CHAPTER II.

THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND.

[Sidenote: Old division of Scotia into provinces.]

During the Celtic period of her history we find Scotland exhibiting a distribution of her population in separate districts, which is very analogous to what existed in Ireland at the same period. The latter country appears from a very early period to have been divided into five provinces, and these provinces of Udlah or Ulster, Laighean or Leinster, Mumhan or Munster, and Connacht or Connaught, with Midhe or Meath, were ruled by provincial kings under the Ardri, or supreme king of Ireland, who had his royal seat at Teamhar or Tara in Meath.

[Sidenote: Seven provinces in the eighth century.]

In the same way the earliest account we possess of the provincial distribution of the population of Scotland tells us that Transmarine Scotland,[39] or the country north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, was anciently divided by seven brothers into seven provinces, and that the principal of these was _Enegus_ with _Moerne_, so called from _Enegus_, the firstborn of the brothers. This name of _Enegus_ or Angus, now represented by the county of Forfar, is no doubt the same with the ancient Celtic personal name of Angus; and _Moerne_, now called Mearns, or the county of Kincardine, is a corruption of the old Gaelic name _Maghgherghin_, that is, the plain of Gergin, and is alluded to under that name in one of the old Lives of St. Patrick.[40] The second province was _Adtheodle_ and _Gouerin_, or Atholl and Gowry. The old form of this name of _Adtheodle_ was _Athfodla_, in which form it appears in the Annals of Tighernac, and _Gouerin_ was probably _Gabhrin_, a name analogous to the old name of the district of Ossory in Leinster, which is called Gabhran, pronounced Gowran.[41] The third was _Sradeern_ and _Meneted_, or Stratherne and Menteath, and there seems no doubt that the former is the district which appears so frequently in the Irish Annals under the name of Fortren.[42] The fourth was _Fif_ with _Fothreve_. The old form of the former name was _Fibh_. The latter name has entirely disappeared, but was preserved in the deanery of Fothri, in the diocese of St. Andrews. The two together embraced the entire peninsula between the Firths of Forth and Tay, and the line of division between _Fibh_ on the east and _Fothreve_ on the west extended from the eastern boundary of the county of Fife on the Tay to the mouth of the river Leven on the Forth. The fifth province consisted of Mar and Buchan, which still bear these names and form the modern county of Aberdeen. The sixth was Muref and Ros. The old form of the former name was _Moreb_, and was applied to a large territory extending along the southern shore of the Moray Firth from the river Spey, and across the entire country to the Western Sea. It was anciently separated from Ros by the river of Beauly, the passage across which was by a ford termed the Stockford,[43] and the name, which signifies in old Gaelic a promontory, was very applicable to the peninsula stretching into the Moray Firth between the Firths of Cromarty and Dornoch. The seventh province was Cathanesia, within and beyond the mountains, for the mountain called Mound divides Cathanesia into two parts. This is the range now called the Ord of Caithness. The old form of the name is _Caith_, from which the Norwegians formed the name _Katanes_, compounded of that syllable with the Norwegian word _nes_, signifying a promontory, and applied it to that part of the province which lay to the north of the mountains, while they termed the southern half _Sudrland_, from which comes the modern name of Sutherland. Each province thus consisted of two districts, forming in all fourteen, and the old description proceeds to tell us that these seven brothers who thus divided the country might be considered as seven kings who had under them seven inferior kings, making fourteen in all, and that the seven kings divided the kingdom of Alban into seven kingdoms, in which each reigned in his own time.[44]

As the western region, which formed the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada, is here omitted, while it includes the district of Caithness, which soon after the ninth century passed into the possession of the Norwegian Earls of Orkney, it is obvious that this description applies in the main to the territory of the Pictish kingdom prior to the accession of the Scottish dynasty which united it with Dalriada; and we find mention during this time of the petty kings of _Athfodla_ or Atholl, and of _Fortren_ or Stratherne,[45] while during the last century of the independent existence of the Pictish monarchy, the _Ardri_, or supreme king, had his principal seat at Scone in the district of Gowry.

[Sidenote: Seven provinces in the tenth century.]

The old descriptions then give us another legendary version of these seven provinces, which the author says were described to him by Andrew, bishop of Caithness, a Scotsman by birth, and a monk of Dunfermlyn, who flourished at the time it was compiled, viz., in the first year of the reign of William the Lion; and if the first account applies to the Pictish kingdom prior to the ninth century, it is equally clear that this latter account must be referred to the kingdom of Alban or Scotia which succeeded it, for it omits altogether the province of Cathanesia, which had now passed into the possession of the Norwegians, and substitutes for it a province termed Argathelia, which must have included within its bounds the territory which had formed the ancient Scottish kingdom of Dalriada.

The bishop describes the provinces more by their natural boundaries than by the two large districts included in each. According to his account, the first kingdom or province extended from that great water, termed in Scotch _Froch_, that is, Forth, in British or Welsh _Werid_, in Roman (by which he evidently means Anglic) _Scottewatre_, or the Scottish Water, which divides the kingdoms of Scotland and England, and flows past the town of Strivelin or Stirling, as far as that other great river which is called Tae, or the Tay. This province corresponds in extent with the third province of the first list, which includes Stratherne and Menteath. His second province extends to _Hilef_, as the sea encircles it till it reaches a mountain on the north plain of _Strivelin_ or Stirling, which is called _Athrin_, by which Athrie in the gorge of the Ochils can alone be meant. The district of Gowry is situated between the river Tay and the Isla, if that river be meant by the _Hilef_, but its eastern boundary is the small stream called the Liff, which is believed to have been formerly the channel through which the Isla reached the sea instead of flowing into the Tay, and that part of this province which is encircled by the sea points plainly to the great peninsula between the Firths of Tay and Forth. This province, therefore, does not entirely correspond with any of the provinces in the first list, but is formed of its fourth province of Fife and Fothreve, with the addition of Gowry. The bishop’s third province extends from Hilef to the Dee, and corresponds with the first province in the first list, containing the district of Angus and Mearns. His fourth province extends from the Dee to that great and wonderful river termed the _Spe_ or Spey, the greatest and best of all Scotia. This province, therefore, corresponds with the fifth province in the first list containing Mar and Buchan. The fifth province extended from the Spey to the mountain _Bruinalban_ or Breadalbane, and corresponds with that part of the second province of the first list termed _Adtheodle_ or Atholl. The sixth province is Muref and Ros, which is the same with the sixth province in the first list; and the seventh is _Arregaithel_. The changes thus produced upon the provincial distribution of the population by the formation of the kingdom of Alban or Scotia in the ninth century were, first, that in place of the province of Fife and Fothreve, we now find a larger province, including Gowry, with Scone, the royal seat of the _Ardri_, or supreme king; and here, probably, the chief settlements of the Scots had been made, and the chief power and influence of the kings of Scottish race were formed. It lay between the provinces of Stratherne and Menteath or _Fortren_ on the south-west, and of Angus and Mearns or _Maghgherghinn_ on the north-east, where, during the period of this dynasty, the men of Fortren on the one hand and the men of Mearns on the other appear as a separate people, and probably represented those remains of the older population which still preserved a separate existence.

The separation of Atholl from Gowry, and the fact that the first five provinces are described by their natural boundaries, while the sixth retains its older designation of Muref and Ros, rather points to the great mountain barrier which separates the Highlands from the Lowlands now assuming greater significance in the tribal distribution, the population within it being less affected by the change of dynasty and retaining more of their older constitution. Thus we find at this period the older title of _Ri_ or king still appearing in the province of Moray only.[46]

The great change, however, in this list is the disappearance of Cathanesia or Caithness and Sutherland from the provinces, and the substitution of Arregaithel for it. The former had become in the tenth century a possession of the Norwegian Jarls of Orkney, and the separate petty kingdom of Dalriada had ceased to exist. The name of Arregaithel, however, must not be held as synonymous with that of Dalriada, but appears to have been applied to a much larger district than that which formed that small kingdom. In a former part of the description, the author terms it the principal or largest part of the country on its west side, over against the Irish Sea, and talks of the mountains which separate it from Scotia; and we can see from the references to it in one of the statutes of William the Lion, in the first year of whose reign this description was written, that it comprised, in fact, the entire western seaboard of Scotland, and included not only the territory which had formed the kingdom of Dalriada, but also the western districts of the province of Moray and Ross. In this statute a distinction is drawn between the country situated between the Forth, the river Spey, and Drumalban, and the districts beyond these limits, which consist of Moravia or Moray, Ros, Katanes or Caithness, Ergadia, and Kintyre. Ergadia here is merely the Latin form of _Arregaithel_, and Kintyre had been separated from it when the Western Isles were ceded in the end of the eleventh century to Magnus, king of Norway, who, by a stratagem, included it in the Norwegian kingdom of the Isles. We find, however, in the same statute ‘Ergadia which belongs to Scotia’ or the southern part of it, distinguished from ‘Ergadia which belongs to Moravia,’ or that part which formed the western districts of Moray; and in a charter by King Robert the Bruce reviving the old earldom of Moravia, it is said to extend to the boundary of ‘northern Ergadia, which belongs to the Earl of Ross.’[47]

The author of the description, who is usually supposed to have been Giraldus Cambrensis, but whose etymologies show him to have been evidently a Welshman and acquainted with the Welsh language, gives us four interpretations of the name Arregaithel. He says it is so called as ‘the margin of the Scots or Irish,’ for all the Irish and Scots are generally called Gattheli, from their original leader _Gaithelglas_; or because the Scotti Picti first peopled it after their return from Ireland;[48] or because the Irish occupied these parts after the Picts; or, what is more certain, because that part of the country of Scotia is more closely connected with the country of Ireland.

