The Project Gutenberg eBook of Celtic Scotland, Volume I (of 3), by William Forbes Skene

Title: Celtic Scotland, Volume I (of 3)

A history of ancient Alban

Author: William Forbes Skene

Release Date: July 23, 2023 [eBook #71258]

Language: English

Credits: MWS, KD Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Transcriber’s Note:

Footnotes were numbered beginning afresh with each chapter. They have been resequenced across the entire text for uniqueness. On occasion, notes are referred to in other notes by number. These references have been changed as well.

Footnotes have been collected at the end of each chapter, and are linked for ease of reference.

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

Any corrections are indicated using an underline highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the original text in a small popup.

Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the note at the end of the text.

The first volume of Celtic Scotland being out of print, the Author has very carefully revised the text, with a view to a new edition; but he has, after mature consideration, found nothing to alter in the views of early Scottish history expressed in it. He has therefore confined himself to correcting obvious mistakes and misprints, and, with these exceptions, this edition is substantially a reprint.

Each volume of this work may be regarded as complete in itself so far as the object of the volume is concerned, and will be issued separately.

The principal aim of the Author in this first volume of Celtic Scotland has been to endeavour to ascertain the true facts of the early civil history. For this purpose the narratives of her early historians afford no available basis. The artificially-constructed system of history first brought into shape by John of Fordun, and elaborated in the more classical text of Hector Boece, must, for the Celtic period of our history, be entirely rejected. To attempt to found a consecutive historical narrative on the scattered notices in the Roman writers and in the Chronicles, which consist merely of lists of kings with the length of their respective reigns, and notices of a few isolated battles, would be merely to produce an unsatisfactory and unreadable book. On the other hand, a succession of general views of the early periods of its history, founded upon a superficial and uncritical use of authorities, or the too readily accepted conclusions of more painstaking writers, viiihowever lively and graphic they may be, might furnish very pleasant reading, but would be worthless as a work of authority.

The first thing to be done is to lay a sound foundation by ascertaining, as far as possible, the true facts of the early history, so far as they can be fairly extracted from the more trustworthy authorities. There is, unfortunately, no more difficult task than to substitute the correct ‘sumpsimus’ for the long-cherished and accepted ‘mumpsimus’ of popular historians. All that the Author has attempted in this volume is to show what the most reliable authorities do really tell us of the early annals of the country, divested of the spurious matter of supposititious authors, the fictitious narratives of our early historians, and the rash assumptions of later writers which have been imported into it.

The Author is glad to take this opportunity of acknowledging the valuable assistance which his excellent publisher, Mr. David Douglas, has freely and ungrudgingly given him in carefully revising the proof-sheets. They could have been submitted to no more intelligent supervision.

The name of Scotia, or Scotland, whether in its Latin or its Saxon form, was not applied to any part of the territory forming the modern kingdom of Scotland till towards the end of the tenth century.

Prior to that period it was comprised in the general appellation of Britannia, or Britain, by which the whole island was designated in contradistinction to that of Hibernia, or Ireland. That part of the island of Britain which is situated to the north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde seems indeed to have been known to the Romans as early as the first century by the distinctive name of Caledonia,^[1] and it also appears to have borne from an early period another appellation, the Celtic form of which was Albu, Alba, or Alban,^[2] and its Latin form Albania.

2The name of Scotia, however, was exclusively appropriated to the island of Ireland, which was emphatically Scotia, the ‘patria,’ or mother country, of the Scots;^[3] and although a colony of that people had established themselves as early as the beginning of the sixth century in the western districts of Scotland, it was not till the tenth century that any part of the present country of Scotland came to be known under that name, nor did it extend over the whole of those districts which formed the later kingdom of the Scots till after the twelfth century.

From the tenth to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries the name of Scotia, gradually superseding the older name of Alban, or Albania, was confined to a district nearly corresponding with that part of the Lowlands of Scotland which is situated on the north of the Firth of Forth. The Scotia of these centuries was bounded on the south by the Firth of Forth; on the north by the Moray Firth and river Spey; on the east by the German Ocean; and on the west by the range of mountains which divides the modern county of Perth from that of Argyll. It excluded Lothian, Strathclyde, and Galloway, on the south; the great province of Moravia, or Moray, and that of Cathanesia, or Caithness, on 3the north; and the region of Argathelia, or Argyll, on the west.

Subsequently the name of Scotia extended over these districts also, and the kingdom by degrees assumed that compact and united form which it ever afterwards exhibited.

The three propositions—1st, That Scotia, prior to the tenth century, was Ireland, and Ireland alone; 2d, That when applied to Scotland it was considered a new name superinduced upon the older designation of Alban or Albania; and 3d, That the Scotia of the three succeeding centuries was limited to the districts between the Forth, the Spey, and Drumalban,—lie at the very threshold of Scottish history.^[4]

4The history of the name of a country is generally found to afford a very important clue to the leading features in the 5history of its population. This is remarkably the case with regard to the history of Scotland, and the facts just indicated 6in connection with the application of its name at different periods throw light upon the corresponding changes in the race and position of its inhabitants. They point to the fact that, prior to the tenth century, none of the small and independent tribes which originally occupied the country, and are ever the characteristic of an early period in their social history, or of the petty kingdoms which succeeded them, were sufficiently powerful and extended, or predominated sufficiently over the others, to give a general name to the country; and they point to a great change in the population of the country and the relative position of these kingdoms to each other in the tenth century, and to the elevation, by some important revolution, of the race of the Scots over the others, whose territory formed a centre round which the formerly independent petty kingdoms now assumed the form of dependent provinces, and from which an influence and authority proceeded that 7gradually extended the name of Scotia over the whole of the country, and incorporated its provinces into one compact and co-extensive monarchy.

The great natural features of a country so mountainous and intersected by so many arms of the sea as that of Scotland, seem at all times to have influenced its political divisions and the distribution of the various races in its occupation. The original territories of the savage tribes of Caledonia appear to have differed little from those of the petty kingdoms which succeeded them, and the latter as little from the subsequent provinces of the monarchy. The same great leading boundaries, the same natural defences, are throughout found occupying a similar position and exercising a similar influence upon the internal history of the country, while, amidst the numerous fluctuations and changes which affected the position of the northern tribes towards the southern and more civilised kingdoms of Britain, the two ever showed a tendency to settle down upon the great natural bulwarks of the south of Scotland as their mutual boundary, to which, indeed, the independent position of the northern monarchy in no slight degree owed its existence.

Where the great arm of the western sea forming the Solway Firth contracts the island to a comparatively narrow breadth, not exceeding seventy miles, a natural boundary was thus partially formed, which had its influence at the very dawn of Scottish history; but, if during the occupation of the island by the Romans, who placed their trust more in the artificial protection of a rampart guarded by troops, the comparatively level ground in this contracted part of the country presented facilities for such a construction, the great physical bulwark of the Cheviot Hills had an irresistible attraction to fix the boundary eventually between the Solway and the Tweed, where that chain of hills extending between them proved so effectual a defence to the country along the whole of its 8range, that every hostile entrance into it was made either at the eastern or the western termination of that mountain chain.

Farther north is the still more remarkable natural boundary where the Eastern and the Western Seas penetrate into the country in the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and approach within a comparatively short distance of each other, separating the northern from the southern regions of Scotland by an isthmus not exceeding thirty-five miles in breadth. This was remarked as early as the first Roman invasion of Scotland, when the historian Tacitus observes that these estuaries almost intersect the country, leaving only a narrow neck of land, and that the northern part formed, as it were, another island.^[5]

Proceeding farther north, the great series of the mountain ranges, stretching from the south-west to the north-east, present one continuous barrier, intersected indeed by rivers forming narrow and easily defended passes, but exhibiting the appearance of a mighty wall, which separates a wild and mountainous region from the well-watered and fertile plains and straths on the south and east; and, while the latter have been at all times exposed to the vicissitudes of external revolution, and the greatly more important and radical change from the silent progress of natural colonisation, the recesses of the Highlands have ever proved the shelter and protection of the descendants of the older tribes of the country, and the limit to the advance of a stranger population.

MAP
SHEWING
MOUNTAIN CHAINS

W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London.

The territory which forms the modern kingdom of Scotland is thus thrown by its leading physical features into three great compartments. First, the districts extending from the Solway, the Cheviots, and the Tweed, on the south, 9to the Firths of Forth and Clyde on the north; secondly, the low country extending along the east coast from the Forth as far as the Moray Firth, and lying between the sea and the great barrier of the Grampians; and thirdly, the Highland or mountainous region on the north-west.

In each of these great districts natural boundaries are again found exercising their influence on the subordinate political divisions. |The Cheviots.| In the first of these great compartments, the lofty range of the Cheviots, which forms the southern boundary and presents a steep face to the north, extends from the Cheviot Hill on the north-east by Carter Fell to Peel Fell on the south-west; and from thence a range of hills, sometimes included in the general name of the Cheviots, separates the district of Liddesdale from that of Teviotdale, and has its highest point in the centre of this part of the island, in a group of hills termed the Lowthers, where the four great rivers of the Tweed, the Clyde, the Annan, and the Nith, take their rise. From thence it extends westward to Loch Ryan, separating the waters which pour their streams into the Solway Firth from those which flow to the north. From the centre of this range a smaller and less remarkable chain of hills branches off, which, running eastward by Soutra and Lammermoor, end at St. Abb’s Head, at the entrance to the Firth of Forth, separating the tributaries of the Tweed from the streams which flow into the Firth of Forth. In the centre of the island, a barren and hilly region divides the districts watered by the rivers flowing into the east sea from those on the west coast.

The same natural boundary which separated the eastern from the western tribes afterwards divided the kingdom of the Strathclyde Britons from that of the Angles; at a subsequent period, the province of Galweia from that of Lodoneia in their most extended sense; and now separates the counties of Lanark, Ayr, and Dumfries from the Lothians and the Merse. Galloway in its limited sense was not more 10clearly separated by its mountain barrier on the north from Strathclyde, than were the Pictish from the British races by the same chain, and the earlier tribes of the Selgovæ and Novantæ from the Damnii.

In the other two great compartments situated on the north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, two great mountain chains and two large rivers formed the principal landmarks in the early history of the social occupation of these districts. These two principal mountain chains were in fact the great central ridges from which the numerous minor chains proceed, and the rivers flow in opposite directions, forming that aggregate of well-watered glens and rocky defiles which characterise the mountain region of Scotland, till its streams, uniting their waters into larger channels, burst forth through the mountain passes, and flow through the more fertile plains of the Lowlands into the German Ocean.

The first of these two great mountain chains was known by the name of the Mounth, and extends in nearly a straight line across the island from the Eastern Sea near Aberdeen to the Western Sea at Fort-William, having in its centre and at its western termination the two highest mountains in Great Britain—Ben-na-muich-dubh and Ben Nevis.

The second great chain, less elevated and massive in its character, but presenting the more picturesque feature of sharp conical summits, crosses the other at right angles, running north and south, and forming the backbone of Scotland—the great wind and water shear, which separates the eastern from the western districts, and the rivers flowing into the German Ocean from those which pour their waters into the Western Sea. It is termed in the early records of Scottish history Dorsum Britanniæ, or Drumalban—the dorsal ridge or backbone of Scotland. It commences in Dumbartonshire, and forms the great separating ridge between the eastern and western waters from south to north, till it terminates in the Ord of Caithness.

11These two mountain chains—the Mounth and Drumalban, the one running east and west, the other south and north, and intersecting each other—thus divided the country north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde into four great districts, two extending along the east coast, and two along the west, while each of the two eastern and western divisions were separated from each other by the Mounth. The two eastern divisions are watered by the two great rivers of the Tay and the Spey and their tributaries, the one flowing south and the other north from these mountain chains. The two western divisions are intersected by those arms of the sea or lochs, which form so peculiar a feature in the West Highlands.

The lesser mountain ridges which proceed on either side of the Mounth, and separate the various streams which flow into the two great rivers from each other, terminate as the waters enter the plains of the Lowlands, and present the appearance of a great barrier stretching obliquely across each of the two eastern districts and separating the mountain region from the plain; but, although this great barrier has an appearance as if it were a continuous mountain range, and is usually so considered, it is not so in reality, but is formed by the termination of these numerous lesser ridges, and is intersected by the great rivers and their tributaries. This great barrier forms what was subsequently termed the Highland line, and that part of it which extends across the south-eastern district from Loch Lomond to the eastern termination of the Mounth was known under the general but loosely applied name of the Grampians.^[6]

12Within is a wild and mountainous region full of the most picturesque beauty which the ever-varied combination of mountain, rock, and stream can afford, but adapted only for pasture and hunting, and for the occupation of a people still in the early stage of pastoral and warlike life; while every stream which forces its way from its recesses through this terminating range forms a pass into the interior capable of being easily defended.

Throughout the early history of Scotland these great mountain chains and rivers have always formed important landmarks of the country. If the Mounth is now known as the range of hills which separate the more southern counties of Kincardine, Forfar, and Perth from those of Aberdeen and Inverness on the north, it was not less known to the 13Venerable Bede, in the eighth century, as the steep and rugged mountains which separate the provinces of the southern from those of the northern Picts.^[7] If Drumalban now separates the county of Argyll from that of Perth, it formed equally in the eleventh century the mountain range which separated Arregaithel from Scotia,^[8] and at an earlier period the boundary between the Picts and the Scots of Dalriada.^[9]

The river Spey, which now separates the counties of Aberdeen and Banff from those of Moray and Nairn, was for three centuries the boundary between Scotia, or Scotland proper, and Moravia, or the great province of Moray. The Tay, which separates the districts of Stratherne and Gowry, formed for half a century the limit of the Anglic conquests 14in the territory of the Picts, and at the very dawn of our history interposed as formidable a barrier to the progress of the Roman arms. The Forth, which for three centuries was the southern boundary of Scotia, or Scotland proper, during the previous centuries separated the Pictish from the British population.

The tract of country in which the frontiers of several independent kingdoms, or the territories in the occupation of tribes of different race, meet, usually forms a species of debateable land, and the transactions which take place within its limits afford in general a key to much of their relative history. Such were the districts extending from the river Tay to the minor range of the Pentland hills and the river Esk, which flows into the Firth of Forth on the south. These districts fall naturally into three divisions. The region extending from the Tay to the river Forth, and containing part of Perthshire, was included in that part of the country to which the name of Alban, and afterwards that of Scotia, was given. The central district between the rivers Forth and Carron consisted of the whole of Stirlingshire and part of Dumbartonshire, and belonged more properly to Strathclyde. The region extending from the Carron to the Pentlands and the river Esk on the south comprised the counties of West and Mid Lothian, and was attached to Northumbria; but all three may be viewed as outlying districts, having a mixed population contributed by the neighbouring races.

Situated in the heart of Scotland, and having around it tribes of different races, and subsequently the four kingdoms of the Picts, the Scots, the Angles, and the Britons, surpassing the other districts in fertility, and possessing those rich carses which are still distinguished as the finest agricultural districts of Scotland, this region was coveted as the chief prize alike by the invaders and the native tribes. The scene of the principal Roman campaigns, it appears throughout the entire course of Scottish history as the main battlefield 15of contending races and struggling influences. Roman and Barbarian, Gael and Cymry, Scot and Angle, contended for its occupation, and within its limits is formed the ever-shifting boundary between the petty northern kingdoms, till in the memorable ninth century a monarchy was established, of which the founder was a Scot, the chief seat Scone, and that revolution was accomplished, which it is difficult to say whether it was more civil or ecclesiastical in its character, but which finally established the supremacy of the Scottish people over the different races in the country, and led to their gradual combination and more intimate union in the subsequent kingdom of Scotland. The kingdom of the Scots soon extended itself over these central plains. Its monarchs usually had their residence within its limits, and the capital, which had at first been Scone, on the left bank of the Tay, eventually became established at Edinburgh, within a few miles of its southern boundary.

During the few succeeding centuries of Scottish rule, after the establishment of the Scottish monarchy in the ninth century, it remained limited to the districts bounded by the Forth on the south, the mountain chain called Drumalban on the west, and the Spey on the north. The Scots had rapidly extended their power and influence over the native tribes within these limits; but beyond them (on the north and west) they held an uncertain authority over wild and semi-independent nations, nominally dependencies of the kingdom, but in reality neither owning its authority nor adopting its name.

