expedition of Harfager (Landnamabok), he could not have transmitted his

power to his descendants; and the Sagas say that the Isles then fell

into the hands of Scottish and Irish Vikings. If one of these Vikings,

a Scottish lord of the Gall-Gael or Oirir-Gael, had married Ivar’s

daughter, the description in the Egill’s Saga would exactly apply to

himself, his wife, and his sons, and it would be only necessary to

suppose that the writer of the Saga, aware of Olave’s descent from

a Scottish Viking and a grand-daughter of Ragnar Lodbroc, made him

by mistake the _son_ instead of the _grandson_ of the Scot. This

supposition would equally account for the connection of the Hy Ivar

with the Isles, and the ignorance of the Irish annalists respecting

their father’s name.

[65] _An. Ult._ 913–917. In 888 the Irish annalists record that Sitric,

the _son_ of Ivar, killed, or was killed by, his brother. In 919 the

same authorities mention that Sitric, the _grandson_ of Ivar, slew

Nial, King of Ireland, in battle. Some of the Anglo-Norman chroniclers,

and one late MS. of the Saxon Chronicle, evidently confounding these

events, make the younger Sitric the murderer of his brother Nial.

[66] _Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun._, l. 2, c. 16. _Hist. St. Cuth._, pp.

73, 74. _Innes_, Ap. 3. _An. Ult._ 917. The engagement is called by

Simeon the battle of Corbridge-on-Tyne, and in Chron. 3 the battle of

Tynemore, evidently Tyne Moor.

[67] _An. Ult._ 920.

[68] _An. Ult._ 926. _Chron. Sax._ 925, 926. According to the Irish

annalists, Sitric died _immaturâ aetate_, and consequently his son

Olave must have been too young to offer any opposition to Athelstan.

The MS. _C. T._, B. iv., which alludes to Sitric and Godfrey, is, like

the Ulster annals, a year behind the true date at this period. As

Godfrey was present at a battle in Ireland, fought on 28th December

926, and left Dublin in the following year, upon hearing of the death

of his brother, returning thither after an absence of six months, the

transactions to which Malmesbury and the Chronicle allude must have

taken place during this interval.

[69] _An. Ult._ 926. _Chron. Sax._ 926, 927. _Malm. Gesta Regum_, l.

2, s. 133. The Saxon Chronicle (MS. _C. T._, B. iv., of the eleventh

century) states that the kings met at Emmet, in Yorkshire, and

renounced idolatry, a singular compact for a prince who, twenty years

before, had presided at an ecclesiastical council at Scone! Malmesbury,

who takes his account from an old volume containing a metrical history

of Athelstan, “in quo scriptor cum difficultate materiæ luctabatur (et)

ultra opinionem in laudibus principis vagatur,” places the meeting

at Dacor in Cumberland, adding that Athelstan commanded the son of

Constantine to be baptised! Here again the Scottish King figures as a

pagan, as he also does in the same writer’s description of the battle

of Brunanburgh, where he says that the survivors of the vanquished host

were spared to embrace Christianity. There is an evident confusion here

between the pagan Northmen, to whom all this is very applicable, and

the Christian Scots. It is highly probable both that Sitric “renounced

idolatry” on the occasion of his marriage with Athelstan’s sister, and

that his son Olave, who ended his life in the monastery of Iona, was

baptised through the intervention of the English king, but the same

cannot be said of the Christian King of Scotland. From time immemorial,

as we learn from Malcolm Ceanmor (_Sim. Dun._ 1093), it was the custom

of the English and Scottish kings to meet upon their respective

frontiers; but though the borders of Yorkshire and Cumberland were

the most appropriate places of meeting for Sitric and his English

brother-in-law, they were on the Danish, not the Scottish frontier;

and what should bring Constantine thither to renounce idolatry in his

declining years, and baptise his son at the bidding of the English

king? Much of the history of this period appears to have been derived

from old songs and lays, in which due allowance must be made for the

confusion and mistakes incidental to such legendary compositions,

as well as for the “genus dicendi quod suffultum Tullius appellat,”