In the Irish Annals the form of the name is _Airergaidhel_, _Airer_ signifying a district.[49] The Scotch form is _Earrgaoidheal_ from _Earr_, a limit or boundary, and this approaches most nearly to the form of the name in the old description, with its etymology of margin or limit of the Gael. The oldest name is that probably in the Albanic Duan, where it is termed _Oirir Alban_, or the coast lands of Alban, from _Oirthir_, a coast or border; and we find the name _Oirir_ applied to it in the Book of Clanranald, which distinguishes the _Oirir a tuath_, or northern Oirir, and the _Oirir a deas_, or the southern Oirir, from each other. The name given to this district by the Norwegians was _Dali_ or _Dalir_, the Dales, and Somerled, the Regulus of Arregaithel, and his family, are termed in the Orkneyinga Saga the _Dalveria Aett_, or family of the Dales.[50]

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

Such being the territorial divisions of Scotland at this period, we find, in place of each province being under the rule of a _Ri_ or king, with a subordinate division under a sub-king that, with the exception of _Arregaithel_ or Argyll, the rulers of the whole of these districts now bear the name of Mormaer or great Maer or Steward, while the Mormaer of Moreb or Moray appears occasionally under the title of _Ri_ or king. These Mormaers held a position in the scale of power and dignity inferior only to the _Ardri_ or supreme king. Thus, in narrating the great battle fought in 918 between the Danes and the people of Alban, in the reign of Constantin, son of Aedh, king of Alban, the Irish Annals tell us that neither their king nor any of their Mormaers fell by him;[51] and the Pictish Chronicle mentions in the same reign the death of Dubucan, son of Indrechtaig, Mormaer Ængusa, or of Angus.[52] In 965 Dubdon Satrapas Athochlach, that is, Governor of Athole, by which title the Mormaer is probably meant, fell in battle, according to the Pictish Chronicle. The same chronicle records in the reign of Cullen, who died in 970, the death of Maelbrigdi, son of Dubucan the Mormaer of Angus; and in 976 Tighernac tells us that three Mormaers of Alban, whose names he gives us as Cellach son of Findgaine, Cellach son of Baredha, and Duncan son of Morgaind, took part in a foray by one of the petty kings of Ireland against another.[53]

The reign of Malcolm the Second, who ascended the throne in 1004, and whose thirty years’ rule over Alban was distinguished by the acquisition of the cismarine territories south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, throws still further light upon the position of these provincial rulers. In the early part of his reign the great conflict took place between the Danes of Dublin and the native Irish under their great king Brian Boroimhe, which was to determine whether the Galls or foreign hordes of Scandinavia or the native Gaedheal were to retain possession of Ireland; a conflict terminated in favour of the Gaedheal when the battle of Clontarf was won in the year 1014 by Brian, the _Ardri_, or supreme king of Ireland, though, like some other victorious generals, he lost his own life in the struggle. In this great conflict we find the people of the provinces taking part on both sides; those in the possession of the Norwegians siding with the Danes, and those under native rule taking part with King Brian. To the assistance of the Danes came Sigurd, Norwegian Earl of Orkney, with the host of the Orkneys and of the Norwegian Islands, the Galls or Norwegians of Caithness and Mann. Skye, Lewis, Kintyre, and _Oirergaidhel_ or Argyll, are especially mentioned as being on the Danish side. On the other hand, ten Mormaers followed Brian with foreign auxiliaries, who probably represented the districts in Alban under native rule, and the leading man among them appears to have been Donald, son of Eimin, son of Cainnech, Mormaer of Mar, who fell in the battle of Clontarf.[54]

In this reign the Mormaers of Moreb or Moray come very prominently forward, and show us the title hereditarily borne by a very powerful family, which eventually placed two of its members on the throne. The first who appears is Findlaec the son of Ruadri, Mormaer Moreb, whose death is recorded at 1020, when he was slain by the sons of his brother Maelbrigdi. This Findlaec is obviously the Finnleikr Jarl who is mentioned in one of the Norse Sagas as defending his district in Scotland against Sigurd the Norwegian Jarl of Orkney, who eventually conquered Myrhaevi of Moray and Ross.[55] In 1029 the death of Malcolm, son of Maelbrigdi, son of Ruadri, is recorded, when he bears the title of Ri or king. He is obviously the son of that Maelbrigdi, the brother of Findlaec; and in 1032 Gillacomgan, son of Maelbrigdi, Mormaer of Moreb, was burnt with fifty of his men. The son of Findlaec was Macbeth, who afterwards usurped the throne of Scotland, and the son of Gillacomgan was Lulach, who succeeded him for the short space of three months.[56]

[Sidenote: Petty kings of Argyll and Galloway.]

In the same reign we find also the petty kings of _Arregaithel_ or Argyll and _Gallgaithel_ or Galloway making their first appearance. In the year 1031, when Cnut, the Danish king of England, invaded Scotland, he is said to have received the submission of Malcolm, king of the Scots, and of two other kings, Maelbaethe and Iehmarc. These kings appear to have represented the districts beyond the rivers Spey and Drumalban, which at this time formed the boundary of Scotland proper on the north-west and west; for Maelbaethe can be no other than the celebrated Macbeth, who was then Mormaer of Moreb or Moray, and Iehmarc may be identified with Imergi, who appears in the old Irish Genealogies as ancestor of Somerled the petty king of Argyll.[57] The Irish Annals record in the same year in which king Malcolm died, the death also of Suibne, son of Kenneth, Ri or king of Gallgaidel. This name, which appears to have been applied in the Irish Annals as a general name of the Gaedhel or Gael of the Western Isles and of the districts lying along the coast, who became subject to and adopted the manners of the Norwegian pirates or Galls, was, as a territorial name, used in a more restricted sense, and appropriated to the district of Galloway, a name which in its Latin form of Galwethia is derived from the Welsh equivalent of Galwyddel. The Norwegians knew it by the name of Gaddgeddla, a district said in the Orkneyinga Saga to be ‘at the place where Scotland and England meet.’[58]

[Sidenote: Jarl Thorfinn.]

On the death of Malcolm the Second in the year 1034 the dynasty of Scottish kings, which had been established on the Pictish throne nearly three centuries previously, came to an end. There appears to have been no male descendant left who could claim the crown, and the succession opened to his grandson by his eldest daughter. So far as the districts south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde were concerned, his claim was not opposed to the law of succession which previously prevailed there, and though inconsistent with the law of tanistry which regulated the succession to the crown among the Scots, it had been so far modified that the right of the heir-female to succeed in default of heirs-male appears to have been recognised in such an emergency, but the change was too recent to have acquired a firm and permanent place in the law of the country; and here the right of Duncan, the son of the eldest daughter, was contested by Thorfinn, the most powerful of the Norwegian Jarls of Orkney, whose mother was likewise a daughter of Malcolm II.; and a war of succession followed, which was terminated by the death of King Duncan in 1040. According to a contemporary writer, he was slain by the commander of his own army, Macbethad, son of Findlaech, who succeeded him.[59] This was Macbeth, the Ri or Mormaer of Moray, who appears to have treacherously joined the Norwegian Jarl and slain his king, in hopes of obtaining, with the assistance of the former, the Scottish crown.