It was by slow degrees that the peoples beyond these limits were first subjugated and then amalgamated with the original Scottish kingdom; and it was not till the middle of the thirteenth century, when the annexation of the Western Isles by Alexander the Third finally completed the territorial acquisitions of the monarchy, that its name and authority became co-extensive with the utmost limits of the country, 16and Scotland was consolidated in its utmost extent of territory into one kingdom.

The early history of Scotland thus presents itself to the historian in five distinct periods, each possessing a character peculiar to itself.

During the first period of three centuries and a half the native tribes of Scotland were under the influence of the Roman power, at one time struggling for independent existence, at another subject to their authority, and awaking to those impressions of civilisation and of social organisation, the fruits of which they subsequently displayed.

A period of rather longer duration succeeded to the Roman rule, in which the native and foreign races in the country first struggled for the succession to their dominant authority in the island, and then contended among themselves for the possession of its fairest portions.

The third period commences with the establishment of the Scottish monarchy in the ninth century, and lasted for two centuries and a half, till the Scottish dynasty became extinct in the person of Malcolm the Second.

There then succeeded, during the fourth period, which lasted for a century, a renewed struggle between the different races in the country, which, although the Scoto-Saxon dynasty, uniting through the female line the blood of the Scots and the Saxons, succeeded in seating themselves firmly on the throne, cannot be said to have terminated in the general recognition of their royal authority till the reign of David the First.

The fifth period, consisting of the reigns of David I., Malcolm IV., William the Lion, and Alexander the Second and Third, was characterised by the rapid amalgamation of the different provinces, and the spread of the Saxon race and of the feudal institutions over the whole country, with the exception of the Highlands and Islands, and left the kingdom 17of Scotland in the position in which we find it when the death of Alexander the Third, in 1286, terminated the last of the native dynasties of her monarchs.

During the first three periods of her early history, Scotland may be viewed as a purely Celtic kingdom, with a population composed of different branches of the race popularly called Celtic. But during the subsequent periods, though the connection between Scotland with her Celtic population and Lothian with her Anglic inhabitants was at first but slender, her monarchs identified themselves more and more with their Teutonic subjects, with whom the Celtic tribes maintained an ineffectual struggle, and gradually retreated before their increasing power and colonisation, till they became confined to the mountains and western islands. The name of Scot passed over to the English-speaking people, and their language became known as the Scotch; while the Celtic language, formerly known as Scotch, became stamped with the title of Irish.

What may be called the Celtic period of Scottish history has been peculiarly the field of a fabulous narrative of no ordinary perplexity; but while the origin of these fables can be very distinctly traced to the rivalry and ambition of ecclesiastical establishments and church parties, and to the great national controversy excited by the claim of England to a feudal supremacy over Scotland, still each period of its early history will be found not to be without sources of information, slender and meagre as no doubt they are, but possessing indications of substantial truth, from which some perception of its real character can be obtained.

Before the early history of any country can be correctly ascertained, there is a preliminary process which must be gone through, and which is quite essential to a sound treatment of the subject; and that is a critical examination of the authorities upon which that history is based. This is especially necessary with regard to the early history of Scotland. 18The whole of the existing materials for her early history must be collected together and subjected to a critical examination. Those which seem to contain fragments of genuine history must be disentangled from the less trustworthy chronicles which have been tampered with for ecclesiastical or national purposes, and great discrimination exercised in the use of the latter. The purely spurious matter must be entirely rejected. It is by such a process only that we can hope to dispel the fabulous atmosphere which surrounds this period of Scottish history, and attempt to base it upon anything like a genuine foundation.

The first to attempt this task was Thomas Innes, a priest of the Scots College in Paris, who published in 1729 his admirable Essay on the ancient inhabitants of Scotland. In this essay he assailed the fabulous history first put into shape by John of Fordun and elaborated by Hector Boece, and effectually demolished its authority; but he attempted little in the way of reconstruction, and merely printed a few of the short chronicles, upon which he founded, in an appendix.

Lord Hailes, who in 1776 published his Annals of Scotland, from the Accession of Malcolm III., surnamed Canmore, to the Accession of Robert I., abandons this period of Scottish history altogether, with the remark that his Annals ‘commence with the accession of Malcolm Canmore, because the history of Scotland previous to that period is involved in obscurity and fable.’

The first to attempt a reconstruction of this early history was John Pinkerton, who published in 1789 An Enquiry into the History of Scotland preceding the reign of Malcolm III., or the year 1056, including the authentic history of that period. It is unquestionably an essay of much originality and acuteness; and Pinkerton saw the necessity of founding the history of that period upon more trustworthy documents, but they were to a very limited extent accessible to him. The value of the work is greatly impaired 19by the adoption, to an excessive extent, of a theory of early Teutonic settlements in the country and of the Teutonic origin of the early population, and by an unreasoning prejudice against everything Celtic, which colours and biasses his argument throughout.

Pinkerton was followed in 1807 by George Chalmers, with his more elaborate and systematic work, the Caledonia, based, however, to a great extent upon the less trustworthy class of the early historical documents, which had been tampered with and manipulated for a purpose. He, too, was possessed by a theory which influences his views of the earlier portion of the history throughout; and where John Pinkerton could find nothing but Gothic and the Goths, George Chalmers was equally unable to see anything but Welsh and the Cymry.

In 1828 the first volume of a History of Scotland by Patrick Fraser Tytler appeared, which he continued to the accession of James VI. to the throne of England; but Tytler not only abandons this early part of the history as hopelessly obscure, but also a great part of the field occupied by Hailes in his Annals, and commences his history with the accession of Alexander the Third in 1249.

In 1862 a very valuable contribution to the early history of Scotland was made by the late lamented Mr. E. William Robertson in his Scotland under her Early Kings, in which the attempt is once more made to fill up the early period left untouched by Hailes and Tytler. It is a work of great merit, and exhibits much accurate research and sound judgment.^[10]

Such is a short sketch of the attempts which have been made to place the early history of Scotland upon a sound basis, and to substitute a more trustworthy statement of it for the carefully manipulated fictions of Fordun, and the still 20more fabulous narrative of Hector Boece and his followers, prior to the appearance of Mr. Burton’s elaborate History of Scotland, from Agricola’s Invasion to the Extinction of the last Jacobite Insurrection, the first edition of which appeared in 1867, and the second, in which the early part is revised and much altered, in 1873.

These works, however, are all more or less tainted by the same defect, that they have not been founded upon that complete and comprehensive examination of all the existing materials for the history of this early period, and that critical discrimination of their relative value and analysis of their contents, without which any view of this period of the annals of the country must be partial and inexact. They labour, in short, under the twofold defect, first, of an uncritical use of the materials which are authentic; and second, of the combination with these materials of others which are undoubtedly spurious. The early chronicles are referred to as of equal authority, and without reference to the period or circumstances of their production. The text of Fordun’s Chronicle, upon which the history, at least prior to the fourteenth century, must always to a considerable extent be based, is quoted as an original authority, without adverting to the materials he made use of and the mode in which he has adapted them to a fictitious scheme of history; and the additions and alterations of his interpolator Bower are not only founded upon as the statements of Fordun himself, but quoted under his name in preference to his original version of the events.

The author has elsewhere endeavoured to complete the work commenced by Thomas Innes. He has collected together in one volume the whole of the existing chronicles and other memorials of the history of Scotland prior to the appearance of Fordun’s Chronicle, and has subjected them, as well as the work of Fordun, to a critical examination and analysis.^[11]

21He now proposes to take a farther step in advance, and to attempt in the present work to place the early history of the country upon a sounder basis, and to exhibit Celtic Scotland, so far as these materials enable him to do so, in a clearer and more authentic light. By following their guidance, and giving effect to fair and just inferences from their statements unbiassed by theory or partiality, and subjected to the corrective tests of comparison with those physical records which the country itself presents, it is hoped that it may not be found impossible to make some approximation to the truth, even with regard to the annals of this early period of Scottish history.

It may be said that this task has been rendered unnecessary by the appearance of Mr. Burton’s History of Scotland, which commences the narrative with the invasion of Agricola, and claims ‘the two fundamental qualities of a serviceable history—completeness and accuracy;’^[12] but, with much appreciation of the merits of Mr. Burton’s work as a whole, the author is afraid that he cannot recognise it as possessing either character, so far as the early part of the history is concerned, and he considers that the ground which the present work is intended to occupy remains still unappropriated.

It remains for him to indicate here at the outset the materials founded upon by the previous writers which he considers of questionable authority, or must reject as entirely spurious.

22Among the first to be rejected as entirely spurious is the work attributed to Richard of Cirencester, De situ Britanniæ et Stationum quas Romani ipsi in ea insula ædificaverunt. It was published in 1757 from a MS. said to be discovered at Copenhagen by Charles Julius Bertram, and was at once adopted as genuine. The author at a very early period came to the conclusion that the whole work, including the itineraries, was an impudent forgery, and this has since been so amply demonstrated, and is now so generally admitted, that it is unnecessary to occupy space by proving it.^[13] The whole of the Roman part of Pinkerton’s Enquiry and of the elaborate work of Chalmers is tainted by it; and, what is perhaps more to be regretted, the valuable work of General Roy^[14] on The Military Antiquities of the Romans in Britain, published in 1793. He says in his introduction, ‘From small beginnings it is, however, no unusual thing to be led imperceptibly to engage in more extensive and laborious undertakings, as will easily appear from what follows, for since the discovery of Agricola’s camps, the work of Richard of Cirencester having likewise been found out in Denmark and published to the world, the curious have thereby been furnished with many new lights concerning the Roman history and 23geography of Britain in general, but more particularly the north part of it,’ and by this unfortunate adoption of the forged work by General Roy, there has been lost to the world, to a great extent, the advantage of the commentary of one so well able to judge of military affairs. Horsley’s valuable work, the Britannia Romana, was fortunately published in 1732 before this imposition was practised on the literary world; but Stuart has not been equally fortunate in his Caledonia Romana, published in 1845, the usefulness of which is greatly impaired by it.

Among the Welsh documents which are usually founded upon as affording materials for the early history of the country, there is one class of documents contained in the Myvyrian Archæology which cannot be accepted as genuine. The principal of these are the so-called Historical Triads, which have been usually quoted as possessing undoubted claims to antiquity under the name of the Welsh Triads; the tale called Hanes Taliessin, or the history of Taliessin; and a collection of papers printed by the Welsh ms. Society, under the title of the Iolo MSS. These all proceeded from Edward Williams, one of the editors of the Myvyrian Archæology published in 1801, and who is better known under the bardic title of Iolo Morganwg. The circumstances under which he produced these documents, or the motives which led him to introduce so much questionable matter into the literature of Wales, it is difficult now to determine; but certain it is that no trace of them is to be found in any authentic source, and that they have given a character to Welsh literature which is much to be deplored. In a former work, the author in reviewing these documents merely said, ‘It is not unreasonable therefore to say that they must be viewed with some suspicion, and that very careful discrimination is required in the use of them.’ He does not hesitate now to reject them as entirely spurious.^[15]

24It will of course be impossible to write upon the Celtic period of Scottish history without making a large use of Irish materials; and it is difficult to over-estimate the importance of the Irish Annals for this purpose; but these too must be used with some discrimination. The ancient history of Ireland presents the unusual aspect of the minute and detailed annals of reigns and events from a period reaching back to many centuries before the Christian era, the whole of which has been adopted by her historians as genuine. The work of Keating, written in Irish in 1640, a translation of which by Dermod O’Connor was published in 1726, may be taken as a fair representation of it. The earlier part of this history is obviously artificial, and is viewed by recent Irish historians more in the light of legend; but there is nothing whatever in the mode in which the annals of the different reigns are narrated to show where legend terminates and history begins, and there is a tendency among even the soundest writers on Irish history to push the claims of these annals to a historical character beyond the period to which it can reasonably be attached. For the events in Irish history the Annals of the Four Masters are usually quoted. There is a certain convenience in this, as it is the most complete chronicle which Ireland possesses; but it was compiled as late as the seventeenth century, having been commenced in 1632 and finished in 1636. The compilers were four eminent Irish antiquaries, the principal of whom was Michael O’Clery, whence it was termed by Colgan the Annals of the Four Masters. These annals begin with the year of the Deluge, said to be the year of the world 2242, or 2952 years before Christ, and continue in an unbroken series to the year of our Lord 1616. The latter part of the annals 25are founded upon other documents which are referred to in the preface, and from which they are said to be taken, but the authority for each event is not stated, and some of those recorded are not to be found elsewhere, and are open to suspicion.^[16] The earlier part of the annals consists simply of a reduction of the fabulous history of Ireland into the shape of a chronicle, and, except that it is thrown into that form instead of that of a narrative, it does not appear to the author to possess greater claims to be ranked as an authority than the work of Keating. He cannot therefore accept it as an independent authority, nor can he regard the record of events to the fifth century as bearing the character of chronological history in the true sense of the term, though no doubt many of these events may have some foundation in fact.^[17]

The older annals stand in a different position. Those of Tighernac, Inisfallen, and the Annals of Ulster, are extremely valuable for the history of Scotland; and, while the latter commence with what may be termed the historic period in 26the fifth century, the earlier events recorded by Tighernac, who died in the year 1088, may contain some fragments of genuine history.

The subject of this work will be most conveniently treated under three separate heads or books.

The first book will deal with the Ethnology and Civil History of the different races which occupied Scotland. In this inquiry, it will be of advantage that we should start with a clear conception of the knowledge which the Romans had of the northern part of the island, and of the exact amount of information as to its state and population which their possession of the southern part of it as a province affords. This will involve a repetition of the oft-told tale of the Roman occupation of Scotland. But this part of the history has been so overloaded with the uncritical use of authorities, the too ready reception of questionable or forged documents, and the injurious but baseless speculations of antiquaries, that we have nearly lost sight of what the contemporary authorities really tell us. Their statements are, no doubt, meagre, and may appear to afford an insufficient foundation for the deductions drawn from them, but they are precise; and it will be found that though they may compress the account of a campaign or a transaction into a few words, yet they had an accurate knowledge of the transactions, the result of which they wished to indicate, and knew well what they were writing about. It will be necessary, therefore, carefully to weigh these short but precise statements, and to place before the reader the state of the early inhabitants of Scotland as the Romans at the time knew them and viewed them, not as what by argument from other premises they can be made to appear.^[18]

27This will lay the groundwork for an inquiry into their race and language; and an attempt will then be made to trace the history of these different races, their mutual struggle for supremacy, the causes and true character of that revolution which laid the foundation of the Scottish monarchy, and the gradual combination of its various heterogeneous elements into one united kingdom; and thus by a more complete and critical use of its materials, to place the early history of the country, during the Celtic period, upon a sounder basis.

The second book will deal with the Early Celtic Church of Scotland and its influence on the language and culture of the people. The ecclesiastical history of Scotland has shared the same fate with its civil history, and is deeply tainted with the fictitious and artificial system which has perverted both; but the stamp of these fables upon it is less easily removed. It has also had the additional misfortune of having been made the battle-field of polemical controversy. Each historian of the Church has viewed it through the medium of his ecclesiastical prepossessions, and from the standpoint of the Church party to which he belonged. The Episcopal historian feels the necessity of discovering in it his Diocesan Episcopacy, and the partisan 28of Presbyterian parity considers the principles of his Church involved in maintaining the existence of his early Presbyterian Culdees. One great exception must be made, however, in Dr. Reeves’s admirable edition of Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba, which has laid the foundation for a more rational treatment of the history of the early Church in Scotland.

The subject of the third and last book will be the Land and People of Scotland. It will treat of the early land tenures and social condition of its Celtic inhabitants. The publication of the Brehon laws of Ireland now enables us to trace somewhat of the history and character of their early tribal institutions and laws, and of their development in Scotland into those communities represented in the eastern districts by the Thanages, and in the western by the Clan system of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

CHAPTER I.

ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE.

As early as the sixth century before the Christian era, and while their knowledge of Northern Europe was still very imperfect, the Greeks had already become aware of the existence of the British Isles. This comparatively early knowledge of Britain was derived from the trade in tin, for which there existed at that period an extensive demand in the East. It was imported by sea by the Phœnicians, and by their colony, the Carthaginians, who extended their voyages beyond the Pillars of Hercules; and was subsequently prosecuted as a land trade by their commercial rivals, the Greek colonists of Marseilles.