especially in the struggles of the transcriber to Latinise the

barbarous idioms of the vernacular, alluded to with such contemptuous

pity by Malmesbury. The vague and exaggerated expressions of these

old ballads were frequently copied literally, and latterly in the

feudal idiom, into the dry chronicle of a subsequent era, a fate which

has frequently befallen the sole Saxon record of the famous battle

of Brunanburgh. In the scanty records of this, the most glorious and

least known period of Anglo-Saxon history, it is very evident that

Constantine has frequently usurped the place of Sitric,--just as in

the Egill’s Saga Olave Sitricson figures as King of Scotland, to the

total exclusion of his own father-in-law,--but it would be difficult

to do more than point out the confusion. The Anglo-Norman writers, of

course, take advantage of the confused and indistinct idea of a treaty

between Athelstane and Constantine to turn it to their own account,

but they have been far outdone by a modern historian, who has actually

described the manner in which the Scottish king performed fealty to

Athelstan--_More Francico_, in set form, as laid down in the Liber

de Beneficiis--though it would be impossible to say from what source

he has obtained his vivid description of the feudal ceremony, for it

certainly is not contained in any of the authorities to which he refers

(_Malm._, 27, 28. _Flor._, 602. _Mail._, 147), nor was the Frankish

ceremony of homage in force amongst the Anglo-Saxons of that era.

[70] Olave was Constantine’s son-in-law at the time of the battle of

Brunanburgh, but as Sitric died at an early age, and Olave survived his

father for nearly sixty years, it is improbable that the connection

could have existed till some years after Sitric’s death, when it will

explain why Constantine, who at that time was not at variance with

Athelstan, and who had supported the Northumbrian Saxons against their

mutual enemies the Hy Ivar, became an object of suspicion to the

English king when it appeared to be his aim to favour the establishment

of his son-in-law in the Danish province, as he had already secured his

brother upon the throne of Strath Clyde.

[71] _Chron. Sax._ _Sim. Dun. ad an._ “Athelstan went into Scotland

as well with a land army as with a fleet, and there _over-harried_

much.” Such are the expressions of the _Chronicle_, the earliest

and best authority respecting an expedition which has grown in the

pages of the Anglo-Norman annalists into the complete conquest of

Scotland. Simeon gives three versions: in his first, from original

sources, merely mentioning the extent of the incursion to Dunfœder (or

Forteviot) and Wertermore. In his second, copying Florence, he makes

Constantine purchase peace at the price of his son’s captivity; and in

his third, in return for the gifts of Athelstan to the shrine of St.

Cuthbert--and on such occasions the chronicler is never behind-hand

in liberality--Scotland is thoroughly subdued (_Twysden_, pp. 134,

154, 25). It is a very appropriate occasion for the exhibition of

the _suffultum genus scribendi_ by the Anglo Norman writers; and the

opportunity has not been passed over. According to Brompton (_Twysden_,

p. 838), Athelstan demanded a sign from St. John of Beverley, “quo

præsentes et futuri cognoscere possent Scotos de jure debere Anglis

subjugari.” It was granted, and the king’s sword clove an ell of rock

from the foundations of Dunbar Castle! “Possessiones, privilegia, et

libertates,” rewarded the miracle, a price for which there was scarcely

a patron saint in the country who would not have been made to confirm

with signs and wonders the rightful supremacy of the English king

over any people he chose to name. The monks of Newburgh outdid even

Brompton, detaining Athelstan for three years in Scotland, whilst he

placed “princes” over her provinces, provosts over her cities, and

settled the amount of tribute to be paid from the most distant islands!