We are told by the Orkneyinga Saga that Thorfinn then followed the routed army, and subjected the land to himself as far south as Fifi or Fife; that he drove those who resisted him to the deserts and the woods, and subdued the country wherever he went; and that till the day of his death he possessed nine jarldoms in Scotland and the whole of the Sudreys or Western Isles.[60] These jarldoms were no doubt the districts ruled by the native Mormaers, and, if his conquest embraced merely the low country as far south as Fife, the districts which he had not subjected consisted merely of the province composed of Gowry, Fife, and Fothreve, the province of Athol, and that consisting of Stratherne and Menteath. Over these, within which Scone, the capital of the kingdom, was situated, Macbeth appears to have ruled as king, while the districts of Lothian and Cumbria recognised the son of Duncan as their legitimate monarch, with the exception of the Gaelic territory of Galloway, which was under Norwegian rule.

In 1054, Malcolm, the eldest son of Duncan, who is termed by the historians son of the king of the Cumbrians, with the assistance of Siward, earl of Northumbria, drove Macbeth from his kingdom and regained possession of its capital, Scone; and on the death of Thornfinn in 1057 Macbeth was driven north and slain within no great distance from the frontier of his native province of Moray, and Malcolm’s rule was extended over the whole kingdom as its legitimate monarch. We are told in the Orkneyinga Saga that Thorfinn ‘was much lamented in his own land, but in those lands which he had subjected to himself by conquest the natives were no longer content under his government; consequently many _rikis_ which the earl had subjected fell off, and their inhabitants sought the protection of those native chiefs who were territorially born to rule over them.’[61] These _rikis_ were no doubt the districts subdued by Thorfinn, which now passed again under the rule of their native Mormaers, and it is rather remarkable that, with the exception of the districts of Stratherne and Menteath, when we can trace the position of the remaining districts, consisting of Athol, Gowry, Fife, and Fothreve, we find them in the possession of the Crown, and ruled over by members of the royal family.[62]

[Sidenote: Mormaers termed by Norwegians Jarls.]

By the Norwegians these Mormaers seem to have been viewed as holding the same position as the Norwegian Jarls, and this name is invariably given to them in the Sagas. Like them, they were viewed as the hereditary rulers of the territory with which they were connected, and as protecting the rights of the Crown within its bounds. That the office, whatever it was, was held hereditarily by the same family we see in the notices of two of these families preserved in the Pictish Chronicle and in the Irish Annals. In the one we find Dubucan, son of Indrechtaig, Mormaer of Angus, succeeded by his son Maelbrigdi; and in the other we see the family of Ruadri filling the office of Mormaer of Moray, and the succession apparently following the Irish law of tanistry, and alternating between the descendants of his two sons Maelbrigdi and Findlaec; and when this family was finally driven from the throne in the person of Lulach, the grandson of the former, we find his son Maelsnectai appearing as _Ri Muireb_ or king of Moray, from whom it passed through his sister to Ængus, termed in the Annals ‘son of the daughter of Lulaig.’[63]

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

A more complete revelation, however, is made to us with regard to the Mormaers of another district, that of Buchan, in the Book of Deer, which contains the usual memoranda of the old grants made to that monastery while still retaining its character as an old Celtic foundation. Here the names of seven of the old Mormaers during the five centuries and a half which elapsed between the foundation of the Celtic monastery in the time of Columcille and the reign of David the First are given. We are told that Bede _Cruthnech_, or the Pict, Mormaer of Buchan, gave the _cathair_ or city _Abbordoboir_, now Aberdour, on the south shore of the Moray Firth, to Columcille and Drostan, and afterwards certain lands called also a _cathair_ or city, to which Columcille gave the name of Dear. He seems to have been followed by Comgall, son of Aeda, who made a grant to Columcille and Drostan. After him we have Matan son of Cearill, Domhnall son of Giric, and Domnall son of Ruadri, but there is nothing to show what the connection of these Mormaers with each other was or when they lived, but the dignity then passes to a family called Mac Dobharcon.[64] Two brothers, Domhnall son of Mac Dobharcon, and Cainneach son of Mac Dobharcon, follow each other as Mormaers, and the latter is succeeded by his son Gartnait, who, with his wife Ete, daughter of Gillemichel, makes a grant in the eighth year of King David, that is, in 1132.

The succession among these latter Mormaers seems to follow the same rule of tanistic succession which we have seen among the Mormaers of Moray.

[Sidenote: Toisechs of Buchan.]

The same valuable record, however, makes a further revelation regarding the organisation of those districts ruled over by the Mormaers. It shows us that the next rank under the Mormaers of Buchan was held by persons termed Toisechs, who possessed a similar relation in a subordinate capacity to the land and the people. Thus we find that Bede the Pict grants Abbordoboir free from the claim of Mormaer and of Toisech, and in the grants of land by the subsequent Mormaers there is usually associated with them the Toisech as having an interest in the subject of the grant. Among these Toisechs a family descended from Morcunn or Morgan appears very prominent. Thus Comgall, son of Aeda, grants the land from Orti to Furerie, and Mondac, son of Morcunn, gave Pette mic Garnait and Achad Toche Temni, and it is added that ‘one was Mormaer and the other was Toisec.’[65] Then Cathal, son of Morcunt, gives Achadnagleree; and Domhnall mac Giric, the fourth Mormaer named, and Maelbrigdi, son of Cathal the Toisech, gives Pett in Mulenn; and finally Colban, Mormaer of Buchan, and Eva, daughter of Garnait (the previous Mormaer), his wife, and Donnachac, Toisech of the clan Morgainn, mortmained all the foregoing offerings to God, Drostan, Colcumcille, and Peter, free of all burdens except four davachs of such burdens as come upon chief residences of Alban and chief churches. Among the witnesses to this grant are Morgunn and Gillepetair, sons of Donnachach, and others who are called _Maithi_, that is, good men or nobles of Buchan. Another family of Toisechs which appears is that descended from Batni. Thus Matan, son of Cairill, who is the third-named Mormaer, gives the Mormaer’s share in Altere, now Altrie; and Culi, son of Batni, gives the Toisech’s share. Then Domhnall, son of Ruadri, the fifth-named Mormaer, and Malcolm, son of Culi, give Bidhen, now Biffie; and here the king comes in as also possessing rights in these lands, for Malcolm, son of Cinaetha, or Malcolm II., gives the king’s share in Bidhen, Pett mic Gobroig, and the two davachs of Upper Rosabard. Then Domhnall, son of Mac Dubhacinn, mortmains all these offerings to Drostan upon giving the whole of them to him, and Cathal mortmains in the same way his Toisech’s share. They also give Eddarun, and Cainnech, son of Mac Dobharcon, and the same Cathal give Alterin of Ailvethenamone; and then it is added Cainnech, Domhnall, and Cathal mortmained all these offerings free from Mormaer and Toisech. It is unnecessary to notice the other grants further than that Comgall, son of Cainnaig, Toisech of Clan Canan, gives certain lands free from Toisech. Thus in the organisation of these districts we find a gradation of persons possessing territorial rights within them, consisting of the Ardri or supreme king, the Mormaer, and the Toisech, and the latter of these appears as not only possessing rights in connection thawith the land, but also standing in a relation to the tribe or clan which occupied them as their leader.[66] The same record discloses a similar connection between the Mormaer and the land in the person of two of the Mormaers of Moray. Thus Malcolm, the son of Ruadri, who died in 1029, gives the Delerc, and Malsnectai, the son of Lulach, the successor of Macbeth as usurper of the throne, gives Pettmalduib to Drostan. These lands were probably within the province of Moray ruled by them, and we are told by the Saxon Chronicle that ‘in 1078 King Malcolm won the mother of Maelslaht or Maelsnectai and all his best men,’ an expression similar to that of the _Maithi_ or good men of Buchan, which, as we have seen, included the Toisech ‘and all his treasure and his cattle,’ and he himself escaped with difficulty. His death as _Ri Moreb_, or king of Moray, is recorded, as we have seen, in 1080.

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

On the death of Eadgar, the successor of Malcolm III., his brother Alexander the First ruled as king over Scotland proper, while Lothian and Cumbria or Strathclyde fell to his brother David. From the time when the Celtic king Malcolm had married the Saxon princess Margaret there had been an increasing Saxon influence in the government of the Celtic provinces; and when his sons by that princess had been firmly established on the throne by foreign aid, in opposition to the attempt of their father’s brother to maintain his right under the older law of succession, with the assistance of the Gaelic population, and found their chief support in the Anglic population of Lothian and the Merse, the reigns of Eadgar and Alexander the First must be viewed as essentially those of Saxon monarchs modelling their kingdom in accordance with Saxon institutions; while the object of David from the first, both while he governed the southern districts as earl and the whole of Scotland as king, was to introduce the feudal system of Norman England into Scotland, and adapt her institutions to feudal forms.