A Greek poet, writing under the name of Orpheus, but whose real date may be fixed at the sixth century, mentions these remote islands under the name of the Iernian Isles;^[19] but in the subsequent century they were known to Herodotus as the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands,^[20] a name derived from the chief article of the trade through which all report of their existence was as yet derived.

In the fourth century they are alluded to by Aristotle 30as two very large islands beyond the Pillars of Hercules; and, while the name of Britannia was now from henceforth applied, especially by the Greek writers, to the group of islands, of whose number and size but vague notions were still entertained, the two principal islands appear for the first time under the distinctive appellations of Albion and Ierne.^[21]

Polybius, in the second century before Christ, likewise alludes to the Britannic Islands beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and to the working of the mines by the inhabitants.^[22]

Besides these direct allusions to the British Isles, we have preserved to us by subsequent writers an account of these islands from each of the two sources of information—the Phœnician voyages and the land trade of the Phocæans of Marseilles—in the narratives of the expeditions of Himilco and Pytheas.

Himilco was a Carthaginian who was engaged in the Phœnician maritime trade in the sixth century, and the traditionary account of his voyage is preserved by a comparatively late writer, Festus Rufus Avienus. In his poetical Description of the World, written from the account of Himilco, he mentions the plains of the Britons and the distant Thule, and talks of the sacred isle peopled by the nation of the Hiberni and the adjacent island of the Albiones.^[23]

Pytheas was a Massilian. His account of his journey is preserved by the geographer Strabo, and appears to have been received with great distrust. He stated that he had sailed round Spain and the half of Britain; ascertained that the latter was an island; made a voyage of six days to the island of Thule, and then returned. From him Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Pliny derived their information as to the 31size of the islands, and his statement made known for the first time the names of three promontories—Cantium or Kent, Belerium or Land’s End, and Orcas, or that opposite the Orkneys.^[24]

But although the existence of the British Isles was thus known at an early period to the classic writers under specific names, and some slender information acquired through the medium of the early tin trade as to their position and magnitude, it was not till the progress of the Roman arms and their lust of conquest had brought their legions into actual contact with the native population, that any information as to the inhabitants of these islands was obtained.

The invasion of Britain by Julius Cæsar in the year 55 before the Christian era, although it added no new territory to the already overgrown empire of the Romans, and was probably undertaken more with the view of adding to the military renown of the great commander, for the first time made the Romans acquainted with some of the tribes inhabiting that, to them, distant and almost inaccessible isle, and added distinctness and definiteness to their previously vague conception of its characteristics. Its existence was now not merely a geographical speculation, but a political fact in the estimation of those by whom the destinies of the world were then swayed—an element that might possibly enter into their political combinations.

The conquests of Julius Cæsar in Britain, limited in extent and short-lived in duration, were not followed up. The policy of the subsequent emperors involved the neglect of Britain as an object of conquest; and, while it now assumed a more definite position in the writings of Greek and Roman geographers, they have left us nothing but the names of a few southern tribes and localities which do not concern the object before us, and a statement regarding the general population which is of more significance.

32Cæsar sums up his account by telling us that the interior of Britain was inhabited by those who were considered to be indigenous, and the maritime part by those who had passed over from Belgium, the memory of whose emigration was preserved by their new insular possessions bearing the same name with the continental states from which they sprang. He describes the country as very populous, the people as pastoral, but using iron and brass, and the inhabitants of the interior as less civilised than those on the coasts. The former he paints as clothed in skins, and as not resorting to the cultivation of the soil for food, but as dependent upon their cattle and the flesh of animals slain in hunting for subsistence. He ascribes to all those customs which seem to have been peculiar to the Britons. They stained their bodies with woad, which gave them a green colour, from which the Britons were termed ‘Virides’ and ‘Cærulei.’ They had wives in common. They used chariots in war, and Cæsar bears testimony to the bravery with which they defended their woods and rude fortresses, as well as encountered the disciplined Roman troops in the field. He mentions the island Hibernia as less than Britannia by one-half, and about as far from it as the latter is from Gaul, and an island termed ‘Mona’ in the middle of the channel between the two larger islands.^[25]

Strabo and Diodorus Siculus have preserved any additional accounts of the inhabitants which the Romans received during the succeeding reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. They describe the Britons as taller than the Gauls, with hair less yellow, and slighter in their persons; and Strabo distinguishes between that portion of them whose manners resembled those of the Gauls and those who were more simple and barbarous, and were unacquainted with agriculture—manifestly the inhabitants of the interior whom Cæsar considered to be indigenous. He describes the peculiarity 33of their warfare, their use of chariots, and their towns as enclosures made in the forests, with ramparts of hewn trees. He mentions the inhabitants of ‘Ierne’ as more barbarous, regarding whom reports of cannibalism and the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes were current.^[26] Diodorus gives a more favourable picture of the inhabitants who were considered to be the aborigines of the island, and attributes to them the simple virtues of the pure and early state of society fabled by the poets. He alludes to their use of chariots and their simple huts, and adds to Strabo’s account that they stored the ears of corn under ground. He represents them as simple, frugal, and peaceful in their mode of life. Those near the promontory of Belerion or Land’s End he describes as more civilised, owing to their intercourse with strangers.^[27]

Thus all agree in distinguishing between the simple and rude inhabitants of the interior, who were considered to be indigenous, and the more civilised people of the eastern and southern shores who were believed to have passed over from Gaul.

It was not till the reign of Claudius that any effectual attempt was renewed to subject the British tribes to the Roman yoke; but the second conquest under that emperor speedily assumed a more permanent character than the first under Julius Cæsar, and the conquered territory was formed into a province of the Roman empire. During this intervening period of nearly a century, we know nothing of the internal history of the population of Britain; but the indications which have reached us of a marked and easily-recognised distinction between two great classes of the inhabitants, and of the progressive immigration of one of them from Belgium, and the analogy of history, lead to the inference that during this period—ample for such a purpose—the stronger and more civilised race must have spread over 34a larger space of the territory, and the ruder inhabitants of the interior been gradually confined to the wilder regions of the north and west. The name of Britannia having gradually superseded the older appellation of Albion, and the latter, if it is synonymous with Alba or Alban, becoming confined to the wilder regions of the north, lead to the same inference.

As soon as the conquests of the Romans in Britain assumed the form of a province of the empire, all that they possessed in the island was termed ‘Britannia Romana,’ all that was still hostile to them, ‘Britannia Barbara.’ The conquered tribes became the inhabitants of a Roman province, subject to her laws, and sharing in some of her privileges. The tribes beyond the limits of the province were to them ‘Barbari.’ An attention to the application of these terms affords the usual indication of the extent of the Roman province at different times, and, if the history of the more favoured southern portion of the island must find its earliest annals in the Roman provinces of Britain, it is to the ‘Barbari’ we must turn in order to follow the fortunes of the ruder independence of the northern tribes. It will be necessary, therefore, for our purpose, that we should trace the gradual extension of the boundary of the Roman province and the advance of the line of demarcation between what was provincial and what was termed barbarian, till we find the independent tribes of Britain confined within the limits of that portion of the island separated from the rest by the Firths of Forth and Clyde.

It was in the year of our Lord 43, and in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, that the real conquest of Britain commenced under Aulus Plautius, and in seven years after the beginning of the war a part of the island had been reduced by that general and by his successor into the form of a province, and annexed to the Roman empire,—a result to which the valour and military talent of Vespasian, then serving under these generals, and afterwards Emperor, appears 35mainly to have contributed. In the year 50, under Ostorius, and perhaps his successor, the Roman province appears to have already extended to the Severn on the west, and to the Humber on the north.^[28]

Beyond its limits, on the west, were the warlike tribes of the Silures and the Ordovices, against whom the province was defended by a line of forts drawn from the river Sabrina or Severn, to a river, which cannot be identified with certainty, termed by Tacitus the Antona.^[29] On the north lay the numerous and widely-extended tribes of the Brigantes, extending across the entire island from the Eastern to the Western Sea, and reaching from the Humber, which separated them from the province on the south, as far north, there seems little reason to doubt, as the Firth of Forth.^[30] Beyond the nation of the Brigantes on the north, the Romans as yet knew nothing save that Britain was believed to be an island, and that certain islands termed Orcades^[31] lay to the north of it; but the names even of the more northern tribes had not yet reached them.

36It is to the war with the Brigantes that we must mainly turn, in order to trace the progress of the Roman arms, and the extension of the frontier of the Roman province beyond the Humber. The Romans appear to have come in contact with the Brigantes for the first time in the course of the war carried on by Publius Ostorius, appointed governor of Britain in the year 50. That general had arrived in the island towards the end of summer; and the Barbarians, or those of the Britons still hostile to the Romans, believing he would not undertake a winter campaign, took advantage of his arrival at so late a period of the year to make incursions into the territory subject to Rome. Among these invading tribes were probably the Brigantes; but the general, by a rapid and energetic movement, put the enemy to flight, and it was on this occasion that the province was protected against the western tribes by a chain of forts. Having defeated the powerful nation of the Iceni, who endeavoured to obstruct his purpose by an attack from a different quarter, and who were destined at a subsequent period to place the Roman dominion in Britain in the utmost jeopardy, Ostorius reduced the tribes within the limits of the subjugated territory to entire obedience, and now turned his attention to more aggressive measures against those beyond its boundary.

His first attack was directed against the hostile tribes of the west, and he had penetrated into their mountain territory nearly as far as the sea, when he was obliged to turn his steps towards the north by the threatening aspect of the powerful nation of the Brigantes, whom, however, on this occasion he soon reduced to subjection. Those he 37found in arms were cut to pieces, and the rest of the nation submitted.

On again turning his steps towards the west, he found the nations of the Silures and Ordovices assembled under the command of the celebrated native chief Caractacus, and a great battle took place, in which the discipline of the Roman troops prevailed over the acknowledged bravery of the natives, even although the latter occupied a well-chosen position of unusual strength. The army of Caractacus was defeated, his wife and daughter taken prisoners, while he himself fled for protection to Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes, but that queen, being then at peace with the Romans, delivered him up to them.

On the death of Ostorius, which took place in the same year, Aulus Didius was sent to Britain as the next commander, and under him a more prolonged war with the Brigantes commenced, which throws some light on their internal condition. After the defeat and death of Caractacus, the most distinguished native leader was Venusius, a Brigantian, who belonged to a sept of that nation termed by Tacitus the ‘Jugantes.’^[32] He had married Cartismandua, the queen of the whole nation, and, while this marriage subsisted, had remained equally faithful to the Romans. Dissensions, however, arose between them. Venusius was driven from his throne, and his brother, with the rest of his kindred, seized by the queen, who raised Villocatus, his armour-bearer, to her throne and bed. This quarrel led to a civil war between the adherents of Venusius and those of the queen, and this great nation became divided into two 38factions.^[33] That part of the nation which adhered to Venusius, and which there is reason to believe consisted of the more northern tribes, was from that time in active hostility to the Romans. They had attacked Cartismandua, who was only enabled to maintain her position by obtaining the assistance of the Roman army. The short but significant expressions of Tacitus show that the war was not an easy one for the Romans, and that they could do little more than maintain their own ground and the position of their ally.

We hear no more of this war till after that great insurrection of the Roman provincials under Boadicea or Bondiuca, queen of the Iceni, which shook the Roman power in Britain to its foundation, and had nearly resulted in their entire expulsion from the island. A struggle such as the language of the historians shows this to have been must necessarily have been a vital one on both sides; and hence, when the Roman arms eventually prevailed, the result produced a firm consolidation of their power in that part of the island which formed the Roman province. The immediate subject before us—the extension of the Roman power towards the north, and the gradual advance of the northern frontier of the province—renders it unnecessary for us to dwell with any minuteness upon their contests with the native tribes in other quarters. It is sufficient to notice that Veranius succeeded Aulus Didius, but died within the year, and that under Suetonius Paulinus, one of the most distinguished of the Roman commanders in Britain, and the governor by whom the great insurrection of the Iceni was finally quelled, the western tribes were finally brought under the dominion of the Romans.

39We find the Brigantes again in hostility to the Romans during the government of Vettius Bolanus, which commenced in the year 69. Venusius appears to have maintained an independent position and a hostile attitude towards the Romans throughout, and a lengthened civil war had continued to prevail between his adherents and that part of the nation which remained subject to Cartismandua, and in this war the Romans once more took part under Vettius Bolanus. Venusius was at the head of a powerful army, and the subjects of the queen flocked daily to his standard. Cartismandua was reduced to the last extremity, and invoked the protection of the Romans, who sent troops to her assistance. The war was prosecuted with varied success; many battles were fought; but Venusius succeeded in obtaining the throne of the whole nation.^[34] Under Petilius Cerealis, the successor of Vettius Bolanus, who was sent by the Emperor Vespasian to reduce the Brigantes, the war was brought to a conclusion. With the assistance of a powerful army, which struck terror into the natives, he attacked the whole nation of the Brigantes; and, after a struggle, in which various battles were fought and much slaughter took place, he subjected the greater part of the extensive territory in the possession of that powerful nation to the Romans. This conquest was maintained by his successor Julius Frontinus.^[35]

It was during this war with the Brigantes, in which the 40Roman troops had probably frequently approached the more northern portion of their territories, that the Romans became aware of the name of the people who occupied the country beyond them, and acquired some information connected with these more northern and hitherto unknown districts. They now learned the existence of a people to the north of the Brigantes, whom they termed ‘Caledonii Britanni,’ or Caledonian Britons.^[36] The Western Sea which bounded them they termed the ‘Caledonius Oceanus.’^[37] The war under Vettius Bolanus had, it was supposed, reached the Caledonian plains.^[38] On the conclusion of the war the Roman province approached the vicinity of the ‘Sylva Caledonia,’ or Caledonian Forest.^[39] They now knew of the ‘Promontorium Caledoniæ,’ or Promontory of Caledonia, by which they must have meant the peninsula of Kintyre. From thence could be seen the islands of the Hebudes, five in number;^[40] and they had heard reports of a singular state of society among their inhabitants. It was reported that they knew nothing of the cultivation of the ground, but lived upon fish and milk, which latter implies the possession of herds of cattle. They had, it was said, one king, who was not allowed to possess property, lest it should lead him to avarice and injustice, or a wife, lest a legitimate family should provoke ambition.^[41] In short, they learned that 41there existed among this new people a state of society similar to that which Cæsar reported to have found among the indigenous inhabitants of the interior of Britain. The Orkneys they already knew by report.

The name of Thule was familiar to them as an island whose situation and attributes were entirely the creation of imagination. The geographers knew of it as a remote island in the Northern Ocean, the type of whatever was most northern in the known western world, as the expression Hyperborean had been to the Greeks. The poets applied it as a poetical appellation for that part of Britain which remained inaccessible to the Roman arms, the seat of the recently known Caledonian Britons, and which, from the deep indentation into the country of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the narrow neck of land between them, presented the appearance as if it were, to use the words of Tacitus, another island. The peculiar customs of the ruder Britons are attributed to these inhabitants of the poetic Thule. They are termed ‘Cærulei’ or Green, from the woad with which they stained their bodies; and they are said to have fought in chariots.^[42]

Such was the state of Britain, and such the knowledge the Romans now possessed of its northern districts and tribes, when, in the middle of the summer of the year 78, Julius Agricola arrived to take the government of Britain. The frontiers of the Roman province had been extended over the western tribes of Wales, and advanced beyond the 42Humber to the north, till they embraced the greater part of the territories of the Brigantes, and its northern limit certainly touched upon the Solway Firth in the north-west, while it did not probably fall much short of the Firth of Forth on the north-east. The present southern boundary of Scotland seems to have represented the northern limit of the Roman province at this time, and Agricola was thus the first to carry the Roman arms within the limits of that part of Britain which afterwards constituted the kingdom of Scotland.

Agricola had every circumstance in his favour in commencing his government which could tend to a distinguished result, and the consciousness of this probably led him to desire to add the wild and barren regions of the north to the acquisitions of Rome—a design which could not be justified on any considerations of sound policy, and for which, in encountering natives apparently of a different race, there was little excuse. He had already served under three of the governors of Britain, two of these, Petilius Cerealis and Suetonius Paulinus, among the most distinguished. He was familiar with all the characteristics and peculiarities of a war with the British tribes. He had acquired no small renown for military talent and success, and had given evidence of those enlarged conceptions of policy and views of government which could not but greatly affect the state and progress of the province under his charge.