(_Doc. etc. Illus. Hist. Scot._, No. 33.) The tale reappears, as might

be expected, in the time of the first Edward, in its most exaggerated

form, as “Inventa in quodum libro de vita et miraculis beati Johannis

de Beverlaco _quæ sunt per Romanam curiam approbata_ (_Fœd._, vol.

i., p. 771). Dr. Lingard, through one of those oversights which

occasionally serve to strengthen his arguments in Scottish matters, has

transferred to this expedition the epithets applied by Æthelward to the

battle of Brunanburgh.

[72] At this time there were two prominent characters amongst the

descendants of Ivar of the name of Anlaf or Olave, who have frequently

been confounded. Olave, the son of Sitric, known in the Sagas under

the name of Olave the Red--the _an t sainnr_ of the _A. F. M._

978--sometimes as Olave Cuaran (for his son Sitric, who fought at

Clontarf is called Olave Quaran’s son in the Niala Saga, _Antiq.

Celt.-Scand._, p. 108), became the head of his family upon the death

of his uncle Godfrey, and to him the Sagas invariably attribute the

supreme rule over the Norsemen at Brunanburgh and elsewhere. Upon

the death of Athelstan, the whole of England north of Watling Street

was ceded to “Olave of Ireland,” and for four years Olave Sitricson

retained his hold upon the conquered districts, until the successes of

Edmund drove him across the channel to Ireland. He frequently appears

in English history subsequently as the opponent of Eric of the Bloody

Axe and the Anglo-Saxon monarchs; but his name does not occur in the

Irish annals before he was driven from Northumbria in 944; and about

eight years later, relinquishing all hopes of obtaining his father’s

English kingdom, he established himself permanently in Dublin, ruling

the Irish Norsemen for nearly thirty years, and bequeathing his

dominion to his descendants. Olave, the son of Godfrey, succeeded

his father in Dublin in 934, crossed the sea in the autumn of 937,

and joining in the battle of Brunanburgh, reappeared in Ireland

in the following year. He again appeared in England when Olave of

Ireland was chosen by the Northumbrian Danes for their king, and

shared the supremacy with his kinsman until his death at Tyningham in

941. Guthferd or Godfrey, the son of Hardacanute, a personage whose

existence is somewhat doubtful, but who is supposed to have succeeded

Halfdan, is often confounded with either Godfrey _mac_ Ivar or Godfrey

_hy_ Ivar. The Irish annals, sagas, and Simeon, are my authorities for

this sketch.

[73] _Chron. Sax._ 937. _Egil’s Saga_, _Antiq. Celt.-Scand._ The story

of Olave’s adventures in the camp of Athelstan is also told of Alfred,

and, if I recollect aright, of others. It is probably true in one

instance, and ascribed to the rest. Eogan of Strath Clyde was probably

amongst the kings who fell, as his son Donald soon afterwards appears

as king of Strath Clyde.

[74] _Heimskringla, Saga_ 4, c. 3. The tie of blood was the great bond

of union in these days, and a member of a “royal race” could unite

the most discordant elements under his standard. The invaders of the

British Isles, like their greatest leaders Olave and Ivar--the one an

Ingling, the other a Skioldung--were of Norwegian and Danish race,

but after the death of Thorstein, Olave’s son, without known issue,

as no prominent scion of the race of Halfdan Hvitbein remained, Dane

and Norwegian both looked for their leaders to the family of Ragnar

Lodbroc, the Hy Ivar. Eric, however, was of the blood of Halfdan

Hvitbein, and by placing him amongst the Northmen, Athelstan skilfully

sowed the seeds of discord, which yielded an abundant harvest a few

years later in the contests between him and Olave Sitricson.

[75] It is doubtful which Olave is meant. When Edmund regained

Northumbria, Olave Sitricson and Reginald Godfreyson appear to have

been joint kings, so that it is probable that the two Olaves divided

the supremacy in return for the assistance of the son of Godfrey

in reinstating his kinsman. The death of Athelstan is assigned to

the years 939 and 941. Ethelward places his death two years after

Brunanburgh, in 939, and the charter 411 (_Cod. Dip. Ang. Sax._, vol.

ii.) would favour this date. There are many charters of Edmund in 940,

none of Athelstan after 939.