The charters of Eadgar relate mainly to land south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and we find that the immediate dependants of the Court, who formed the witnesses to these charters, were certainly Saxons; and when Alexander the First founded the monastery of Scone after the attempt made upon his life by the Gaelic population of the northern provinces, we find that the foundation charter is framed upon the model of the Saxon charters. Like the latter, which were granted with the assent of the members of the Witenagemot, who subscribe the charter as consenting parties with the designation of Episcopus and Abbas if churchmen, and of Comes or Dux if earls, without the addition of the diocese, monastery, or earldom with which they were connected; so we find this charter granted with the consent of nine persons, two of whom have the simple designation of Episcopus, who are followed by seven others, six of whom have the word Comes or Earl after their names; and the only one who is not so designated is Gospatrick, whom we know to have been at the time Earl of Dunbar, and who probably represented that part of Lothian attached to Alexander’s kingdom. The other six must of course have represented the districts of transmarine Scotland, which properly formed Alexander’s dominions. We thus find in his reign a body constituted somewhat similarly to that portion of the Witenagemot of the Saxon monarchs, and exercising similar functions.[67] The six persons, however, who bear the title of Comes are Beth, Mallus, Madach, Rothri, Gartnach, and Dufagan, and of these we can identify four. Mallus is undoubtedly the Mallus Comes Stradarniæ or Earl of Stratherne, who took such a prominent part in the Battle of the Standard.[68] Madach is that Maddach, _Jarl of Atjoklum_, or Earl of Atholl, said in the Orkneyinga Saga to be the son of Melkolfr or Melmare, brother of Malcolm the Third.[69] Rothri appears in a charter in the Book of Deer, granted in the eighth year of King David, as Ruadri, Mormaer of Mar; and Gartnach is the Gartnait, son of Cainnech, Mormaer of Buchan, who grants the charter. The remaining two, Beth and Dufagan, cannot be identified with certainty, but the resemblance of the name of the latter to Dubican, who appears at an earlier date as Mormaer of Angus, leads to the supposition that he may have filled that position. At all events there is enough to show that the six persons who appear with the title of Comes as representing the districts north of the Firths, were the same persons whom we have hitherto found in connection with these districts bearing the title of Mormaer; and thus the great Celtic chiefs of the country, to whom the Norwegians applied the Norwegian title of Jarl, which was a personal dignity though given in connection with a territory, now appear bearing the Saxon title of Comes or Earl, and the Celtic title of Mormaer, probably official in its origin, was now merged in a personal dignity.[70]

In one of the earliest charters in King David’s reign, we find a slight change in the position of these _comites_. It is the first of David’s charters to the monastery of Dunfermline, and in this charter five bishops appear who alone prefix to their names the word ‘Ego,’ and add the title of Episcopus simply with the word confirmed; and then follows a list of names of persons who are said to be ‘hujus privilegii testes et assertores,’ and these are headed by five earls—viz., Ed Comes, Constantinus Comes, Malise Comes, Rotheri Comes, and Madeth Comes.[71] The last three are obviously the same with three of the earls who subscribe the Scone charter, and who, we have seen, had been Mormaers of Stratherne, Mar, and Atholl. Constantin appears in a subsequent charter, where King David grants to Dunfermlin ‘the whole shyre of Kirkcaldy, which Earl Constantine held from them by force, in perpetual charity,’ and this charter is simply witnessed by three bishops and three earls—viz., Madeth Comes, Malis Comes, Head Comes.[72] Constantin, however, appears in two documents in the Chartulary of St. Andrews, in which he is described as Earl of Fife. In the first, which is the memorandum of the grant by Edelrad, son of Malcolm, king of Scotland, abbot of Dunkeld, and also Earl of Fife, of the lands of Admore, it is said to have been confirmed by his brothers David and Alexander ‘in presentia multorum virorum fide dignorum scilicet Constantini Comitis de Fyf viri discretissimi.’ The second is a perambulation of the boundaries of Kirkness and Lochore, when the king sends his messengers through the province of Fyf and Fothrithi, and summons many of their people in one place—viz., Constantinem Comitem de Fyf virum discretum et facundum cum satrapys et satellitibus et exercitu de Fyf et Macbeath Thaynetum de Falleland (Falkland), etc. The dispute is then referred to ‘tres viros legales et idoneos,’ the first of whom is ‘Constantinus Comes de Fyf magnus judex in Scotia.’[73] We thus see that one of the principal functions of these old Mormaers, who now appear as comites or earls, was judicial, and it is probable that the title of Magnus judex, or great judge, given to Constantin, is simply the Latin equivalent of the Celtic title of Mormaer, or great maer, and by the ‘satrapes,’ probably the same persons are meant who appear in the Book of Deer with the Celtic title of Toiseach. The ‘Ed comes’ who precedes Constantin in the first of King David’s charters may possibly be the same person as the ‘Head comes’ who witnesses the second, but neither can be identified.[74]

During the entire reign of David the First these earls appear simply with the designation of Comes without any territorial addition, with two exceptions, which occur towards the end of his reign. In the earliest charter the earls who witness it, among whom is Constantin, are followed by other witnesses, partly officers of state, as the chancellors, partly Norman barons, and a few Celtic names which have no designation, and the first witness who follows the earls and precedes the chancellor is Gillemichel Makduf. In the foundation charter of Holyrood, granted not long after, he follows the chancellor and the chamberlain as Gillemichel Comes, and in a subsequent charter to Dunfermline he again precedes them as Gillemichel Comes de Fif. In a charter in the Book of Deer, which must have been granted in the last year of David’s reign, the earl who succeeded Gillemichel appears as Dunchad, Comes de Fif, and along with him, for the first time, appears Gillebride, Comes de Angus. Gillemichel has usually been supposed to be the son of Constantin, but this has arisen solely from the preconceived notion that all the ancient Earls of Fife bore the name of Macduff. There is, however, no evidence of any connection between them, and it is obviously quite inconsistent with the character of their appearance as witnesses in the same charter.

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

There is no doubt that David’s object, on his accession to the throne, was to feudalise the whole kingdom, by importing feudal forms and feudal holdings into it, and to place the leading dignitaries of the kingdom in the position of Crown vassals, as well as to introduce a Norman baronage. The relation of those old Celtic earls or Mormaers towards the Crown on the one hand, had hitherto been purely official, and that towards the districts with which their names were connected was not a purely territorial one. It was more a relation towards the tribes who peopled it than towards the land. David’s desire, certainly, would be to place them, whenever opportunity offered in the position of holding the land they were officially connected with as an earldom of the Crown in chief, in the same manner as the barons held their baronies, and in these cases he may have inaugurated the policy undoubtedly followed, as we shall see, by his successors.

Gillemichel Macduff, from his position in the earliest charter, must have held a high position as a follower of the king, and may have rendered him great services, which legend drew back to the usurpation of the throne of his ancestor Duncan by Macbeth, and led to the creation of the fictitious Macduff, who makes his first appearance in Fordun’s Chronicle, and after Constantin’s death Gillemichel may first have had the personal title of Comes or Earl bestowed upon him, and then been feudally invested with the Earldom of Fife, which thus may have become a territorial title in his person. It certainly did so in that of his successor Duncan, who received from David a charter of the earldom, which was confirmed to his successors by the subsequent kings;[75] and a similar feudal investiture of the earldom of Angus in the person of Gillibride may have added that old Celtic earldom likewise to the number, as from this time, when we find the older earldoms still conferring no territorial designation on their earls, Gillibride invariably appears along with them as Earl of Angus. During the earlier part of the reign of Malcolm IV. no change appears to have been made in the position of the existing earldoms. His first charter after his accession appears to have been his confirmation of the grants to the monastery of Dunfermline, and this charter is witnessed first by six bishops, then by twelve barons, most of whom were Normans, and other foreigners, and then by six of the earls (De Comitibus), who are thus named: Gospatricius Comes, Ferteth Comes, Duncanus Comes, Morgund Comes, Melcolmus Comes, et Comes de Engus. The five preceding earls were those of Dunbar, Stratherne, Fife, Mar, and Athol, the earl of Buchan, who would make up the number of the seven earls, not appearing among them. To this number a temporary addition was made by Malcolm, when, on making peace with Malcolm macHeth, the pretended son of Earl Angus of Moray, in 1157, he gave him the district of Ros with the title of earl; but the inhabitants soon rose against him and drove him out.