The appointment of a new governor seems generally to have been a signal to the persevering hostility of the British tribes to strike a blow for their independence, till practical experience of the qualities of their antagonist showed them whether success was likely to attend a prosecution of the war; and accordingly the first year of a new government appears always to have been marked by the insurrection of one or more of the subjugated tribes. On the arrival of Agricola he found the western nation of the Ordovices in open insurrection. The summer was far advanced, and the 43Roman troops stationed at different quarters expected a cessation of arms during the rest of the year; but, adopting the policy of Suetonius, Agricola at once drew the troops together, and attacking the enemy, the Ordovices were defeated in battle and entirely crushed for the time. Agricola, still having the example of Suetonius before him, followed up his advantage and accomplished what the latter had attempted, the subjugation of the island of Mona or Anglesea.

Peace being restored, Agricola now directed his attention to a better administration of the province, and to the introduction of those measures most likely to lead to the consolidation of the Roman power and the quiet submission of the inhabitants of the province. Justice and moderation were the characteristics of his government. An equal administration of the laws, and the removal of those burdens and exactions which pressed most heavily upon the natives, could not but in time have the desired effect.

As soon as the summer of the next year arrived, Agricola proceeded to carry into execution his deliberately-formed plan for the subjugation of the northern tribes who had hitherto maintained their independence, and, indeed, had not as yet come into hostile collision with the Roman power in Britain. He appears to have directed his course towards the Solway Firth, and slowly and steadily penetrated into the wild country which stretches along its northern shore, and brought the tribes which possessed it under subjection.^[43] These tribes seem to have formed part of the great nation of the Brigantes, a portion of whose territories had remained unsubdued by his predecessor Petilius Cerealis. He surrounded 44the subjugated tribes with forts and garrisons, and the remains of the numerous Roman camps and stations, which are still to be seen in this district, comprising the counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown, attest the extent to which he had penetrated through that country and garrisoned it with Roman troops. Between the hills which bound Galloway and Dumfriesshire on the north and the Solway Firth on the south, the remains of Roman works are to be found in abundance from the Annan to the Cree, and surround the mouth of every river which pours its waters into that estuary.^[44] The great and extensive nation of the Brigantes was now entirely included within the limits of the Roman province; and Agricola saw before him a barren and hilly region which divided it from the northern tribes, still comparatively unknown except by name to the Romans, and with whom their arms had not yet come in contact.

The following winter was devoted to reducing the turbulent character of the nations recently added to the province to the quiet submission of provincial subjects. The policy adopted was the effectual one of introducing a taste for the habits and pleasures of civilised life. He encouraged them to build temples, courts of justice, and houses of a better description. He took measures for the education of the young. The natives soon began to study the Roman language and to adopt their dress, and by degrees acquired a taste for the luxurious and voluptuous life of the Romans, of which the numerous remains of Roman baths which have been discovered within the limits of the Brigantian territory afford no slight indication.^[45]

45The third year introduced Agricola to regions hitherto untrodden by Roman foot. He penetrated with his army through the hilly region which separates the waters pouring their floods into the Solway from those which flow towards the Clyde. He entered a country occupied by ‘new nations,’^[46] and ravaged their territories as far as the estuary of the ‘Tavaus’ or Tay. His course appears, so far as we can judge by the remains of the Roman camps, to have been from Annandale to the strath of the river Clyde, through Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire, whence he passed into the vale of Stratherne by the great entrance into the northern districts during the early period of Scottish history—the ford of the Forth at Stirling, and the pass through the range of the Ochills formed by the glen of the river Allan, and reached as far as where the river Tay flows into the estuary of the same name.^[47]

The country thus rapidly acquired was secured by forts, which, says the historian, were so admirably placed, that none were either taken or surrendered; and these we can no doubt still recognise in the remains of those strong Roman fortified posts which we find placed opposite the entrance of the principal passes in the Grampians—the stationary camps of Bochastle at the Pass of Leny, Dealgan Ross at Comrie, Fendoch at the pass of the Almond, the camp at the junction of the Almond and the Tay, and the fort at Ardargie. These obviously surround the very territory which Agricola had just overrun, and are well calculated to protect it against the invasions of the natives from the recesses of the mountains, 46into which the Roman arms could not follow them; while the great camp at Ardoch marks the position of the entire Roman army. In consequence of these posts being thus maintained, the Roman troops retained possession of the newly-acquired territory during the winter.

Agricola, with his usual policy, took measures still further to secure the country he had already gained before he attempted to push his conquests farther; and the position of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the comparatively narrow neck of land between these, presented itself to him as so remarkable a natural boundary, that he fixed upon it as the frontier of the future province. The fourth summer was therefore spent in securing this barrier, which he fortified by a chain of posts from the eastern to the western firth.^[48] From the shores of the Forth in the neighbourhood of Borrowstounness to Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde, these forts extended westward at intervals of from two to three miles. In front of them stretches what must have been a morass, and on the heights on the opposite side of the valley are a similar range of native hill-forts.

Having thus secured the country he had already overrun, Agricola now prepared for the subjugation of the tribes which lay still farther to the north. The formidable character of this undertaking, even to the experienced Roman general, may be estimated by the cautious and deliberate manner in which he prepared for a great struggle; and in the position in which he then found himself, the conception of such a plan must have required no ordinary power of firm determination. 47Before him, the more northern regions were protected by a great natural barrier formed by two important arms of the sea, which in any farther advance he must leave behind him. Between these two estuaries he had drawn a line of forts as the formal boundary, for the time, of the province. Beyond them, at the distance of not many miles, were the forts he had placed the year before the last, in which a few of the troops maintained themselves in the precarious possession of a district he acknowledged to be still hostile. On one side the rough line of the Fifeshire coast stretched on the north side of Bodotria, or the Firth of Forth, into the German Ocean. On the other a mountainous region was seen tending towards the Caledonian or Western Ocean; and the northern horizon presented to his view the great range of the so-called Grampians, extending from the vicinity of the Roman stations in one formidable array of mountains towards the north-east as far as the eye could reach. Of the extent of the country beyond them; of the numbers and warlike character of the tribes its recesses concealed; of whether the island still stretched far to the north, or whether he was at no great distance from its northern promontories; of whether its breadth was confined to what he had already experienced, or whether unknown regions, peopled by tribes more warlike than those he had already encountered, stretched far into the Eastern and Western Seas, he as yet knew nothing.

His first object, therefore, was to form some estimate of the real character of the undertaking before him. With this view, and in order to ascertain the character of the western side of the country before him, he in the fifth summer crossed the Firth of Clyde with a small body of troops in one vessel, and penetrated through the hostile districts of Cowall and Kintyre till he saw the Western Ocean, with the coast running due north, presenting in the interior one mass of inaccessible mountains, the five islands of the Hebudes, and the blue shores of Ireland dimly rising 48above the western horizon.^[49] The character of the country on the west being thus ascertained, he determined to make his attack by forcing his way through the country on the east, and, fearing a combination of the more northern tribes, he combined the fleet with the army in his operations.

Having crossed the former in the beginning of the sixth summer to explore the harbours on the coast of Fife, he appears to have had his army conveyed across the Bodotria, or Firth of Forth, into the rough peninsula of Fife on the north side of it, and to have gradually, but thoroughly, acquired possession of the country between the Firths of Forth and Tay, while his fleet encircled the coast of Fife, and penetrated into the latter estuary. The appearance of 49the Roman fleet in the Firth of Tay, making their way, as it were, into the recesses of the country, naturally caused great alarm among the natives; and in order to compel Agricola to abandon his attack on this quarter, they took up arms and assailed the forts which had been placed by him in the country west of the Tay in the third year of his campaigns.

That this movement was well devised appears from the proposal of many in Agricola’s army to abandon the country they had just subdued, and fall back upon the line of forts between the Firths of Forth and Clyde. Agricola was at this time probably near the entrance of the river Tay into its estuary, and the large temporary camp on the east bank of the Tay opposite Perth, termed Grassy Walls, may have been his position. Instead of adopting this course, he resolved, trusting to the security of the forts against any attack, to meet the manœuvre of the natives by prosecuting his attack upon the country extending from the east coast north of the Tay to the range of the so-called Grampians; and in order to prevent his army from being surrounded in a difficult country by overwhelming numbers, he marched forward in three divisions.

His course, judging from the view his biographer Tacitus gives of his tactics, must have been nearly in a parallel line with the river Tay—his march being on the east side of it, and the enemy rapidly returning from the west to oppose him. The position of the army in its forward march in three divisions is very apparent in the remains of the Roman camps in this district of the country. There is a group of three in a situation remarkably applicable to his design and his position. The camp at Cupar-Angus, which is farthest to the north of the three, probably contained the main division of the army. Within little more than two miles to the south-east is the camp at Lintrose, termed Campmuir, to cover the country to the east; and as the enemy, he 50immediately apprehended, were not in that quarter, in it he placed the ninth legion, which was the weakest. At an equal distance on the south-west, and overlooking the river Tay, was another camp, of which a strong post still remains, and which obviously guarded the passage of the river.

The enemy, having learnt this disposition of the Roman army, resolved to make a night attack upon its weakest division, and appear to have crossed the river, passed the main body in the night, and suddenly fallen upon the ninth legion. The camp at Lintrose has only one gate on the side towards the larger camp at Cupar-Angus. On the opposite side the rampart is broken in the centre by the remains of a morass. The enemy forced their way through the gate, having taken the Romans by surprise, and an engagement commenced in the very camp itself, when Agricola, having received information of their march, followed closely upon their track with the swiftest of the horse and foot from the main division of the army, overtook them about daybreak, and attacked them in the rear. The natives were now between two enemies, and a furious engagement ensued, till they forced their way through the morass, and took refuge in the woods and marshes.^[50]

51The Romans were now as much elated by this successful contact with the enemy as they had before been alarmed, and demanded to be led into the heart of Caledonia. The natives attributed their defeat to the fortunate chance for the Romans of their being hemmed in between two forces, and prepared for a more vigorous struggle the following year. A general confederacy of the northern tribes was formed, and ratified by solemn assemblies and sacrifices, and the two contending parties separated for the winter, prepared for a vital contest when they resumed operations next year. This campaign had lasted for two seasons, and Agricola probably returned to the camp at Grassy Walls for winter quarters.^[51]

The third season was destined to determine whether the Romans were to obtain possession of the whole island, or whether the physical difficulties of the mountain regions of the north, and the superior bravery of its inhabitants, 52were at last to oppose an obstacle to the further advance of the Roman dominion. Agricola commenced the operations of this year by sending his fleet, as soon as summer arrived, down the coast to the north, to operate a diversion by creating alarm and ravaging the country within reach of the ships. He then marched forward with his army nearly on the track of the preceding year, and crossed the river Isla till he reached a hill, called by Tacitus ‘Mons Granpius,’^[52] on which the assembled forces of the natives were already encamped under the command of a native chief, Calgacus, whose name is indelibly associated with the great battle which followed.

On the peninsula formed by the junction of the Isla with the Tay are the remains of a strong and massive vallum, called Cleaven Dyke, extending from the one river to the other, with a small Roman fort at one end, and enclosing a large triangular space capable of containing 53Agricola’s whole troops, guarded by the rampart in front and by a river on each side. Before the rampart a plain of some size extends to the foot of the Blair Hill, or the mount of battle, the lowest of a succession of elevations which rise from the plain till they attain the full height of the great mountain range of the so-called Grampians; and on the heights above the plain are the remains of a large native encampment, called Buzzard Dykes, capable of containing upwards of 30,000 men.

Certainly no position in Scotland presents features which correspond so remarkably with Tacitus’s description as this, and we may suppose the Roman army to have occupied the peninsula protected by the rampart of the Cleaven Dyke in front, and Calgacus’s native forces to have encamped at Buzzard Dykes. These two great armies would thus remain opposed to each other at the distance of about three miles, the one containing the whole strength of the native tribes still unsubdued, collected from every quarter, and amounting to upwards of 30,000 men in arms, while the youth of the country, and even men in years, were still pouring in, and resolved to stake the fortunes of their wild and barren country upon the issue of one great battle; the other, the Roman army of veteran troops, flushed with past conquests, and confident in the well-proved military talent of their general;—the one on the verge of their mountain country, and defending its recesses, as it were, their last refuge; the other at the termination of the extensive regions they had already won from the Britons, and burning with desire to penetrate still farther, even to the end of the island. Between them lay the Muir of Blair, extending from the rampart at Meikleour to the Hill of Blair. On the east both armies were prevented from extending in that direction, or from outflanking each other, by the river Isla. On the west a succession of morasses, moors, and small lochs extends towards the 54hills, and in this direction the battle eventually carried itself.^[53]

Such was the position of the two armies when the echoes of the wild yells and shouts of the natives, and the glitter of their arms, as their divisions were seen in motion and hurrying to the front, announced to Agricola that they were forming the line of battle. The Roman commander immediately drew out his troops on the plain. In the centre he placed the auxiliary infantry, amounting to about 8000 men, and 3000 horse formed the wings. Behind the main line, and in front of the great vallum or rampart, he stationed the legions, consisting of the veteran Roman 55soldiers. His object was to fight the battle with the auxiliary troops, among whom were even Britons, and to support them, if necessary, with the Roman troops as a body of reserve.

The native army was ranged upon the rising grounds, and their line as far extended as possible. The first line was stationed on the plains, while the others were ranged in separate lines on the acclivity of the hill behind them. On the plain the chariots and horsemen of the native army rushed about in all directions.

Agricola, fearing from the extended line of the enemy that he might be attacked both in front and flank at the same time, ordered the ranks to form in wider range, at the risk even of weakening his line, and, placing himself in front with his colours, this memorable action commenced by the interchange of missiles at a distance. In order to bring the action to closer quarters, Agricola ordered three Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts to charge the enemy sword in hand. In close combat they proved to be superior to the natives, whose small targets and large unwieldy swords were no match for the vigorous onslaught of the auxiliaries; and having driven back their first line, they were forcing their way up the ascent, when the whole line of the Roman army advanced and charged with such impetuosity as to carry all before them. The natives endeavoured to turn the fate of the battle by their chariots, and dashed with them upon the Roman cavalry, who were driven back and thrown into confusion; but the chariots, becoming mixed with the cavalry, were in their turn thrown into confusion, and were thus rendered ineffectual, as well as by the roughness of the ground.

The reserve of the natives now descended, and endeavoured to outflank the Roman army and attack them in the rear, when Agricola ordered four squadrons of reserve cavalry to advance to the charge. The native troops were repulsed, 56and being attacked in the rear by the cavalry from the wings, were completely routed, and this concluded the battle. The defeat became general; the natives drew off in a body to the woods and marshes on the west side of the plain. They attempted to check the pursuit by making a last effort and again forming, but Agricola sent some cohorts to the assistance of the pursuers; and, surrounding the ground, while part of the cavalry scoured the more open woods, and part dismounting entered the closer thickets, the native line again broke, and the flight became general, till night put an end to the pursuit.

Such was the great battle at ‘Mons Granpius,’ and such the events of the day as they may be gathered from the concise narrative of a Roman writing of a battle in which the victorious general was his father-in-law. The slaughter on the part of the natives was great, though probably as much overstated, when put at one-third of their whole army, as that of the Romans is under-estimated; and the significant silence of the historian as to the death or capture of Calgacus, or any other of sufficient note to be mentioned, and the admission that the great body of the native army at first drew off in good order, show that it was not the crushing blow which might otherwise be inferred.

On the succeeding day there was no appearance of the enemy; silence all around, desolate hills and the distant smoke of burning dwellings alone met the eye of the victor; but, notwithstanding his success, he evidently felt that, with so difficult a country before him, and a native army probably re-assembling in the recesses of a mountain region, which, if gained, it would manifestly be impossible to retain, and knowing too somewhat better what the great barrier of the so-called Grampians was, both to the invading and the native army, he was in no condition to follow up his advantage. The attempt to subjugate the northern districts was substantially abandoned, and Agricola appears to have crossed 57the Tay and led his army into the country which he had overrun in the third year, and whose inhabitants are now termed ‘Horesti.’ Having taken hostages from them to prevent their joining the hostile army, he returned to his winter quarters south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde with his troops, while he directed his fleet to proceed along the coast to the north till they had encircled the island.