[76] _Heimsk., Saga_ 4, c. 4. _An. Ult._ 941. _A. F. M._, 940.

Sacheverell, in his History of the Isle of Man, p. 25, mentions a Manx

tradition that the first of a line of twelve Oirrighs or underkings was

the son of a king of Denmark or Norway, whose successors Guthfert and

Reginald are evidently Godfrey Haraldson and his son Reginald, kings of

Man after Maccus or Magnus Haraldson, who killed Eric in 954, at which

time he probably acquired the kingdom of Man and the Isles. The Irish

annals mention that in 942 the son of Reginald Hy Ivar was driven from

the Isles by “Gall from beyond sea;” and it seems highly probable that

these were the followers of Eric, who must have established himself in

the dominion of the islands about this time.

[77] _Sim. Dun. de Gestis_, 941.

[78] _Innes_, Ap. 3. A Culdee abbot was not at this time strictly an

ecclesiastical dignitary. The office appears to have been frequently

held by the next in consideration to the head of the family in whose

province or kingdom the monastery was situated.

[79] The period of this reign has been chosen by the Anglo-Norman

writers as the era in which a feudal supremacy, in a strict

Anglo-Norman sense, was first acquired over Scotland by her southern

neighbour; and the theory, as might be expected, is supported in an

appropriate manner. Three years after the death of Reginald, the fiery

Dane is resuscitated from his grave, and placed, by the fiat of the

English chroniclers, side by side with Constantine and the Prince of

Strath Clyde, brought, together with the whole free population of

Cumbria, Scotland, and Danish Northumbria, from the borders of the

Forth, the Clyde, and the Humber, to the distant Peak of Derbyshire, to

tender homage to the Saxon Edward at Bakewell! Yet their submission,

and even the unwonted journey so far from their respective frontiers,

fail to avert their sorrowful fate; for though Reginald is permitted to

return to his tomb, his luckless companions are wantonly hurled from

their thrones upon the accession of Athelstan; whilst, to enhance the

glory of the Saxon king, Aldred of Bamborough is made the companion

of their flight. He was the faithful friend of Edward, the son of

Eadulf, “the darling” of the great Alfred,--considerations which have

little weight with the ruthless chroniclers; and Aldred is raised to

an evanescent independence, to swell the triumph of Athelstan by being

ejected from what is called “his kingdom!” As history advances, fresh

links are added to the chain of bondage, and the decreasing power of

the Anglo-Saxon monarchs marches hand in hand with the increasing

submission of the Scottish kings. Then is exhibited the singular

anomaly of an obedient and obsequious vassal appropriating without

ceremony the territories of his sovereign lord, until the climax

is attained in the reign of the Confessor; and at a time when the

over-powerful subjects of that prince seem to have been fast verging

towards independence, freely and willingly does the Scottish king

tender that allegiance for his entire kingdom which the iron-willed

successors of the feeble Edward in vain attempted to extort. Into such

errors and inconsistencies have the great majority of Anglo-Norman

chroniclers fallen in endeavouring to found a claim to a feudal

supremacy over Scotland in an age in which neither amongst Scots nor

Anglo-Saxons was the feudal system in force.--_V. Appendix L_, pt. 1.

[80] _Chron. Sax._ _An. Ult._ 943.--Roger of Wendover is the earliest

authority for the tale of Edmund expelling Dunmail--hardly the same

person as Donald MacEogan, who died in 975--and putting out the eyes

of his two sons (vol. 1., p. 398). The story is probably about as

true as the account of the same chronicler that the English king was

assisted on this occasion by Llewellyn of South Wales. In 945 Howell

Dha was king of South Wales, and as none of his sons bore the name

of Llewellyn, the only person whom the Welsh writers can find to

participate in the expedition is Llewellyn ap Sitsylt--who died 76

years later, in 1021--the father of Harold’s opponent, Griffith, and of

Blethyn and Rhywallon, who figured, considerably more than a century

later, in the reign of William the Conqueror. The next thing heard of

this Llewellyn is in 1018, when, says Caradoc (_Hist. Wales_, p. 79),

“Llewellyn ap Sitsylt having for some years (_seventy-three_) sat still

and quiet, began now to bestir himself.” It was time!