An event, however, took place soon after, which led to the policy inaugurated by David the First, of feudalising these earldoms, being resumed by Malcolm and still further carried out by his successor. This was the attack made upon the king by six of the old Celtic earls, when, under the leadership of Ferteth, earl of Stratherne, they besieged him in Perth in the year 1160. Fordun, quoting from the Chronicle of Melrose, says, ‘Six earls—Ferchard, Earl of Stratherne, to wit, and five other earls—being stirred up against the king, not to compass any selfish end, or through treason, but rather to guard the common weal, sought to take him, and laid siege to the keep of that town (Perth). God so ordering it, however, their undertaking was brought to nought for the nonce, and after not many days had rolled by, he was, by the advice of the clergy, brought back to a good understanding with his nobles.’[76] An expression in the Orkneyinga Saga would lead us to infer that the object of the six Celtic earls was to put up the young son of William Fitz Duncan, who was usually called the Boy of Egremont, and as grandson of King Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm III. by Ingibiorg, widow of Earl Thorfinn of Orkney, had a direct claim to the throne, which would commend itself both to the Gaelic and to the Norwegian population in preference to the descendants of the Saxon princess Margaret.[77] Wyntoun gives us the following account of this occurrence:—

A mayster-man called Feretawche, Wyth Gyllandrys Ergemawche, And other mayster-men thare fyve, Agayne the king than ras belyve; For caws that the past till Twlows, Agayne hym thai ware all irows: Forthi thai set thame hym to ta In till Perth, or than hym sla. But the kyng rycht manlyly Swne skalyd all that cumpany, And tuk and slwe.[78]

Wyntoun here associates with the five earls who followed Ferteth, the Earl of Stratherne, Gillandrys Ergemawche. If two persons are meant, Ergemawche may be a corruption of Egremont, and Gillandres may have represented the old Celtic earls of Ross, as the clan bearing the name of Ross are called in Gaelic _Clan Ghilleanrias_, or descendants of Gillandres, and may have led the revolt which drove Malcolm macHeth out of the earldom.

[Sidenote: Creation of additional earldoms.]

Each of the seven provinces of Scotland consisted, as we have seen, of two districts, and we find a Mormaer ruling over each: but when they appear in the reign of Alexander the First, under the name of Comes or Earl, we find the number reduced to six; and with the exception of the province consisting of the two districts of Mar and Buchan, each of which is represented by an earl, the other provinces appear with one of its two districts possessing an earl, and the other remaining unrepresented. It was these six earls, no doubt, who formed the party who attacked the king in Perth, and one feature of the new policy appears to have been to increase their number by appointing new earls to the vacant districts, who were feudally invested with their earldoms, and thus introducing a large feudal element into the old Celtic earldoms, while those which retained their original character would be gradually feudalised as opportunity offered. Malcolm had thus restored one of these vacant districts when he made Malcolm macHeth Earl of Ross; and when that earl was driven out by the inhabitants, he endeavoured to connect it still more closely with the Crown, by giving the earldom to Florence, Count of Holland, in marriage with his sister Ada in 1162, but this grant, too, did not practically take effect.[79] Two years after he added another in the district of Menteath, which, along with Stratherne, formed one of the old provinces of Scotland. ‘Gillechrist, Comes de Menteth,’ makes his first appearance as witness in a charter granted by King Malcolm to the canons of Scone in 1164; and in the same charter we have Gillebride Comes de Angus and Malcolm Comes appearing for the first time with the territorial designation of ‘De Ethoel.’

The policy thus inaugurated by David the First as entering into his plan for transforming the old Celtic kingdom of the Scots into a feudal monarchy, and to some extent carried out by Malcolm the Fourth, was still more vigorously prosecuted by his successor William the Lion; and we find that during his reign he converted two of the old earldoms into feudal holdings, that a third had passed by gift and a fourth by succession into the hands of Norman barons, and that he added four new earldoms to the number.

[Sidenote: Earldom of Mar.]

We have seen that during the reign of Alexander the First and the early part of the reign of David, Ruadri or Rotheri, who had been Mormaer of Mar, appears witnessing the royal charters, with the personal title of Comes or Earl. He was followed, during the latter part of the reign of David and during that of his successor Malcolm IV., by Morgundus or Morgund, who also bears the personal title of Comes or Earl; but in the early part of the reign of William the Lion, when the territorial designations became more common, he is superseded by a certain Gilchrist, Earl of Mar, and Gilchrist, in his turn, makes way in 1171 for Morgund again. The explanation of this apparent contest for the position of earl is furnished us by the controversy which afterwards took place between the family of De Lundin, who were the kings hereditary _Hostiarii_ or doorkeepers, and from that office took the name of Doorward or Durward. It appears from this controversy that Morgund was alleged to be illegitimate, and King William had probably taken advantage of this flaw in his title to break the succession of the old Celtic earls by recognising Gilchrist, the next lawful heir, as earl. This Gilchrist had married Orabilis, the daughter of Ness, son of William, one of the foreign settlers in Fife, and his daughter was the mother of Thomas de Lundin, the king’s Hostiary or Doorward, and carried the claims of the lawful heirs into this family.[80] It is probable, however, that this illegitimacy, though possibly well founded according to the canon law, was not recognised as such by the Celtic customs, and an arrangement seems to have been come to by which Morgund agreed to receive from the king the investiture of the earldom as a feudal holding, while the claims of the rival party were satisfied by a large tract of land between the rivers Dee and Don, which was withdrawn from the earldom and became the property of the Durwards. There is preserved a deed by King William, in which he narrates that Morgund, son of Gillocher, formerly Earl of Mar, appeared before him in June 1171 and was invested with the earldom of Mar, in which his father had died vest and seized, and which was now granted to him and his heirs whatsoever.[81] It may perhaps be doubted whether this is an original deed; but there can be little doubt that it contains the record of a real transaction by which the earldom was converted into a purely feudal holding, which, like all such holdings created at this time, was descendible to heirs-female.

[Sidenote: Earldoms of Garvyach and Levenach.]

The policy followed by King William, with regard to these earldoms, was checked for a time by the unfortunate result of his attempt in 1174 to recover possession of the northern provinces of England, when he was taken prisoner, and only recovered his liberty by surrendering the independence of his kingdom; but soon after his liberation, when he returned to Scotland, he appears to have created two new earldoms, which he bestowed upon his brother David. The first was the earldom of Garvyach or Garrioch in Aberdeenshire, formed from the districts surrounding the ancient fortification of Dunideer, and extending between the river Don and its tributary the Ury. The second was the earldom of Levenach or Lennox, and consisted of the northern part of the old Cumbrian kingdom, which appears to have received a Gaelic population, and is nearly represented by the county of Dumbarton.[82] These districts were probably at the time in the hands of the Crown. The earldom of Garvyach passed on David’s death to his son John the Scot, after whose death it again reverted to the Crown, and was eventually granted as a lordship to the earls of Mar. The earldom of Levenach does not appear to have remained long in Earl David’s possession, as we find it emerging in the possession of a line of Celtic earls, the first of whom, Aluin, must have received it as early as the year 1193. Earl David was invested with the English earldom of Huntingdon on the death of its then possessor, Simon de Senlis, in 1184; and it is probable that on that occasion he resigned the earldom of Lennox in favour of the head of its Gaelic population.[83]

[Sidenote: Earldoms of Ross and Carrick.]

In 1179 William the Lion brought the people of Ross under more complete subjection to the Crown, and built two royal castles within its bounds, but he appears to have retained the earldom in his own hands, as the Count of Holland complains that he had been deprived of it, although he had never been forfeited. His grievance was probably not a very substantial one, as it is very unlikely that he either had obtained or could obtain practical possession of it. Seven years after the king formed a second earldom out of the territory of the old Cumbrian kingdom, at its southwestern extremity, where it bordered upon the Gaelic district of Galloway, and appears to have received a Gaelic population from thence. This was the district of Carrick, which he bestowed as an earldom upon Duncan, son of Gilbert, and grandson of Fergus, the Celtic Lord of Galloway.

[Sidenote: Earldom of Caithness.]

Ten years after this he took advantage of the slaughter of the bishop of Caithness by the Norwegian earl of Orkney and Caithness, to extend his power over that district likewise, and to reduce its earl to submission. Harald, the earl at this time, was not a very distant relation of the king by paternal descent, being the son of Madach, earl of Atholl, whose father was a brother of Malcolm the Third, but he inherited the earldom of Orkney to which Caithness at this time was attached, through his mother, Margaret, the daughter of a previous earl, of Norwegian descent, and he had married a daughter of Malcolm MacHeth, the so-called earl of Moray, and was thus associated with that family in their opposition to the Crown. The result of two separate invasions of Caithness by the royal army was, that Caithness, north of the great range called the Ord of Caithness, was eventually restored to Earl Harald, to be held by him on payment to the Crown of a large sum of money; while the district south of that range, which has the Norwegian name of Sudrland or Sutherland, was retained by the king, and bestowed upon Hugo, a scion of the house of De Moravia, as a lordship, and eventually made an earldom in the person of his son William. Before the death of William one of the old Celtic earldoms had passed by succession into the hands of a foreign baron, for William Cumyn, the head of the Norman house of that name, became possessed of the earldom of Buchan by his marriage with Marjory, daughter of Fergus, the last of the Celtic earls.