This voyage the fleet accomplished, coasting round Britain till they reached the Trutulensian harbour in the south, and then returned to their station in the Firth of Forth, giving certain proof of its insular character, and some indication of the extent and nature of the still unsubjugated country. In the course of their voyage they passed and took possession of the ‘Orcades’ or Orkneys in name of the Roman Empire, and they saw the peak of a distant island to the north, which they concluded might be the hitherto mysterious and unvisited Thule. They described as peculiarly remarkable that great feature of Scotland, the long lochs or arms of the sea penetrating into the interior of the country, and winding among its mountains and rocks.

Thus terminated what proved to be Agricola’s last campaign in Britain. Whether he resolved to renew the contest for the possession of the barren region of the north, or had practically abandoned the attempt, we know not, as the jealousy of the Emperor Domitian recalled him, ostensibly for a better command, as soon as this great battle was known in Rome. There is no doubt that he seriously contemplated the subjugation of Ireland and its annexation to the Roman Empire. Had he remained to fulfil this intention, the colour of the future history of these islands might have been materially altered. As it was, the fruit of his successes was lost, and the northern tribes retained their independence. The result of his campaigns was that no permanent impression 58was made on the country beyond the Tay, the limit of his third year’s progress.

Such is the conception which we think may be fairly formed of Agricola’s campaigns in Scotland, from a careful and attentive consideration of the condensed narrative by Tacitus, taken in combination with an accurate examination of the physical features of the country. They form too important a feature at the very threshold of the history of the country, and have been too much perverted by a careless consideration of the only record we have of them, and the intrusion of extraneous or spurious matter, to be passed over in less detail.

Agricola’s successor, Lucullus, was put to death on a trifling excuse by the tyrant Domitian, and the entire country which had formed the scene of these campaigns since the first appears to have fallen off from Rome and resumed its independent state, the Roman province being again limited to the boundary it possessed on the north when Agricola assumed the government.

One result, however, was to add greatly to the knowledge the Romans possessed of the island and its inhabitants, and to give them a practical acquaintance with the tribes inhabiting Caledonia, and hitherto known to them only by report, as the ‘Caledonii Britanni.’ The expression of Tacitus in his narrative sufficiently indicates that they were to be distinguished from the other Britons as a different race, at least in some sense or degree as the ‘new nations,’ with whom Agricola first came in contact in his third campaign. This and similar expressions are applied to the tribes he encountered during that and the subsequent years of his government; and the arguments of the historian as to whether the inhabitants of the island were indigenous or an immigrant population show that, while the Romans observed considerable difference in the physical appearance of the different races, they were not aware of any great distinction in their language. 59Tacitus considers the question of origin as it affects the inhabitants viewed as one nation. He says that the red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia might infer a German descent; the swarthy features and crisp hair of the Silures, as well as their situation, which in the erroneous notion of the position of Britain was supposed to be opposite Spain, an origin from that country; but the other Britons, in all respects, resembled the inhabitants of Gaul. His remarks have generally been viewed as if he considered that the Britons consisted of three distinct races, and that there were traditionary accounts of their respective origins, but this is entirely to misapprehend the bearing of his statements. They are arbitrary inferences merely, drawn by himself from the difference in the physical appearance of different parts of the nation whose origin he is treating of as a whole; and the general conclusion he comes to is, that notwithstanding these appearances, the whole country received its population from Gaul, differing in this respect from the earlier account of Cæsar, who pronounces the inhabitants of the interior to be indigenous. As one ground for this general conclusion, Tacitus adds that their language did not greatly differ from that of Gaul, which implies that there could have been no very marked or striking difference of language among themselves. He says that the Britons possessed the same audacity in provoking danger, and irresolution in facing it when present. The former quality in a greater degree, while the latter imputation in the main, is disproved, so far as the northern tribes are concerned, by the narrative of the historian himself which follows this statement in his Life of Agricola. He observes one of the peculiar customs of the Britons among the Caledonians—the fighting in chariots, which was now apparently confined to the ruder tribes of the north; but it is remarkable that he alludes neither to the practice of their staining their bodies with woad, nor to the supposed community of women among them. He shows that, in the 60wedge-like shape attributed to Britain by previous writers, Caledonia was excluded as still unknown to them. In the language put by the historian into the mouth of the Caledonian leader Calgacus, he implies in the strongest manner that the tribes embraced in the designation he usually gives them of inhabitants of Caledonia, were the most northerly of the British nations; that no other people dwelt beyond them; that they had neither cultivated lands, mines, nor harbours; and that he knew of no state of society among them resembling the promiscuous intercourse of women, as he mentions their children and kinsfolk, their wives and sisters, in language only consistent with the domestic relation in greater purity. He also implies that their normal condition was that of small communities or ‘civitates,’ who were independent of each other, and only united in one common action by a formal confederacy among themselves.

The fruit of Agricola’s campaigns being thus so speedily lost to the Romans, and the Caledonian tribes having, so far as subjugated by him, resumed their independence immediately after his recall, matters appear to have remained in the same state, in other respects, till the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. On his accession in the year 117, the Britons would seem to have threatened an insurrection; but of what really took place during the interval of thirty-six years between the recall of Agricola and the commencement of his reign we know nothing.

In the year 120 Hadrian visited Britain in person, when he appears to have put down any attempt at insurrection; and, having adopted, or rather originated, the policy of defending the frontiers of the Roman empire by great ramparts, he fixed the limits of the province in Britain at a line drawn from the Solway Firth on the west to the mouth of the river Tyne on the east, and constructed a great barrier designed to protect it equally against the incursions of the 61Barbarians or independent tribes to the north of it, and the revolt of those included within the province. It consists of ‘three parts—a stone wall strengthened by a ditch on its northern side; an earthen wall or vallum to the south of the stone wall; and stations, castles, watch-towers, and roads, for the accommodation of the soldiery who manned the wall, and for the transmission of military stores. These lie, for the most part, between the stone wall and earthen rampart.’ The stone wall extends from Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway, a distance of seventy-three and a half English miles. The earth wall falls short of this distance by about three miles at each end, not extending beyond Newcastle on the east, and terminating at Dykesfield on the west. The result of the most recent examination of the wall is that the whole is undoubtedly the work of Hadrian.^[54]

Hadrian thus made no attempt to retain any part of the country conquered by Agricola in his last campaigns, but withdrew the frontier in one part even from where it had extended prior to Agricola’s government, in order to obtain a more advantageous line for his favourite mode of defence.

The Romans had now acquired more detailed information regarding the number and position of the tribes of Caledonia, their names, the situation of their towns, and the leading geographical features of the country. These are preserved to us, as they existed at this time, by the geographer Ptolemy, and his account of the north part of the island has apparently been compiled from the itineraries of the Roman soldiers, the observations made from the fleet in its circuit round the island, and the reports of those who had penetrated into the interior of the country. From these and other sources of information he lays down the position of the prominent features of the coast—the headlands, bays, estuaries, and mouths of the rivers, and the position of the towns in the interior, by giving the latitudes and longitudes of each. These degrees of longitude, however, are subject to a double correction. First, he places the island in too northern a latitude; and secondly, his degrees of longitude are less than the true degree, and therefore the number of degrees stated between two places is greater than they ought to be. Besides this, he has fallen into the extraordinary error of turning the country north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde to the east instead of to the north. This error mainly affects that part of the country between the Solway and the Clyde on the west, and the Wear and the Forth on the east—the coast on the west being unduly expanded, and that on the east 63proportionably contracted. Beyond the Firths of Forth and Clyde the effect of this strange error is to alter the points of the compass, and to substitute north for west, east for north, south for west, and west for south. The former error does not much affect the accuracy of the relative distances of places near each other. The latter, with the distortion of the distances and relative position of the localities which it creates, can be corrected without difficulty, and that part of the map reconstructed as if this error had not been fallen into. Where the country is unaffected by these mistakes, his accuracy is so great, when compared with the face of the country, that his localities can be laid down, with some rare exceptions, with considerable confidence.^[55]

64Ptolemy places the ‘Itunae Aestuarium’ on the west, and the mouth of the river ‘Vedra’ on the east, nearly opposite each other, and there is little difficulty in identifying the former with the Solway Firth, and the latter with the river Wear.^[56] It is between these points and the river Tay that the distortion of the country takes place,—the north shore of the Solway Firth being continued in the same northern line with the west coast of England, instead of stretching to the west at right angles to it,—the Mull of Galloway being his northern point, and the northern part of Scotland made to extend towards the east. The effect is, that in the remaining part of his description the word east must be understood as really north, and that the east coast, from the Wear to the Forth, is too much circumscribed in distance, while the distances on the western side of the country are proportionably made too great. It is remarkable that the part of the country thus affected by this extraordinary mistake should be exactly the scene of Agricola’s campaigns; and it appears 65strange that the more northern part of the country, the information as to which he must have derived from report, and the observation of the coast from the Roman fleet, should surpass in accuracy that part of the country so often and so recently traversed by Agricola’s troops, with regard to which his means of correct knowledge might be supposed to be so much greater. We are almost led to attribute more simple truth and force to the remark made by Tacitus, that ‘it frequently happened that in the same camp were seen the infantry and cavalry intermixed with the marines, all indulging their joy, full of their adventures, and magnifying the history of their exploits; the soldier describing, in the usual style of military ostentation, the forests he had passed, the mountains he had climbed, and the Barbarians whom he put to the rout; while the sailor, no less important, had his storms and tempests, the wonders of the deep, and the spirit with which he conquered winds and waves,’ than we should otherwise suppose. If it could be inferred that Agricola’s soldiers had reported exaggerated itinerary distances, and magnified the country they had traversed, and the difficulties they had overcome, and, further, had believed, that in the second campaign, while the rest of the country was unknown to them, they were marching north instead of west, the mistake would be precisely accounted for. It seems almost to add force to this conjecture, that in the very scene where this emulation between the army and the navy is recorded to have taken place, and where a whole summer was spent in subjugating a comparatively small territory—the peninsula between the firths of Forth and Tay—the distances are still more greatly exaggerated, and the area of the peninsula increased beyond all proportion.

Be this as it may, let us follow Ptolemy round the coast, keeping in view that he designates a headland by the Greek term ἄκρον, and the Latin ‘promontorium;’ a firth or estuary by εἴσχυσις, and ‘aestuarium;’ a bay or sea loch by 66κόλπος, and ‘sinus;’ and the mouth of a river by ποταμοῦ ἐκβολαί or ‘fluvii ostia.’ By correcting Ptolemy’s mistake, and restoring the country between the Wear and Solway on the south, and the Tay on the north, to its proper proportion, we can identify the mouth of the river ‘Alaunus’ with that of the Alne, or Allan, in Northumberland; while the next point mentioned by Ptolemy in proceeding along the coast towards the north—the Boderia estuary—is obviously the ‘Bodotria’ of Tacitus, or Firth of Forth. Directly opposite to Boderia, Ptolemy places the Clota estuary, or Firth of Clyde, and the space between the two—the neck of land on which Agricola placed his line of forts—is correct in distance. Between the Ituna estuary or Solway Firth and the Clota or Clyde, Ptolemy has three of the rivers flowing into the Solway—the ‘Novius’ or Nith, the ‘Deva’ or Dee, and the ‘Iena’^[57] estuary, or that of the Cree. They can be easily identified, though the intermediate distances are too great. He mentions the river Luce by the name of the ‘Abravannus,’ the promontory of the ‘Novantæ’ or Mull of Galloway, the Rerigonius Bay or Loch Ryan, and Vindogara Bay or that of Ayr.

Proceeding northwards along the east coast, we find the peninsula of Fife unduly extended in breadth; but the great feature of the Tava estuary, which bounds it on the north, it is impossible to mistake. Its identity with the ‘Tavaus’ of Tacitus and the Firth of Tay is perfectly clear. The position of the mouth of the river Tina, between the Boderia and the Tava, corresponds with the relative situation of the river Eden, which flows through the centre of Fife, and enters the German Ocean near St. Andrews.

Having now passed that part of the country affected by Ptolemy’s mistakes, as to its direction, the relative distances 67correspond more closely with those of the places meant. North of the Tava, or Tay, is the river ‘Leva,’^[58] and farther north the promontory of the ‘Taexali.’ These correspond in distance exactly with the mouth of the North Esk and with Kinnaird’s Head—the north-east point of Aberdeenshire. Here the coast forms a bend in a direction at right angles, corresponding to the entrance of the Moray Firth; and proceeding along the south shore we have the river ‘Celnius’ or Devern, the ‘Tuessis’ or Spey, the ‘Loxa’^[59] or Lossy, and the Varar estuary, or that part of the Moray Firth usually termed the Firth of Beauly, and separated from it by the narrow channel at Kessock. After this the distances, if measured in a straight line, are found to be too great, but if the windings of the coast, which is here greatly indented, are followed, they are sufficiently correct, showing that they are derived from the itineraries of coasting vessels, and that the Moray Firth had been in fact explored. Looking across the lowlands of Easter Ross, the first landmark noticed are the high hills on the north of the Dornoch Firth, and two stand prominently out, forming the two sides of Strathfleet or Little Ferry. One of these great landmarks is noted as Ὄχθη ὑψηλή, ‘Ripa alta,’ or the high bank. Beyond these to the north is the mouth of the river ‘Ila,’ corresponding in situation with the Helmsdale river, termed by the Highlanders the Ulie. We have then three promontories 68noticed—the ‘Veruvium,’ the ‘Vervedrum,’ and the ‘Orcas’ or ‘Tarvedrum.’ The editions of Ptolemy vary as to their relative positions, but it is impossible not to recognise the three prominent headlands of Caithness,—the Noss Head, Duncansby Head, and Dunnet Head.

On the west coast, proceeding north from the Firth of Clyde, Ptolemy notices the ‘Lemannonius’ Bay or Loch, which corresponds in situation with Loch Long,^[60] although the resemblance of name would almost lead us to infer that the geographer believed that Loch Lomond opened upon the sea. He next mentions the promontory, early known to the Romans as that of Caledonia, under the name of the Epidium promontory, which is obviously Kintyre. North of the Mull of Kintyre he places exactly in Crinan Bay, which must always have been a well-known shelter for vessels, the mouth of the ‘Longus’ river, where we now find the river Add,^[61] known to the Highlanders as the Avon Fhada or long river.

THE FIVE EBUDŒ
OF PTOLEMY
Compared with
THE ISLANDS
South of
ARDNAMURCHAN POINT


W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London.

Between Scotland and Ireland Ptolemy places the five islands which he terms the ‘Ebudæ,’ and the island of ‘Monarina;’ but these islands are attached to his map of Ireland, to which country he held them to belong, and their situation is not affected by the great mistake he committed in the direction of Scotland. The most northerly of the five he terms ‘Maleus,’ which is so obviously the island of 69Mull that it gives us a clue to the situation of the rest, and shows that the islands meant were those south of the point of Ardnamurchan. The remaining four, placed in a line on the same degree of latitude, and lying from west to east, are termed the two ‘Ebudas,’ ‘Engaricenna’ and ‘Epidium.’ The relative situation of the western ‘Ebuda’ towards Ireland corresponds closely with that of Isla, and the two ‘Ebudas’ were probably Isla and Jura. Scarba corresponds with ‘Engaricenna,’ and the more distant Lismore with ‘Epidium.’ These islands all lie in one line from south-west to north-east. ‘Monarina’ corresponds in its position towards Ireland with the island of Arran.^[62]

Beyond the point of Ardnamurchan the western islands seem to have been comparatively unknown. No islands are mentioned which correspond with the Outer Hebrides, and the island of Skye seems only to have been known by name, as it is probably meant by Ptolemy’s island of ‘Scetis,’ which however he places apparently at random near the north-east promontory of Scotland. On the mainland three points only are noticed,—the mouth of the Itys river, which is probably the river Carron flowing into Loch Carron; the Volsas Bay or Loch, which can only be the great arm of the sea termed Loch Broom; and the mouth of the river ‘Nabarus,’ obviously the Naver; but these points must have 70apparently been taken from report, as it is difficult otherwise to account for his ignorance of the true position of Skye, and for the absence of all mention of the great headland of Cape Wrath, forming the north-west point of Scotland.

Along the east coast he denominates the sea the Germanic Ocean, and along the west, from the Mull of Galloway to Dunnet Head, the Deucaledonian.