[81] _Sim. Dun. Twysden_, pp. 14, 74.

[82] _Chron. Sax._ 945. _Midwyrhta_, “fellow workman,” is the

expression used, which the feudal ideas of a later age naturally

rendered _fidelis_; and an alliance, only lasting for the life of

Malcolm, was accordingly transformed into a regular feudal transaction,

existing for generations. The earlier authorities, from the chronicle

and Æthelward, make no mention of any such thing; and Kenneth the

Second appears to have been as ignorant of it when he harried

Cumberland in 971, as Ethelred when he wasted the same province in

1000; nor could Simeon of Durham have been aware of such a compact

when he wrote that, in 1072, Malcolm the Third held Cumberland “Non

jure possessa sed violenter subjugata,” expressions which can scarcely

be reconciled with the uninterrupted possession of the province as a

feudal fief for 127 years. When John of Fordun compiled his history,

he eagerly seized upon the means of escaping the numerous claims for

homage put forward in the rival English chroniclers; and Cumberland, in

his pages, becomes the counterpart of the earldom of Huntingdon during

the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Scottish king invariably

granting it to the heir, or tanist, who duly performs homage to the

Saxon monarch for the fief held of his crown. On one occasion a tanist

is called into existence for this sole purpose, and the veracious

historian, after fabricating the apocryphal being, is obliged to murder

his own creation to account for his not appearing amongst the Scottish

kings. The same _myth_, Malcolm, king of the Cumbrians, unites with

Kenneth the Second in witnessing a charter which the latter is supposed

to have signed as king five years before he ascended the throne, and is

very appropriately placed amongst the eight oarsmen who manned the boat

of Edgar in his apocryphal progress on the Dee.--_V. Appendix L_, pt. 1.

[83] _Chron. Sax._ 946, 948.

[84] _Chron. Sax._ 949. _Innes_, Ap. 3. The seventh year of Malcolm

corresponds exactly with 949, the year in which Olave reappeared in

Northumbria, and the curious tradition preserved in the old chronicle

that Constantine resumed his authority for a week to head the Scottish

army in an incursion to the Tees, must surely be connected with the

arrival of his son-in-law, and the reluctance of Malcolm to break the

engagement by which he held Cumberland.

[85] _A. F. M._, 950. _Chron. Sax._ 952.

[86] _Tigh._ 980. _A. F. M._, 1014. The account of Tighernach reveals

both the extent of Olave’s power and the far greater importance of the

first victory which broke it. The death of the old warrior is described

rather quaintly by the annalist “post pœnitentiam et _bonos mores_.”

[87] _Chron. Sax._ 954. _Sim. Dun. de Gestis_, 1072. _Wendover_, vol.

i., p. 402. _Heimskringla, Saga_ 4, c. 4. The Henricus and Reginaldus

of Wendover are probably the Harek and Rognwald of the Saga. Simeon

calls Maco or Maccus a son of Olave, but Olave had no son of that name,

and Maco was probably “Maccus Archipirata,” or Magnus Haraldson, king

of Man and the Islands, who was the head of a different branch of the

Hy Ivar. His father, Harald, who was killed in Connaught in 940, was

the son of Sitric _Mac_ Ivar, or the elder Sitric, who killed, or was

killed by, his brother Godfrey, and was the head of the Norsemen of

Limerick. The power of the Limerick Hy Ivar appears to have received

a severe shock when Olave Godfreyson, shortly before the battle of

Brunanburgh, destroyed all their ships and captured their leader, Olave

Cen-Cairedh. _A. F. M._, 934, 938.