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

Alexander the Second, the successor of William, followed out the same policy, but during his reign, notwithstanding the increase in the number of the earldoms, and the feudalisation of some of the older ones, we find the seven earls of Scotland frequently making their appearance, apparently as a constitutional body whose privileges were recognised. They first appear as taking an important part in the coronation of Alexander as king of Scotland, and then consisted of the earls of Fife, Stratherne, Atholl, Angus, Menteath, Buchan, and Lothian.[84] With the exception of Menteath, which was a more recent earldom, these are the same earldoms whose earls gave their consent to the foundation charter of Scone; but Menteath comes now in place of Mar, perhaps owing to the controversy as to the rightful possessor of the latter earldom, and Buchan was, as we have seen, now held by a Norman baron.

Another of these ancient earldoms, however, soon after terminated in the male line, and this raised a question which throws some light upon their character and relation to the law of feudal tenures. When Fergus, the last of the old Celtic earls of Buchan, died in the end of King William’s reign, there seems to have been no doubt that the earldom devolved upon his daughter Marjory, which she carried to her husband, William Cumyn; but when Henry, the last of the old Earls of Atholl, died, soon after the accession of Alexander the Second, his heirs were two sisters, Isabella and Forflissa, and the question at once arose whether the earldom was partible between them, as was the case with any feudal barony, or whether it devolved in its entirety upon the elder sister, Isabella, who had married Thomas of Galloway, brother of Alan, Lord of Galloway. This question, and the decision of the _Curia regis_ or royal court, consisting of the tenants in chief of the Crown, are incidentally mentioned when the same discussion took place before Edward the First between three of the competitors for the crown on the death of the Maid of Norway. These were John Baliol, who claimed as grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon; Robert de Bruce, who claimed as son of his second daughter Isabella; and John de Hastings, as grandson of Ada, the youngest daughter. The competition for the crown came eventually to be between Baliol, who claimed as representing Earl David through his eldest daughter, and Bruce, who asserted that being his grandson he was one step nearer, and should be preferred to his great-grandson, notwithstanding that he was thus connected through the second daughter. John de Hastings, who, like Baliol, stood only in the relation of great-grandson, admitted the right of the latter to the throne, if the kingdom was maintained in its entirety, but asserted that being held under the English Crown, it was partible like any other feudal holding, and that he ought to be preferred to one-third of the territory of the kingdom; and Robert Bruce put in a further claim, that in the event of his right to the whole being rejected, he was likewise entitled to one-third. His argument was this—‘The land of Scotland, albeit it is called a kingdom, ought to be partible, by reason that the event which has now happened to Scotland, seeing that it is held in fee of our lord the king of England by homage, is no other than similar to what it would have been as to an earldom or a barony of the realm of England which had descended in such case. And if an earldom or barony had descended to three daughters, with the issue of them, each would have her purpart, seeing that the three daughters represent but one heir of all the heritage of their father; so that no advantage ought to accrue unto the eldest, or unto the issue of her, except solely the name of the dignity, and especially of the chief messuage.’[85] The king of England referred this question to the eighty Scotch arbiters, who had been elected by the parties, who were asked to decide—‘first, whether the kingdom of Scotland is partible; second, although it be that the kingdom is not partible, whether the lands acquired and the escheats are partible or not. The third, whether the earldoms and the baronies of the kingdom are partible of right; and the fourth, seeing that the kingdom is not partible, in case the right to the kingdom falls to daughters, whether any consideration ought to be paid to the younger ones, by reason of the equality of right which descended to all, as though in acknowledgment of their right,’ This discussion only bears upon our subject in so far as it affects the position in this respect of the old earldoms, and it is unnecessary to refer to the answers of the arbiters, except to the third and fourth questions. ‘To the third they say that an earldom in the kingdom of Scotland is not partible; and this was found by judgment in the Court of the king of Scotland as to the earldom of Astheles, or Atholl; but as to baronies, they say that they are partible. To the fourth they say that as to a kingdom they never saw the like; but if an earldom falls to daughters in Scotland, the eldest takes it wholly. But if either of the other sisters has not been provided for, in the life of the father, it is proper that the eldest, who takes the inheritance, makes her a payment and assignment. And this is of grace, not of right.’[86]

They thus adopt the argument of Robert the Bruce as to baronies but not as to earldoms. It is, however, unlikely that the eighty arbiters, forty of whom were named by Baliol and forty by Bruce, should have been unanimous in rejecting the claim of the latter; and the qualification contained in the fourth answer has much the appearance of a compromise between two conflicting views, and like most compromises is inconsistent with the grounds upon which either must be based. In point of fact both views had a substance of truth in them. So far as the old Celtic earldoms of the kingdom were concerned, the arbiters pronounced a correct judgment, for such earldoms were rather official and personal than territorial dignities, and the territory of the earldom, which afterwards formed its demesne, was more of the nature of mensal land appropriated to the support of the dignity. The decision, founded on as having been given by the court of the king, that the earldom of Atholl was not partible, must have reference to that time when the last Celtic earl was represented by two co-heirs, and it appears to have been viewed as being governed by Celtic and not by feudal law. Hence the eldest sister, Isabella, was held to have right to the whole earldom.[87] Isabella married Thomas de Galloway, brother of Alan, Lord of Galloway, by whom she had a son, Patrick; and after her first husband’s death, in 1232, Alan de Lundin, the Hostiarius or Doorward, and one of the most powerful barons of the time, appears as earl of Atholl, from which we may infer that he had married the widow, and held the title during her life. Patrick, the young earl, was, on his accession, miserably burnt to death at Haddington in the year 1242, and then we are told the earldom passed to his aunt Forflissa, who had married David de Hastings, a Norman baron.[88]

While the succession to the earldom of Atholl thus shows the light in which the ancient Celtic earldoms were regarded, and the position they occupied in the eye of the common law of the land, those which had been either feudalised or created by the districts being erected into earldoms by the Crown, were in no different position from an ordinary barony, and were regulated by the feudal law, which was correctly laid down by Bruce, the lands being partible between co-heirs, but the dignity and the chief messuage belonging to the eldest co-heir. Of the former we have an example in the earldom of Caithness, which had become feudalised after the war between William the Lion and Harald, who, though of Scottish descent, had inherited through a Norwegian mother. On the death of John, earl of Caithness, the last of this line, in 1231, the title of earl passed with only one half of the lands of the earldom to Magnus, a son of the earl of Angus, while we find the other half of the earldom in the possession of the family of De Moravia, and on the death of the last earl of the Angus line this half was again divided, and Malise, earl of Stratherne, became earl of Caithness, possessing, however, one-fourth only of the lands of the earldom.[89] In the same manner, when the earldom of Buchan, which had passed by marriage into the hands of the Norman family of Cumyn, was forfeited to the Crown, and the last earl was represented by two co-heirs, one-half of the lands of the earldom was given by King Robert Bruce to Sir John de Ross, son of the earl of Ross, who had married the younger daughter; and the other half, with the title of earl, was afterwards conferred upon Sir Alexander Stuart, second son of King Robert II.

Of the additional earldoms which had been created by the Crown and added to the older earldom, the earliest, that of Menteath, affords an example. This earldom, like that of Buchan, had passed by marriage into the hands of a Cumyn, and Walter Cumyn is termed Earl of Menteath as early as the year 1255. On his death in 1257 his widow married John Russell, an unknown Englishman, and the nobles of Scotland, irritated at this, accused her of the murder of her former husband, and imprisoned both her and her second husband. Walter Stewart then claimed the earldom in right of his wife, and by the favour of the nobles obtained it. On the death of the first Countess her right passed to William Cumyn, who had married her daughter, and a controversy arose between him and Walter Stewart, which terminated in the title being confirmed to the latter, with one half of the earldom, while the other half was erected into a barony in favour of William Cumyn. The partition at a later period of the earldom of Lennox, another of these created earldoms, likewise affords an example.

Such being the distinction between the old Celtic earldoms represented by the seven earls and those subsequently constituted, we learn also from the discussions which took place in the competition for the crown somewhat of the rights which they claimed as their privilege; for among the documents still preserved connected with the competition is an appeal on behalf of the seven earls of the kingdom of Scotland to Edward I., in which it is stated that, ‘according to the ancient laws and usage of the kingdom of Scotland, and from the time whereof the memory of man was not to the contrary, it appertained to the rights and liberties of the seven earls of Scotland and the “communitas” of the same realm, whenever the royal throne should become vacant _de facto et de jure_, to constitute the king, and to place him in such royal seat, and to confer upon him all the honours belonging to the government of the kingdom of Scotland.’[90] And this function we find them evidently performing at the coronation of Alexander the Second.