Such is the wonderfully accurate notice of the salient features of the coasts of Scotland given by a geographer of the second century; but his description of the tribes of the interior of the country, and the position of what he denominates towns, as compared with the physical appearance of the country, is no less so. To these tribes Ptolemy assigns definite names, and to some the possession of what he terms πόλεις in Greek, and in Latin ‘oppida.’ That these towns were not exclusively Roman stations is plain from their being mentioned in a part of the country to which the Roman arms had not yet penetrated; neither could they have been simply the rude hill-forts, or primitive shelters in the woods, such as are mentioned by Cæsar; for they are only to be found in the southern and eastern districts, and none are noticed as we approach the rude tribes of the hill country. They certainly implied a regularly fortified town, in which the habitations of the natives were collected together, and formed the great defences of their territories, as we almost invariably find them placed near the frontiers of each tribe, or the great passes from one district to another. They would naturally form the main points of attack in any assault upon the tribe; and accordingly we usually find, within the sphere of the Roman operations, a Roman camp placed in the immediate vicinity of the remains of these towns; and the Roman stations or roads are useful in assisting the accurate identification of these within the range of their campaigns.

71A line drawn from the Solway Firth across the island to the eastern sea exactly separates the great nation of the Brigantes from the tribes on the north; but this is obviously an artificial line of separation, as it closely follows the course of the Roman wall shortly before constructed by the Emperor Hadrian, otherwise it would imply that the southern boundary of three Barbarian tribes was precisely on the same line where nature presents no physical line of demarcation. There is on other grounds reason to think that these tribes, though apparently separated from the Brigantes by this artificial line, in reality formed part of that great nation.^[63] These tribes were the Otalini or Otadeni and Gadeni, extending along the east coast from the Roman wall to the Firth of Forth. They had three towns—on the south ‘Curia’ and ‘Bremenium,’ whose situations correspond with Carby Hill in Liddesdale, where there is a strong native fort, and opposite to it a Roman station, and High Rochester, in Redesdale. Their northern frontier was guarded by the town of Alauna, which is placed by Ptolemy in the Firth of Forth, and corresponds in situation with the island of Inchkeith.^[64]

72Farther to the west, the Selgovæ or Elgovæ occupied the county of Dumfries, being bounded on the north by the chain of hills of which the Lowthers formed the highest part, and extending along the shores of the Solway Firth as far as the river Nith. Their towns were ‘Trimontium,’^[65] in the exact position where we find the remarkable Roman remains on the striking hill called the Birrenswark hill; ‘Uxellum’ corresponding in situation with the Wardlaw hill in the parish of Caerlaverock, where there are the remains of Roman and native works; ‘Corda’ at Sanquhar, in the upper part of the valley of the Kith, a name which implies that it was the site of an ancient Caer or native strength. The remaining town of the Selgovæ—Carbantorigum—is placed by Ptolemy on the exact position of the remains of a very remarkable stronghold termed the Moat of Urr, lying between the Nith and the Dee.

To the west of the Selgovæ lay the tribe of the Novantæ, occupying the modern counties of Kirkcudbright and Wigtown. Their towns were—Lucopibia at Whithorn, where there are the remains of Roman works, and Rerigonium^[66] on the eastern shore of Loch Ryan, the fortified moat of which is still to be seen on the farm of Innermessan.

73North of the Selgovæ and Novantæ, and separated from them by the chain of hills which divides the northern rivers from the waters which flow into the Solway, was the great nation of the Damnonii, extending as far north as the river Tay. They possessed south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde the modern counties of Ayr, Lanark, and Renfrew; and north of these estuaries, the counties of Dumbarton and Stirling, and the districts of Menteith, Stratherne, and Fothreve, or the western half of the peninsula of Fife. This great nation thus lay in the centre of Scotland, completely separating the tribes of the Otalini or Otadeni, Selgovæ or Elgovæ, and Novantæ, on the south, from the northern tribes beyond the Tay, and were the ‘novæ gentes,’ or new nations, whose territories Agricola ravaged to the ‘Tavaus’ or Tay in his third campaign. They possessed six towns,—three south of the firths, and three north of them. Their towns in the southern districts were ‘Colania,’ near the sources of the Clyde, a frontier but apparently unimportant post; ‘Coria,’ at Carstairs, on the Clyde near Lanark, which, from the numerous remains both Roman and native, appears to have been their principal seat; and ‘Vandogara,’^[67] on the river Irvine, at Loudon Hill in Ayrshire, where there are the remains of a Roman camp, which 74was afterwards connected with ‘Coria,’ or Carstairs, by a Roman road. In their northern districts the geographer likewise places three towns,—‘Alauna’ at the junction of the Allan with the Forth, a position which guarded what was for many centuries the great entrance to Caledonia from the south; ‘Lindum’ at Ardoch, where the number of Roman camps, and of hill-forts which surround them, indicates an important position; and ‘Victoria,’ situated at Loch Orr, a lake in the western part of Fife, occupied by this nation, where there are the remains of a Roman station.

On the east coast, the ‘Vernicomes’ possessed the eastern half of Fife, or the ancient Fife exclusive of Fothreve, and the counties of Forfar and Kincardine. The only town mentioned is ‘Orrea,’ which must have been situated near the junction of the Earn with the Tay, perhaps at Abernethy. The nearest Roman station to it is at Ardargie. Farther north along the coast, and reaching from the mountain chain of the Mounth to the Moray Firth, were the ‘Taexali,’ who gave their name to the headland now called Kinnaird’s Head. Their town, ‘Devana,’^[68] is placed by Ptolemy in the strath of the Dee, near the Pass of Ballater, and close to Loch Daven, where the remains of a native town are still to be seen, and in which the name of Devana seems yet to be preserved.

West of the two tribes of the ‘Vernicomes’ and the ‘Taexali,’ and extending from the Moray Firth to the Tay, Ptolemy places the ‘Vacomagi,’ a border people, who lay along the line separating the Highlands from the Lowlands. The remarkable promontory of Burghead on the south side of the Moray Firth, on which the ramparts of the early town are still to be seen, was one of their positions, on which they had a town termed πτερωτὸν στρατόπεδον, 75Alata Castra,^[69] or the Winged Camp. They had another town on the Spey near Boharm, termed Tuessis. Their frontier towns at the southern termination of their territory were ‘Tamea,’ placed on the remarkable island in the Tay, termed Inchtuthil, where numerous remains exist, and ‘Banatia’ at Buchanty on the Almond, where a strong Roman station is overlooked by the commanding native strength on the Dunmore Hill.

To the north and west of these tribes no further towns are mentioned; and as the Caledonii extend on the west along the entire length of the territories of the Vacomagi, their eastern boundary formed the line of demarcation between the tribes of the more plain and fertile districts, who had advanced one step in the progress of social life in the possession, even at this early period, of settled habitations and determined limits, and the wilder tribes of the mountain region, among whom nothing deserving the name of town in its then acceptation was known to the Romans. Ptolemy states that the Caledonii extended from the ‘Lemannonius Sinus,’ or Loch Long, to the ‘Varár Aestuarium’ or Beauly Firth, thus ranging along the entire boundary of the Highland portion of Scotland. On the west they had the remarkable chain of hills termed in the early historical documents ‘Dorsum Britanniae,’ Drumalban, or the backbone of Scotland, a native term apparently presented in a Greek form in Ptolemy’s καληδόνιος δρυμός, and converted by 76his Latin translator, who, puzzled by the term δρυμὸς, recognised in it only an unusual Greek word signifying an oak wood, into ‘Caledonius Saltus’ or Caledonian Wood. That this range of hills was at all times a forest in the highland acceptation of the term, having its southern termination at the head of Lochs Long and Lomond, there is no doubt.

North of the Caledonii, on the other side of the Varar or Beauly Firth, lay the ‘Canteæ’ or ‘Decantæ,’ possessing the whole of Ross-shire save the districts on the west coast. Sutherland proper was possessed by the ‘Lugi’ and ‘Mertæ.’ Along the west coast, from the Firth of Clyde northwards, were the ‘Epidii’ in Kintyre and Lorn. Beyond them the ‘Creones’ or ‘Croenes,’ extending probably from the Linnhe Loch to Loch Carron. Beyond them the ‘Carnones,’ occupying probably the western districts of Ross-shire. Beyond these again, in the west of Sutherland, the ‘Caerini;’ and along the northern termination of Scotland, including Caithness and the north-west of Sutherland, were the ‘Curnavii.’ Such were the northern tribes of Britain as described by the geographer Ptolemy in the second century, and such the knowledge the Romans now possessed of their position, and of the towns they occupied.

Ere twenty years had elapsed since this description of the tribes of the barbarian portion of Britain was written, the frontier of the Roman province had been advanced from the wall between the Solway and the Tyne to the isthmus between the Forth and Clyde, the boundary destined for it by the sagacity of Agricola. Early in the reign of Antoninus, who succeeded Hadrian in the empire in the year 138, the independent portion of the nation of the Brigantes had broken the bounds set to them by the wall of Hadrian, and overrun the territories of one of the provincial tribes, and thus drew upon themselves the vengeance of the Roman Emperor. Lollius Urbicus was sent 77into Britain in the second year of his reign, towards the end of the year 139, subdued the hostile tribes, and constructed an earthen rampart between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, thus advancing the frontier of the Roman province to the isthmus between these firths, and again adding the intermediate territory to the Roman possessions in the island. This wall between the Forth and Clyde remained from this time, till the Romans left the island, the proper boundary of the province during the entire period of their occupation of Britain.^[70]

The isthmus between the Forth and Clyde presents towards the west the appearance of a great valley, having the Campsie and Kilsyth hills on the north, and on the south a series of lesser rising grounds extending in a continuous line from sea to sea; while the hills on the opposite side recede as the valley approaches towards the east, till the view from the southern rising ground extends over the magnificent plain of the Carse of Falkirk, with the upper part of the Firth of Forth stretching along its northern limit. The Roman wall was constructed along the ridge of the southern rising grounds, and the remains of this 78stupendous work have at all times arrested the attention of even the careless observer. This great work, as it presents itself to the inspection of those who have examined it minutely, consisted of a large rampart of intermingled stone and earth, strengthened by sods of turf, and must have originally measured 20 feet in height, and 24 feet in breadth at the base. It was surmounted by a parapet having a level platform behind it, for the protection of its defenders. In front there extended along its whole course an immense fosse, averaging about 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep. To the southward of the whole was a military way, presenting the usual appearance of a Roman causewayed road. This great barrier extended from Bridgeness, near Carriden, on the Firth of Forth, to Chapelhill, near West Kilpatrick, on the Clyde, a distance of twenty-seven English miles,—having, at intervals of about two miles, small square forts or stations, which, judging from those that remain, amounted in all to nineteen in number, and between them were smaller watch-towers.^[71]

Such was this formidable barrier in its complete state; but it is not likely that it owed its entire construction to Lollius Urbicus. His work appears to have been limited to what was constructed of turf, and consisted probably only of the earthen rampart itself. Few probably, if any, of the principal ‘castella’ formed part of the original construction, as their remains indicate a more elaborate foundation. Numerous inscriptions have been found along the course of the wall, which show that the ‘vallum,’ as it is termed in these inscriptions, had been constructed by the second, the sixth, and the twentieth legions, or rather by their vexillations. 79The first and last of these legions had been in Britain since the time of Claudius; the sixth was brought into the island by Hadrian. The inscriptions connect the work with the name of Antoninus, and in one that of Lollius Urbicus has been found.

This great work, guarded as it was by a powerful body of Roman troops, seems to have effectually protected the Roman province in its increased extent during the remainder of the reign of Antoninus. But the first year of a new emperor was, as usual, marked in Britain by an attempt upon the province by the northern tribes, and Calphurnius Agricola was sent to Britain to quell them. This was in the year 162.^[72]

In the commencement of the reign of Commodus, twenty years later, the irruption was of a more formidable character. The nations on the north of the wall succeeded in breaking through that great barrier, slew the commander with a number of the soldiers who guarded it, and spread devastation over the neighbouring part of the province. The war created great alarm at Rome, and Marcellus Ulpius was sent by Commodus against them,—a general whose character, as drawn by Dio Cassius, peculiarly fitted him for the task, and he appears to have succeeded in repelling the invading tribes, and terminating the war two years later.^[73]

On the death of Commodus in the year 192, three able generals commanded the Roman troops stationed at the principal points of the boundary of the Roman empire—Pescennius Niger in Syria, Lucius Septimius Severus in Pannonia, and Clodius Albinus in Britain; and after the death of Pertinax and Didius Julianus—the short-lived emperors who had been put up and as speedily deposed by the Prætorian guards—a struggle took place between these 80generals for the empire. Severus was proclaimed emperor at Rome, but he found himself at once in a position of great difficulty; for both of his rivals were formidable opponents, both were in command of powerful armies devoted to them, and he could not proceed to attack the one without exposing the seat of the empire to be seized upon by the other, or remain at Rome without drawing upon himself the simultaneous attack of both. He therefore caused Albinus to be proclaimed Cæsar, had his title confirmed by the senate, and sent letters to him to invite him to share in the government, but recommended that he should make Britain the seat of his government, and devote himself to the care of that province. An example was thus for the first time set of the command of the troops in Britain being associated with the imperial dignity, which some of the succeeding commanders were not slow to imitate, and a separate interest created with reference to Britain, which tended to isolate it from the rest of the empire, and greatly affected the fortunes of both. It is unnecessary for our purpose to detail the struggle which now took place between Severus and Pescennius Niger, and resulted in the defeat and death of the latter in the year 194. Severus then led his army into Gaul to attack Albinus, who promptly met him by crossing the channel with the British army, and in the battle of Lyons which ensued, he also was defeated and slain in the year 197,^[74] and Severus found himself in possession of the undivided rule of the Roman world.

It would appear that Albinus, in the course of his government, had come to terms with the barbarians or independent tribes of the north, for four years after this battle we find the natives of the Mæatæ, now for the first time mentioned, threatening hostilities against the Roman province, and the Caledonii, who are accused of not abiding by their promises, preparing to assist them. The governor, 81Virius Lupus, who had probably been sent as Albinus’s successor, being unable to obtain assistance from Severus in consequence of his being engaged in war elsewhere, appears to have been driven by necessity to purchase peace from the Mæatæ at a great price, a circumstance which shows the formidable character which the independent tribes of the north still bore, and the extent to which they taxed the military ability and energy of the Roman governors to protect the province from their attacks.

The great extent of the province, and the difficulty experienced in defending it, probably led to Roman Britain being now divided into two provinces. Herodian distinctly tells us that after the war with Albinus, Severus settled matters in Britain, dividing it into two governments, and Dio alludes to them under the names of Upper and Lower Britain. It is impossible now to ascertain the precise relative position of the two provinces; but the older province of Britain, formed in the reign of Claudius, seems to have been one, while the other probably embraced the later conquests of the Romans from the Humber to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, comprising mainly the great nation of the Brigantes with its dependent tribes. Dio states that the second and twentieth legions were stationed in Upper Britain, while Ptolemy places the one at Isca Silurum or Caerleon; and both Ptolemy and the Itinerary of Antonine place the other at Deva, now Chester. The sixth legion was stationed, according to Dio, in Lower Britain, and Ptolemy as well as the Itinerary of Antonine place it at York, which is the only indication we have of the situation of the two provinces.

These few meagre and incidental notices are all that we possess of the state of the Roman occupation of Britain, from the clear and detailed account given by Tacitus of Agricola’s campaigns, to the second great attempt to subdue the northern tribes, which we are now approaching. The one great feature of this intermediate period was the construction 82of the great rampart between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the fixing of that boundary as the frontier of the province—the line of separation between the provincial Britons and the barbarian or independent tribes. To the few emphatic words of the historian of Antoninus, the remains of the great work itself, and the inscriptions found in its vicinity, add confirmation and a definite locality; and the great boundary at the Firths of Forth and Clyde became from thenceforth the recognised and permanent frontier of the Roman province.

While Severus remained at Rome, after the defeat and death of Albinus, he received letters from the prefect of Britain announcing that the independent tribes had again broken loose and were in a state of open hostility, overrunning the province, driving off booty, and laying everything waste; and that it would be necessary for him either to send additional troops, or to come in person, to take steps for the protection of the province. The latter was the course adopted by Severus. Accompanied by his two sons, and from age and disease travelling in a litter, he arrived in Britain in the year 208, and drawing his troops together from all quarters, and concentrating a vast force, he prepared for war. His object in these great preparations was apparently not merely to repel the incursions of the enemy, but effectually to prevent them from renewing them by striking a severe blow, and carrying the war, as Agricola had done before him, into their fastnesses and the interior of the country.

When this war again drew the attention of the Roman historians to the state of the barbarian or hostile tribes, they found them in a very different situation from what they had been when so vividly painted by Tacitus, and so minutely described by Ptolemy. Instead of their condition as described by the former, who only knew them as a number of separate and independent tribes, inhabiting a part of Britain known by the name of Caledonia, and whom the imminence of the 83Roman invasion alone united into a temporary confederacy, they are now found combined into two nations, bearing the names respectively of ‘Caledonii’ and ‘Mæatæ,’ for into these two, says the historian Dio as abridged by Xiphiline, ‘were the names of the others merged.’ The nation of the ‘Mæatæ’ consisted of those tribes which were situated next the wall between the Forth and Clyde on the north. The ‘Caledonii’ lay beyond them. The former inhabited the more level districts, or, as the historian describes them, the plains and marshes, from which indeed they probably derived their name.^[75] The latter occupied the more mountainous region beyond them. There is no reason to suppose that the line of separation between them differed very much from that which divided the tribe of the ‘Caledonii,’ as described by Ptolemy, from those on the south and east of them.

The manners of the two nations are described as the same, and they are viewed by the historians in these respects as if they were but one people. They are said to have neither walls nor cities, as the Romans regarded such, and to have neglected the cultivation of the ground. They lived by pasturage, the chase, and the natural fruits of the earth. The great characteristics of the tribes believed to be indigenous were found to exist among them. They fought in chariots, and to their arms of the sword and shield, as described by Tacitus, they had now added a short spear of peculiar construction, having a brazen knob at the end of the shaft, which they shook to terrify their enemies, and likewise a dagger. They are said to have had community of women, and the whole of their progeny were reared as the joint offspring of each small community. And the third great characteristic, the custom of painting the body, attracted particular notice. They are described as puncturing their bodies, so as, by a process of tattooing, to 84produce the representation of animals, and to have refrained from clothing, in order that what they considered an ornament should not be hidden.

But in these descriptions it must be remembered that the Romans only saw them in summer, and when actually engaged in war; and that, like the American Indians in their war-paint, their appearance might be very different, and convey a totally erroneous impression of their social habits, from what really existed among them in their domestic state.

The arrival of the Emperor himself in Britain, and the vigorous preparations Severus at once made, caused great alarm among the hostile tribes, and they sent ambassadors to sue for peace. They had hitherto easily obtained it; but it was not Severus’s intention to depart from his purpose of total subjugation, and he dismissed the ambassadors without a decided answer, and without avowing his purpose, and proceeded with his preparations. When these had been completed, and a larger force collected than had ever yet been arrayed against them, Severus left his son Geta in the province, and taking his son Antoninus with him, he ‘passed the fortresses and rivers which guarded the frontier, and entered Caledonia.’ Severus had seen that the nature of the country had hitherto in the main prevented the Romans from penetrating far, or their conquests from being permanent in the north. The numerous natural bulwarks, the wide-spreading woods, and the extensive marshes, interposed almost insurmountable obstacles. What are now extensive plains, well-watered straths, and rich carses, must then have presented the appearance of a jungle or bush of oak, birch, or hazel; the higher ground rocky and barren, and the lower soft and marshy. If the native tribes were for a time subdued, and their strongholds taken, they could not be maintained in such a country by the Romans, and the natives speedily regained possession. The policy adopted by Severus was the true mode of overcoming 85such obstacles—to open up the country and render it passable for troops by clearing the jungles, forming roads in every direction, and throwing bridges over the rivers, so as to penetrate slowly with his troops and enable them to continue in possession of the districts as they occupied them in their advance through the country.

There could not be a better illustration of what a war between the Romans and these outlying tribes at this time really was, and how Severus dealt with it, than a few extracts from a speech by the Duke of Wellington upon our war at the Cape with the Kaffir tribes beyond the Colony in 1852. He says,—‘The operations of the Kaffirs have been carried on by the occupation of extensive regions, which in some places are called jungle, in others bush: but in reality it is thick-set, the thickest wood that can be found anywhere. The Kaffirs having established themselves in these fastnesses with their plunder, on which they exist, their assailants suffer great losses. They move away with more or less celerity and activity, sometimes losing and sometimes saving their plunder, but they always evacuate their fastnesses; our troops do not, cannot, occupy these places. They would be useless to them, and in point of fact, they could not live in them. The enemy moves off, and is attacked again; and the consequence is, to my certain knowledge, under the last three Governments, that some of these fastnesses have been attacked three or four times over, and on every occasion with great loss to the assailants. There is a remedy for these evils: when these fastnesses are stormed and captured, they should be totally destroyed. I have had a good deal to do with such guerilla warfare, and the only mode of subduing a country like that is to open roads into it, so as to admit of troops with the utmost facility. It is absolutely necessary that roads should be opened immediately into these fastnesses.... The only fault I can find with Sir Harry Smith’s operations is, that he has 86not adopted the plan of opening such roads, after he had attacked and taken these fastnesses. I have, however, instructed him to do so in future; but it is a work of great labour; it will occupy a considerable time, and can only be executed at great expense.’^[76]

It is to this period that the traces of the Roman roads beyond the wall must be attributed, and their remains, with those of the Roman camps beyond the Tay, enable us to trace Severus’s route. He advanced to the northern wall by the road called Watling Street, repairing the fortifications of the stations as he passed.^[77] From the wall near Falkirk, a road proceeds in a direct line to Stirling, where the great pass over the Forth into the north of Scotland has always had its locality. From Stirling westward along the banks of the Forth, where now are to be seen the Flanders and Kincardine mosses, there must have extended one dense forest, the remains of which are imbedded in these mosses, and there, at some depth below the present surface, are to be found remains of Roman roads. From the west of the district of Menteith to Dunkeld must have stretched a thick wood of birch and hazel, and from Stirling the Roman road proceeds through Stratherne to the junction of the Almond with the Tay. Crossing the Tay, it leaves the camp at Grassy Walls, which had been occupied by Agricola, and proceeds in the direction of a large camp near Forfar termed Battledykes. This camp is larger than any of those which may, with every appearance of probability, be attributed to Agricola, and is capable of holding a greater body of troops than his army consisted of; while, if the view we have given of his campaigns be correct, it lay beyond the limit of his utmost advance into the country.

87From the great camp at Battledykes, a line of camps, evidently the construction of one hand, and connected with each other by a continuation of the Roman road, extends at intervals corresponding in distance to a day’s march of a Roman army, through the counties of Forfar, Kincardine, and Aberdeen, till they terminate at the shores of the Moray Firth.^[78] Severus is said by the historians Dio and Herodian to have entered Caledonia at the head of an enormous army, and to have penetrated even to the extremity of the island, where ‘he examined the parallax and the length of the days and nights.’ It would appear from these silent witnesses of his march, that he had opened up and occupied the country between the northern wall and the Tay; that he had then concentrated his army in the great camp at Battledykes, and leaving a part of his troops there to prevent his retreat from being cut off, had penetrated through the districts extending along the east coast till he had reached the great estuary of the Moray Firth, where the ocean lay extended before him, and he might well suppose he had reached the extremity of the island.^[79]

88During this march Severus is said to have fought no battle, his system of opening up the country and rendering it passable for his troops, insuring him its possession as he slowly advanced; but the natives appear to have carried on a kind of guerilla warfare against the parties engaged in these works, assailing them at every advantage, and enticing them into the woods and defiles by every stratagem, so that, although Severus’s progress was sure, his loss is said to have been very great. This circumstance on his part, and the effect upon the natives of his success in penetrating to a point which no Roman invader had hitherto reached, or even attempted, led eventually to a peace, the principal condition of which was that the native tribes should yield up a considerable part of their territory to be garrisoned by Roman troops. The part ceded could hardly have been any other district than that extending from the northern wall to the Tay, a district which Agricola had likewise held to a limited extent in advance of the frontier he designed for the province, and this is confirmed by the existence of a temporary camp and a strong station at Fortingall, not far from where the river Tay issues from the lake of the same name. It appears to have been an outpost beyond the Tay, and there is no known circumstance connected with the Roman occupation of Britain to which its existence can be attributed, with any probability or with any support from authority, save this cession of territory to Severus. There is a similar camp and station at Fendoch on the banks of the Almond, where it emerges from the Grampians, and a corresponding camp and station at Ardoch, which can be distinguished from Agricola’s camp there.

89A part of the inhabitants of this district, too, made their appearance about this time in the Roman army, and two inscriptions found at Nieder Biebr on the Rhine, one of which is dated in 239, show that there were stationed there troops composed of the Horesti, and of the people who possessed Victoria as their chief seat, from which it would appear that Severus had enrolled bodies of the inhabitants of the ceded district among the Roman auxiliaries.^[80] These are all marks of Severus’s occupation of this district, and, as there are traces of Roman works on the Spey at Pitmain, on the line between the Moray Firth and Fortingall, it would appear that Severus with a part of the army had returned through the heart of the Highlands.

Having thus concluded a peace with the Caledonii and Mæatæ, and compelled them to yield up to him a part of their territory north of the wall to be occupied by his troops in advance of the frontier, Severus proceeded to reconstruct the wall between the Forth and the Clyde, as the actual boundary of the province. He appears to have added the large fosse or ditch, to have placed additional posts along the wall, and to have repaired and strengthened the structure itself.^[81]

90Having completed this work, and left the province thus once more protected, with the additional security of the occupation by Roman outposts of the ceded territory beyond the wall, he returned to York, leaving behind him Antoninus, whom he was apparently not desirous to retain with him, in consequence of an attempt he had made upon his life in presence of the army, while conferring with the Caledonians regarding the treaty of peace, in charge of the frontier. He had not remained long at York before the Mæatæ again revolted, and were joined by the Caledonians, and he was only prevented from recommencing a war of extermination by his death, which took place at York in the year 211.

Antoninus, as soon as he became, by the death of his father, possessed of the imperial power, being desirous to disembarrass himself of everything that could interfere with 91his perfect enjoyment of it, terminated the war by making peace with the barbarian natives, and, receiving pledges of their fidelity, left the frontier of which he had remained in charge.

Thus terminated the most formidable attempt which had been made to subjugate the inhabitants of the barren regions of the north since the campaigns of Agricola; and although the expedition was more successful, inasmuch as the army penetrated farther into the country, it was equally unproductive of permanent result, and was not marked by the same brilliant feature of the defeat of the entire force of the hostile tribes in a pitched battle.

There occurs again at this period a silence as to the relative position of the Romans and the barbarian tribes, 92till, after an interval of seventy-five years, the attention of the Roman historians is once more called to this distant part of the Empire by the revolt and usurpation of the purple by Carausius, in the early part of the reign of the Emperor Diocletian. In accordance with a custom now becoming frequent in the Roman Empire, Diocletian had associated with him in the government Maximian, and to the share of the latter fell the western provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain. A new feature now took place in the history of these provinces. This was the appearance of two new barbaric nations, destined to occupy an important position among the European kingdoms—the Franks and the Saxons—who now appeared in the British seas and ravaged the coasts of Gaul, Belgium, and Britain. In order to repress them and to protect these countries from their inroads, a Roman fleet was stationed at Gesoriacum or Boulogne. Carausius, a native of the city of Menapia in Belgium, who had risen to eminence in the Roman army, was appointed to command it, and soon distinguished himself in repressing the inroads of these new barbarian tribes. He was accused, however, of retaining the spoil he took from them, which he ought to have accounted for, and of encouraging them in their piratical expeditions in order that he might secure for himself the booty they had taken. Maximian, in consequence, resolved to put him to death; but Carausius, having become aware of his intention, anticipated the resolution of the Emperor by assuming the purple and taking possession of the provinces of Britain. He took with him in his revolt the fleet under his charge; the Roman soldiers in Britain obeyed him, and he increased his naval force by building numerous new vessels.^[82]

A Barbarian by birth, and consequently connected with native tribes, he appears to have received the ready submission of the Britons, as well as the support of the independent 93tribes, and Britain for the time assumed the appearance of a separate empire, in which he maintained himself by his fleet. Maximian, after trying in vain to reduce him, at length concluded a peace, bestowing upon him the title of Augustus, and intrusting to him the care of those provinces he had already taken possession of.^[83] In the meantime, owing to the disturbed state of the Empire and the revolt in Britain, Diocletian created Galerius Maximian and Constantius Chlorus, Cæsars.

It appears that the latter, to whose share the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain were assigned, resolved to wrest the provinces of Britain from the usurper, but of the particulars of this war we know nothing except what may be gathered from a few hints of the panegyrists. We ascertain from them that in the year 292 Constantius Chlorus had wrested Gaul from the influence of Carausius, and besieged and taken possession of the harbour of Boulogne, compelling Carausius to withdraw his ships to Britain, where his rule was popular, Constantius being unable to carry the war into Britain for want of vessels.^[84]

The reign of Carausius was one of prosperity to the Britons, and his government vigorous, but it was terminated by his assassination by Allectus, one of his followers, who had conspired against him, and whose cause seems to have been mainly supported by the independent tribes. Allectus had not been long in the enjoyment of his insular dominion, when Constantius Chlorus, having now caused vessels to be made, sailed from Boulogne to Britain two years after the death of Carausius. He is described as passing in a mist the British fleet which was cruising near the Isle of Wight, and landed in Britain, when he marched upon London, and his army under Asclepiodotus, having followed Allectus, a battle took place in which the latter was defeated and slain. 94It was found after the battle that Allectus had few Roman soldiers, and that his army consisted principally of Barbarians who had been enlisted by him, and in whom, from the allusion by the panegyrists to a marked characteristic indicated by Tacitus as distinguishing them from the rest of the Britons, we can recognise the inhabitants of Caledonia.^[85] Britain had thus been separated from the rest of the Roman Empire for ten years, seven of which belong to the reign of Carausius, and three to that of Allectus, and had for the greater part of that time been under the government of one who united an origin derived from the native tribes with the imperial authority. It almost seemed as if she was destined at that early period to commence her independent existence as a great maritime power, had the assassination of Carausius not altered the character of her fortunes.

The termination of this independent government was the signal for the independent tribes to break out into hostilities; and, as they emerged from under the government of Carausius and Allectus into their old position towards the Roman province they now appear for the first time under the general name of Picts, one section of whom bore the name of Caledones. On the abdication of Diocletian in 305, Constantius Chlorus became Emperor of the West, and apparently made Britain his residence during the greater part of his short reign. In its first year he appears to have penetrated beyond the wall, entered the plains of the low country north of it, and defeated the Picts, who are said by one of the panegyrists to have consisted of the Caledones and other nations not named, but in whom we can well recognise those termed by Dio the Mæatæ.^[86] This expedition was probably limited to the territory beyond the wall which 95had been ceded to the Romans in the peace concluded with the Emperor Severus. In the following year Constantius died at York, and his son Constantine, having become Emperor, left Britain to take possession of the Empire.

We now hear little of Britain, and nothing of the nations beyond the boundary of the Roman province, for a period of fifty years, till in the year 360 a new and very important feature in the history of the Roman occupation of Britain manifested itself. This was the commencement of those formidable and systematic inroads of the Barbarian tribes into the province, which were not merely temporary expeditions for plunder, but evidently aimed at the subversion of the Roman government in Britain, and, though checked at intervals, were ever again renewed till the Romans finally abandoned the possession of the island.

From the expedition of Severus to the commencement of these formidable attacks a period of 150 years had elapsed, and the few notices we have of the events in Britain show that the integrity of the province had on the whole been maintained, and that the provincial Britons enjoyed some degree of security within its bounds, while the northern tribes were restrained from making incursions beyond their territory by the well-guarded wall, which with its numerous posts along its line, and, in advance of it, in the ceded district, protected the frontier. The ten years’ independent kingdom under Carausius and Allectus had not affected this state of matters. The provincial Britons must have been equally protected, especially under the vigorous government of the former. There are even indications of its influence having extended over the independent tribes, and bodies of them, whom Allectus had enlisted, were found in his army. On the termination of this independent empire, they emerge under a new name; and their defeat and expulsion from the province was a necessary consequence of the renewed union 96of Britain with the continental provinces under the same authority.