[Sidenote: Province of Argyll.]

The only one of the seven provinces which was required to be brought into more direct connection with the Crown was the great district of _Arregaithel_ or Argyll, and early in his reign Alexander annexed the northern part to the earldom of Ross, and placed that earldom in possession of a devoted adherent of his person. The district forming what was then called North Argyll consisted in a great measure of the territory of the old and powerful Celtic monastery of Apercrossan, and had passed into the hands of a family of hereditary lay abbots, who termed themselves _Sagarts_ or priests of Applecross; and Ferquard Macintaggart, or the son of the _Sagart_ or priest who had aided the young king in suppressing an insurrection of the Gaelic people of Moray and Ross in support of the pretensions of the MacWilliam and MacHeth families in the early part of his reign, was now created Earl of Ross, which thus became a feudal earldom held of the Crown, by a family who were among its most loyal supporters.[91] The insurrection which took place a few years after in favour of Gillespic mac Eochagan, also of the family of MacWilliam, led to the rest of this great district being subdued and brought into the same relation with the Crown. The king, we are told by Fordun, led an army into Argyll. The men of Argyll were frightened. Some gave hostages and a great deal of money, and were taken back in peace, while others, who had more offended against the king’s will, forsook their estates and possessions and fled. But our lord the king bestowed both the land and the goods of these men upon his own followers ‘at will’; or, as Wyntoun expresses it—

‘And athe tuk off thare fewté Wyth thare serwys and thare homage, That off hym wald hald thare herytage; Bot the eshchetys off the lave To the lordys off that land he gave.’

Those who fled appear to have taken refuge in Galloway, as we find Gilescop Macihacain witnessing a charter in Galloway with a cluster of Gaelic names along with him;[92] and as one of these names can be connected with the district of Lochaber, while the family of that Roderic who joined with him in his rebellion appear to have had their main possessions in the district of Garmoran, extending from Ardnamurchan to Glenelg, the main seat of the rebellion appears to have been that central portion of the great region of Argyll which was said to pertain to Moravia or Moray, of which these districts formed a part. The native lords of this district were apparently those whom the king dispossessed, and whose possessions he gave to his own followers, and accordingly we find Lochaber soon after in the possession of the Cumyns. In South Argyll, on the other hand, the native lords appear to have submitted to the king, as the family of Dubhgal, the eldest son of Somerled, the great Celtic Lord of Argyll, seem to have remained in possession of the extensive district of Lorn; and it is at this time that we may fairly place a grant which appears to have been made of the lands in the interior which afterwards formed the lordship of Lochow to Duncan Mac Duine, the ancestor of the Campbells, a clan the head of which appears in the following reign as a close adherent of the Crown.[93]

The seven earls of Scotland appear again as a body taking part in important transactions on two different occasions in this reign. In the first, which was the agreement between the kings of England and Scotland, by which a settlement of the claims of the latter was concluded in 1237, the seven earls among others became bound by oath to maintain the agreement. These were the earls of Dunbar, of Stratherne, of Lennox, of Angus, of Mar, of Atholl, and of Ross; and here we find the earls of Lennox, of Mar, and of Ross, coming in place of those of Fife, Menteath, and Buchan; but when the agreement was renewed seven years afterwards, in 1244, the seven earls who became bound that King Alexander would observe good faith were, Patrick Earl of Dunbar, Malcolm Earl of Fife, Malise Earl of Stratherne, Walter Cumyn Earl of Menteath, William Earl of Mar, Alexander (younger) Earl of Buchan, and David de Hastings Earl of Atholl;[94] the Earls of Fife, Menteath, and Buchan again appearing among them, and those of Lennox, Angus, and Ross being omitted. We thus see that though the number of seven was always retained, the constituent members were not always the same, the latter being probably regulated by the respective positions of the earldom at the time, for in 1237 the earldom of Angus had passed by marriage into possession of one of the powerful family of Cumyn, but he had died in 1242, and the Countess of Angus had in 1243 replaced him with a Norman Baron, Gilbert de Umphraville, whom she took as her second husband.

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

In the elaborate and picturesque account which Fordun gives us of the coronation of Alexander the Third when a boy of eight years old, he does not give the seven earls, as a body, a part in the ceremonial, but simply says that the royal boy was accompanied by a number of earls, barons, and knights. The only earls he mentions by name are Walter Cumyn Earl of Menteath, Malcolm Earl of Fife, and Malise Earl of Stratherne; but it is probable that in a coronation in which the Celtic element loomed so largely, he did not intend to imply that this body did not play the same part which they did in the coronation of his father; and this we may reasonably infer, for he tells that in the second year of his reign a solemn ceremony took place at Dunfermline, when, in the presence of bishops and abbots, earls and barons, and other good men both clerics and laymen, the relics of Saint Margaret were enshrined at Dunfermline. The record of this transaction in the Chartulary of Dunfermline bears that it was done in presence of the seven bishops and seven earls of Scotland.[95] It is obvious, however, that this body of the seven earls were gradually losing their separate corporate existence, and were no longer able to maintain in this reign the functions they exercised in previous reigns; for when the succession to the throne was settled upon the daughter of Alexander in 1284, we find them merged in the general ‘communitas,’ or feudal community of the kingdom, in which the entire body of the earls, now amounting to thirteen, appear. They take a part, but apparently not an influential one, in the discussions that took place after the death of the Maid of Norway between the competitors for the crown; and probably the last attempt they made to repossess themselves of the important position they formerly occupied in the affairs of the kingdom was when in 1297 they, in conjunction with John Comyn of Badenoch, invaded England at the head of a powerful army which met in Annandale and besieged Carlisle. The seven earls engaged in this expedition were the earls of Buchan, Menteath, Stratherne, Lennox, Ross, Atholl, and Mar;[96] but the attempt resulted disastrously for them, for they were obliged to raise the siege and return to Scotland; and then again assembling at Roxburgh they made a second raid into the eastern part of England as far as the priory of Hexham, which they destroyed, and returned with a great booty to Scotland. They then besieged and took the castle of Dunbar, the earl of Dunbar having submitted to the king of England, but being besieged by the English in their turn the castle was taken, and three of the earls, viz., those of Menteath, Atholl, and Ross, were taken prisoners, with John Comyn and five other barons, with twenty-nine knights, two clerics, and eighty-three esquires, and confined in different castles in England.[97]

After this we hear no more of the seven earls of Scotland. As a constitutional body possessing, or claiming to possess, separate privileges, they are merged in the general ‘Communitas regni,’ or Estates of the kingdom, the feudal ‘Curia regis’ consisting of all who held lands in chief of the Crown. As we have seen, when the succession to the Crown was settled towards the end of the reign of Alexander the Third, they take no part as a separate body, but are merged in the general assembly of the feudal baronage of the kingdom, consisting of thirteen earls and twenty-four barons, and six years afterwards there is a still fuller representation of the Estates of the kingdom, when a letter is addressed to Edward the First by the Communitas regni urging him to arrange a marriage of his son with the Maid of Norway. The body from whom this letter proceeds consists of the two bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, John Cumyn, and James, High Steward, the guardians of the kingdom; ten diocesan bishops; twelve of the thirteen earls, the earl of Fife being then a minor; twenty-three abbots of monasteries, eleven priors, and forty-eight barons holding of the Crown.[98] Neither do they appear as a separate body in the great national protest addressed by the Communitas regni to the Pope in 1320, and signed on their behalf by eight of the earls and twenty-eight of the barons.[99]

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

The state, then, of the land, as thus exhibited to us in the reign of Alexander the Third, appears to have been this.—A large portion of the territory of the kingdom was now held in chief of the Crown by barons, very few of whom were of Celtic descent, on the feudal tenure of military service. Another portion of the territory formed the domain of the Crown. A third portion formed the territory possessed by the old earls of Scotland, and presented, in miniature, the same characteristics as the Crown land, being partly held of the earls by the vassals of the earldom, and partly forming his domain; and a very large extent of territory, probably not less than a third of the whole land, belonged to the Church, and formed the possessions either of the bishoprics, or of the great monasteries which had been founded by the kings of this dynasty, while the lands which had formed the territory of the old Celtic monasteries and had become secularised, now appear either in the possession of the Crown or of the monasteries under the name of ‘abthaniæ’ or abthainries.

In that part of Scotland which still retained, in the main, a Celtic population, we may expect to find the Celtic tenures still prevailing to a large extent, and still exhibiting many of their peculiar characteristics; but where the population had become in a large measure Teutonic, and where so much of the land was now held on feudal tenures by the great barons of the Crown, and by the Roman monastic orders, and where so many of the earldoms had passed by marriage into Norman families, it is more difficult to discover the traces of a Celtic occupation, and the peculiarities of the Celtic tenures under the feudal forms which shrouded them from observation. These we can only expect to find on that portion of land which formed the proper demesne of the Crown and of the old earls, and had been retained in their own possessions without the interposition of any feudal vassals between them and the actual occupiers of the soil.

[Sidenote: The Crown demesne.]

Of the mode in which the demesne land of the Crown was actually possessed, we have fortunately a very distinct account given to us by the old chronicler, John of Fordun. He refers it back to the period of Malcolm the Second, to whom nine spurious laws have been attributed, and supposes it to have originated with him; but this may be regarded as a mere theory, framed on the basis of the spurious history of Scotland, to account for a state of matters which existed in his own day, and we have only to separate the mythic part of his statement from what is obviously the result of his own observation. He tells us that ‘histories relate the aforesaid Malcolm to have been so open-handed, or rather prodigal, that while, according to ancient custom, he held as his own property all the lands, districts, and provinces of the whole kingdom, he kept nothing thereof in his possession but the Moothill of the royal seat of Scone, where the kings, sitting in their royal robes on the throne, are wont to give out judgments, laws, and statutes to their subjects. Of old, indeed, the kings were accustomed to grant to their soldiers in feu-farm more or less of their own lands, a portion of any province, or a thanage; for at that time almost the whole kingdom was divided into thanages. Of these he granted to each one as much as he pleased, either on lease by the year as tillers of the ground, or for ten or twenty years, or in liferent, with remainder to one or two heirs, as free and kindly tenants, and to some likewise, though few, in perpetuity, as knights, thanes, and chiefs, not however so freely, but that each of them paid a certain annual feu-duty to their lord the king,’[100]

The first or mythic part of this statement corresponds with the spurious laws of Malcolm the Second, which thus commence—‘1. King Malcolme gave and distributed all his lands of the realm of Scotland amongst his men; 2. and reserved nathing in propertie to himselfe but the Royale dignitie and the Mute hill in the town of Scone,’[101] and may be disregarded as belonging to the spurious history of Scotland. Whether there ever was a time when it could be said that the king possessed nothing but the Moothill of Scone, and in what sense it could be said that the whole kingdom was divided into thanages, and that the whole lands of the kingdom once belonged to the Crown, is a question that must be determined in the course of this inquiry; but when the old chronicler tells us by what class of persons the Crown lands were actually possessed, and by what species of tenure they held them, he is dealing with matters which still existed in his own day, and the characteristics of which he had every means of ascertaining if they were not perfectly familiar to him, and he gives us a very distinct account of them. He discriminates between three classes of persons as possessing these lands. The lowest class were the _agricolæ_ or husbandmen, the actual cultivators of the soil, who were regarded as yearly tenants, and are, no doubt, the same class with those who are termed _bondi_ and _nativi_ in feudal charters. They were, in the eastern districts, the remains of the old Celtic population. The class next above them consisted of the _liberi_ and _generosi_, who held land either on lease for ten or twenty years, or in liferent renewable for one or two lives. The former were probably equivalent to the _liberi firmarii_ or free farmers, and the latter to the Rentallers or kindly tenants of the feudal holdings. The third class, who held directly of the Crown, were either _milites_ or knights, who held a knight’s fee for military service, or _thani_, who held a thanage, or _principes_ or magnates. And he defines a thanage to be a portion of the land of a province held _ad feodofirmam_,[102] or in feu-farm, the holder of which was subject in payment of an annual ‘census’ or feu-duty. By the _principes_, he probably refers either to the Mormaers or Earls of the old Celtic earldoms, or to the position of the great Celtic vassals in the western districts as chiefs of clans.[103] Fordun was himself connected with the northern counties of Kincardine and Aberdeen, where the older holdings of the thanage still maintained their position in the greatest degree even to his own day. He was a chaplain in the diocese of Aberdeen, and the Chartulary of that bishopric has preserved to us a rental of the Crown lands in the reign of Alexander the Third, which shows their extent and the nature of the holdings. In this rental we find the lands of Aberdeen, Belhelvy, Kintore, Fermartyn, Obyne, Glendowachy, Boyn, Munbre, and Natherdale, which are termed thanages; Convalt, which is termed a ‘dominium’ or lordship; Lydgat, Uchterless, and Rothymay, called baronies; and other lands which have no particular designation, with the towns of Aberdeen, Cullen, and Banff.[104] We also learn that the upper part of the vales of the rivers Dee and Don formed the domain of the earldom of Mar, which consisted of the districts of Braemar, Strathdee, Cromar, and Strathdon, while an extensive territory on the Dee, which had formerly belonged to the earldom, was held in the reign of Alexander the Third by one of his most powerful feudal vassals, Alan the Doorward, to whose father it had been given as a compensation for a claim he had to the earldom of Mar; but though we do not find any of the lands of this earldom bearing the name of thanages, this denomination was still retained in the demesne of two of the more westerly earldoms. In Atholl we have the thanages of Glentilt, Crannich, Achmore, Candknock, while the great abthanrie of Dull belonged to the Crown; and in Stratherne we find the thanages of Strum and Dunning held under the earls, and that of Forteviot with the abthanrie of Madderdyn or Madderty in the Crown.

While in the eastern districts we find the older holdings which survived from the Celtic period though disguised under a Saxon nomenclature, which owes its origin probably to the reigns of Edgar and Alexander the First, explained in language more appropriate to feudal holdings, when we pass over to the western districts which still possessed a Celtic population where the Saxon terminology has not penetrated, we come in contact at once with the realities of the Celtic tribal system which the adoption of feudal forms little affected, and whose customs are therefore less disguised by feudal forms, while the relation of the different classes to each other, though nominally feudal, are practically tribal. Although, when the great district of Argyll was annexed to the Crown and other insurrections among the Gaelic tribes were repressed, grants of land were, to some extent, given to Norman barons, with a view to the more effectual suppression of the unruly inhabitants, they conveyed little beyond a bare feudal superiority and introduced no foreign resident element, and thus hardly influenced the Celtic tribes who remained the actual holders of the soil; and when, by the cession of the Isles in the reign of Alexander the Third, the Norwegian dominion over them was transferred to Scotland, we find that the great Celtic lords of the Southern Isles, who had held them as kings under the Norwegian Crown, retained the same position under the Scottish king. At the great meeting of the Community of Scotland, which settled the succession of the Crown in 1283, we see the heads of three great families descended from Somerled—viz. Alexander de Ergadia, Angus, son of Dovenald, and Alan, son of Rotheric—appearing among them, the first being the powerful Lord of Lorn, and the second the Lord of the Isles, while the third owned large territories both on the mainland and in the Isles.

[Sidenote: District of Argyll divided into sheriffdoms.]

One of the first acts of John Baliol, when his claim to the throne was preferred, was to assimilate the district of Argyll and the kingdom of the Isles to the system which prevailed in the rest of the kingdom, which was divided into sheriffdoms, in which the king was represented by the vicecomes or sheriff, and the Act of Parliament by which this was done will show how the land in these western regions was then held within eight years of the death of Alexander the Third.[105] By this Act, which was passed in 1292, the sheriffdom of Skye was to consist of the lands of the earls of Ross in North Argail, that is, the western part of the present county of Ross, the lands of Glenelg, the Crown lands of Skye and Lewis (here the principal lords were the Macleods of Harris and Lewis though they are not named), the lands of Garmoran, with the islands of Egg and Rume (this had been the chief seat of the Lords of the Isles descended from Roderic, son of Reginald), and the islands of Uist and Barra, where the MacNeills were the principal possessors. The sheriffship of Lorn was to consist of the lands of Ardnamurchan and Kinnelbathyn or Morvern; the lands of Alexander de Ergadia, Lord of Lorn; of John de Glenurchy, of Gilbert M‘Naughton, of Malcolm MacIvor, of Dugald of Craignish, of John, son of Gilchrist of Radulph of Dundee, who was a Scrymgeour, whose ancestor had received a grant of Glassrie from Alexander the Second; of Gillespie M‘Lachlan, of the earl of Menteath who had a right to Knapdale, of Anegus, son of Dovenald the Lord of the Isles, and of Colin Campbell, Lord of Lochow; and the sheriffdom of Kintyre was to consist, besides the possessors of the district of Kintyre, of the lands of the Lamonts, of Thomas Cambel, and of Dunkan Duff, in Cowall, and of the island of Bute.