During this period of a century and a half, the quiet and prosperity enjoyed by the provincial Britons led to a corresponding advance in wealth and civilisation, and Britain became rapidly one of the most valuable provinces of the Empire. Instead of being estimated, as Appian represents it in the second century, as of so little value that the part of the island possessed by the Romans was a mere encumbrance to them, it is now described by Eumenius, in the end of the third century, as a possession whose loss to the Empire under Carausius was severely felt. ‘So productive,’ says he, ‘is it in fruit, and so fertile in pastures, so rich in metals and valuable for its contributions to the treasury, surrounded on all sides with abundance of harbours, and an immense line of coast.’^[87] The cultivation of grain, and the amount of its produce, had so greatly increased, that it had become of importance as an exporting country; and during the reign of Julian it had formed his great resource, from whence he drew a large supply of corn during the great scarcity on the Continent.

A change had likewise taken place in its government. By the arrangement introduced by Diocletian, and confirmed and established by Constantine, the Roman Empire was divided into four portions, to correspond with the two Emperors and two Cæsars. Each of these dioceses, as they were called, was placed under a great officer termed the prætorian prefect. The diocese of the west consisted of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and the latter country was governed by a vicarius or vicar. Roman Britain, which from the time of Severus had consisted of two provinces, termed Upper and Lower Britain, was now divided into four provinces,—Maxima Cæsariensis, Flavia, Britannia Prima, and Britannia Secunda,^[88] the two 97former or new provinces being apparently named after his father, who had been Cæsar, and was the founder of the Flavian family. In the absence of any direct indication of the position of these provinces, the natural inference certainly is, that each of the former provinces had been divided into two; and that, while Upper Britain now consisted of Britannia Secunda and Flavia, Lower Britain was represented by Britannia Prima and Maxima Cæsariensis. Each of these provinces had its governor, either a consul or a president. The troops were under the command of the ‘Dux Britanniarum’ and the ‘Comes tractus maritimi.’ Under the former were the troops stationed north of a line drawn from the Humber to the Mersey, following the course of the river Don, and on the Roman wall between the Solway and the Tyne; and those under the latter along the maritime tract, exposed to the incursions of the Franks and Saxons, extending from the Wash to Portsmouth. The former appears, therefore, to have been the military leader in the two northern provinces, while the functions of the latter were exercised within the two southern.

The first serious attack upon the province took place in the year 360, and proceeded from two nations. The one consisted of that union of tribes which had now become generally known by the name of ‘Picti’ or Picts, the distinctive appellation of the independent tribes beyond the northern frontier after Britain had been recovered from the usurpation of Carausius; but along with them appear now for the first time as actors in the scene of British war a new nation or people emerging from Ireland, and known to the Romans under the name of ‘Scoti.’^[89] Having broken the 98agreed-on peace, they ravaged—to use the words of the historian who records it—the districts adjacent to the limits of the province, and filled the provincial Britons with consternation, who dreaded a renewal by this formidable combination of the incursions which had now for so long a time ceased. We learn from the account given by the historian of their eventual recovery, that the districts ravaged by the Picts were those extending from the territories of the independent tribes to the wall of Hadrian between the Tyne and the Solway, and that the districts occupied by the Scots were in a different direction. They lay on the western frontier, and consisted of part of the mountain region of Wales on the coast opposite to Ierne, or the island of Ireland, from whence they came.^[90] The Emperor Julian was unable to render effectual assistance, and Lupicinus, whom he sent, appears to have been unable to do more than maintain the provinces from further encroachment.

During four years the invading tribes retained possession of the districts they had occupied, and were with difficulty prevented from overrunning the province; but in the fourth year a more formidable irruption took place. To the two 99nations of the Picts and the Scots were now added two other invading tribes—the Saxons, who had already made themselves known and dreaded by their piratical incursions on the coasts; and the Attacotti, who, we shall afterwards find, were a part of the inhabitants of the territory on the north of Hadrian’s wall, from which the Romans had been driven out on its seizure by the independent tribes.^[91] They now joined the Picts in invading the province from the north, while the attack of the Saxons must have been directed against the south-eastern shore; and thus, assailing the provinces on three sides—the Saxons making incursions on the coast between the Wash and Portsmouth, afterwards termed the Saxon Shore, where they appear to have slain Nectarides, the Count of the maritime tract, the Picts and Attacotts on the north placing Fallofaudus, the Dux Britanniarum, whose duty it was to guard the northern frontier, in extreme peril, and the Scots penetrating through the mountains of Wales—the invading tribes penetrated so far into the interior, and the extent and character of their ravages so greatly threatened the very existence of the Roman government, that the Emperor became roused to the imminence of the danger, and after various officers had been sent without effect, the most eminent commander of the day, Theodosius the elder, was despatched to the assistance of the Britons. He found the province in the possession of the Picts, the Scots, and the Attacotts, who were ravaging it and plundering the inhabitants in different directions. The Picts, we are told, were then divided into two nations, the ‘Dicalidonæ’ and the ‘Vecturiones,’ a division evidently corresponding to the twofold division of the hostile tribes in the time of Severus, the ‘Caledonii’ and the ‘Mæatæ.’ The similarity of name and situation sufficiently identifies the first-mentioned people in each of the twofold divisions. The 100Mæatæ had been obliged to cede a part of their territory to the Romans, so that part of the nation had passed under their rule, and a part only remaining independent probably gave rise to the new name of ‘Vecturiones.’ The ‘Attacotti,’ we are told, were a warlike nation of the Britons, and the epithet applied to the ‘Scoti’ of ranging here and there shows that their attacks must have been made on different parts of the coast.^[92]

Theodosius landed at ‘Rutupiæ’ or Richborough, where he had appointed the rendezvous of the troops, and marched upon London. When arrived there he divided his men into several bodies so as to attack different parties of the enemy, who were ravaging the country and returning laden with booty. These he defeated, and wresting from them their plunder, returned to London and sent to the Continent for reinforcements. As soon as the expected troops arrived, Theodosius left London at the head of a powerful and well-selected army, and speedily succeeded in driving the invaders from the provinces, and restoring the cities and fortresses. He then directed his attention to the restoration of the province to its wonted condition of security. The northern frontier was again protected by the stations along the line of the wall between the Forth and Clyde which he renewed, and part of the recovered provinces were formed into a new and separate province, which he termed ‘Valentia,’ in honour of the Emperor Valens.

Such is the narrative of the historian Ammianus; but, as the panegyrists threw light upon the expeditions of Constantius, so now the poet Claudian, in his panegyrics upon the illustrious general, supplies further details of the 101character of his exploits. The Picts, says he, he drove into their own region, to which he gives the poetical name applied to Caledonia of Thule. The Scots he pursued across the sea to the country from whence they proceeded—the island of Ierne; and the Saxons he indicates had formed their headquarters in the islands of Orkney. The stations restored by Theodosius on the frontier he identifies as separating the province from Caledonia by his allusion to the latter word; and it may further be inferred that he had again occupied the castella or outposts with which the Romans garrisoned the territory beyond the wall ceded to them in the campaign of Severus.^[93]

The inhabitants of a part of the province had joined the invaders in their second invasion under the name of Attacotti, and their territory was now again taken possession of by the Romans. They had exhibited even greater ferocity than the independent tribes, and these he now formed into Roman cohorts, and enlisted as a part of the army.^[94]

102What part of the recovered provinces he formed into the new province of Valentia cannot be determined with certainty. It is usually assumed to have consisted of the territory between the walls; but this assertion, though now accepted as almost a self-evident proposition, dates no further back than the appearance of the spurious work attributed to Richard of Cirencester, and rests upon his authority alone. Horsley, who wrote before his date, considers that this part of Roman Britain belonged to the province of Maxima Cæsariensis, and is borne out by the distribution of the troops as given in the Notitia Imperii; the whole of those stationed from the Humber to the southern wall and along the line of the wall which evidently guarded the northern frontier, being placed under the same commander, the ‘Dux Britanniæ,’ That it was a part of the recovered provinces, and not new territory, is certain, and equally so that it was on the frontier; but it is more probable that the new province was designed to protect Roman Britain against the new invaders, who had appeared for the first time under the name of Scots, and who directed their attacks mainly on the west coast; and this is confirmed by the appearance in the Notitia of a new military commander called the ‘Comes Britanniarum,’ who had under him three bodies of infantry, one of which is called ‘Britanniciani juniores,’ and six bodies of cavalry, one being placed at a station on the north of the Don, and another transferred to the Saxon shore, which would place his command south of the Humber and Mersey. 103As the ‘Comes littoris Saxonici’ protected the south-eastern coast, and the ‘Dux Britanniæ’ the northern frontier, this new military functionary was probably created for the protection of the western frontier exposed to the Irish Channel. This position also corresponds with the order in which the provinces are enumerated in the Notitia.^[95] In the absence of any trustworthy authority as to its position, and looking merely to the slender indications from which any inference may be drawn, we do not hesitate to pronounce that the true Valentia was that part of the province most exposed to the attacks of the Scots, and afterwards called Wales.

Although Theodosius for the time effectually repressed the invasions of the hostile nations, and restored the province in its integrity, his success left no permanent result behind it; and within forty years after the re-establishment of the 104province, the Romans were notwithstanding obliged finally to abandon the island. This arose from two causes:—the yearly increasing pressure of the Barbarians upon the military resources of the Empire required the withdrawal of the troops from those distant provinces which were less easily maintained; and the same cause which concentrated the attention of the Emperor upon the defence of the nearer frontiers, and led him to neglect those more remote, rendered the assumption of the imperial authority almost the inevitable consequence of an isolated command, and a temptation too great to be resisted. Had these usurpers been content to remain in possession of Britain alone, they might, in the distracted state of the Empire, have been able to have maintained their position, and an insular dominion been founded which would have greatly affected the future history and fortunes of Britain; but they aimed at the possession of the whole of the western diocese of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and in grasping at too much effected their own ruin. Their ambition led to the troops no sooner proclaiming their general Emperor, than they were withdrawn from Britain and conveyed into Gaul to support the usurper’s ambitious aim, and the province was thus left undefended to the incursions of the hostile nations.

The first of these insular Emperors after the war of Theodosius was Clemens Maximus, an Iberian or Spaniard by birth, who had served under Theodosius in Britain, and was now, twelve years later, in command of the Roman army there. Taking advantage of the unpopularity of the Emperor Gratian with the army owing to favour shown to the Alans, and jealous of the elevation of the younger Theodosius to a share in the Empire, he excited the army in Britain to revolt, and was proclaimed Emperor in the year 383. In the following year he repressed the incursions of the Picts and Scots,^[96] 105and forced the hostile nations to yield to his power. He then crossed over to Gaul with the army of Britain, slew the Emperor Gratian, and after maintaining himself in Gaul for four years, he entered Italy, and was finally defeated and slain by the Emperor Theodosius at Aquileia, in the year 388.

The withdrawal of the Roman troops from Britain by Maximus left the province exposed to the incursions of their old enemies, and the two nations of the Picts and Scots—the one from the north, where the regions beyond the Forth and Clyde formed their seat—the other from the west, where lay the island of Ierne, whence they proceeded—continued to harass the provincial Britons for many years with their piratical incursions, which they were the less able to resist as the usurper Maximus had drained the province of the young and active men who could be trained as soldiers, as well as withdrawn the army.

The Britons at length applied to Stilicho, the minister of the young Emperor Honorius, and a legion was sent to Britain, which, for the time, drove back the invading tribes, and garrisoned the wall between the Forth and the Clyde. The recovery of the territory at the northern frontier was on this occasion, as well as when Theodosius repelled the invaders from it, followed by a part of the nation of the Attacotts being enrolled in the Roman army, where they bore the name of Honoriani in honour of the Emperor Honorius. The Roman historians affording us but little information regarding these renewed incursions of the Picts and Scots, their place is now supplied by the British historians Gildas and Nennius; while the allusions to these events in the poems of Claudian enable us to assign the somewhat vague and undated accounts of the British historians to their true period. They tell us of this irruption of the Picts and Scots, and of the arrival of the legion to the assistance of the Britons. The poet Claudian connects this with the name of 106Stilicho. He alludes to the legion which bridled the Scot, or the Saxon. He describes it as guarding the frontier of Britain, as bridling the Scot, and examining, on the body of the dying Pict, the figures punctured with iron. He depicts Britain as saying that Stilicho had fortified her by a wall against the neighbouring nations, and that she neither feared the Scots crossing from Ierne, nor the Pict nor the Saxon ravaging her coasts.^[97] This fixes the date of the expulsion of the Barbarians and arrival of the legion at the year 400, and Stilicho appears on this occasion to have also enrolled bodies of Attacotts in the Roman army.^[98]

Four years later the legion was recalled from Britain in consequence of the Gothic war and the attacks of Alaric, and left the island, having, as we are informed by Nennius, appointed a leader to command the Britons. They had no sooner gone, however, than the old enemies of the provincial Britons—the Picts and Scots—again broke into the province and renewed their ravages.

107After three years, Stilicho sent assistance to them. He appears to have feared the total loss of Britain to the Romans, and, apparently desirous to make a great effort for its permanent recovery on this occasion, he restored the army of Britain to its usual strength, consisting of three legions—the second, the sixth, and the twentieth—by whom the province was effectually freed from the invaders and garrisoned by Roman troops.^[99] As long as this army remained in Britain, the province was protected in its full extent to its frontier at the Firths of Forth and Clyde; but the position of the army, as indicated in the Notitia Imperii, sufficiently shows the imminence of the danger which now threatened the province in Britain, and the quarter from whence it was dreaded. The three legions which now protected the frontiers of this distant portion of the Empire, in the last notice which we have regarding the Roman troops in Britain, are found stationed in greatest force along the wall which extended from the Tyne to the Solway, and in the garrisons between that barrier and the Humber, and likewise in those that protected what was now termed the Saxon shore, extending from the Wash to Portsmouth. The ‘Comes Britanniarum’ guarded the western frontier of the two Britains, where the new province of Valentia had probably been formed, with troops which may have been stationed at Caerleon and Chester, the old headquarters of the second and twentieth legions, and the interior of the country is comparatively ungarrisoned.

The doom of this great Empire was now, however, rapidly approaching, and the withdrawal of the troops from the remote frontiers to protect the seat of power precipitated the fate of the frontier provinces. The great invasion of the Vandals with the Alani and Suevi, which took place in 108the year 406, and was the first of those fatal inroads of the Barbarians into the very heart of the Empire which led to its final ruin, alarmed the troops which remained of the army in Britain, who, on the irruption of the Barbarians into Gaul, found that they would be cut off from the other forces of the Empire and exposed alone in their insular position to the attacks of the enemy, and led them to resort to the step which had now become the habitual tendency of a Roman army so placed—to proclaim an Emperor. Accordingly they terminated their four years’ residence in Britain by revolting, and selected Marcus as Emperor. He was soon slain by Gratianus, who assumed the imperial authority, and after a four months’ enjoyment of it, was in his turn slain by the soldiers.

A soldier named Constantine was then chosen, owing his elevation mainly to his name being that of the celebrated Emperor; and this new Constantine no sooner assumed the purple, than, with the fatal policy of his predecessors, he resolved to strike a blow for the possession of Gaul, and Spain likewise. Before withdrawing the troops from Britain, however, he counselled the provincial Britons to abandon the districts between the walls, a territory now barely and with difficulty maintained by them, and to protect the remainder of the province by maintaining garrisons on the southern wall. At the same time the valleys on the north side of the Solway Firth appear to have been protected by an earthen rampart and fosse, which extends from the shore of the firth opposite the western termination of the wall across the upper part of the valleys till it terminates at Loch Ryan. On the south coast, where the province had been exposed to the piratical descents of the Saxons, and had hitherto been protected by the Roman vessels, he erected towers at stated intervals. Having thus taken the best measures in his power to enable the provincial Britons to protect the province, Constantine crossed over to Gaul with 109the army, and the Roman legions left Britain, never again to return. They had no sooner been withdrawn, than the old enemies of the province occupied the district as far as the southern wall to which Constantine had withdrawn the frontier; but although the Roman troops had left the island, the civil government of the Romans still remained in force, and the provinces of Britain continued to form an integral part of the Empire. The events, however, connected with the usurpation of Constantine speedily led to the termination of the Roman government in Britain, and its final separation from the Empire. Constantine had no sooner landed in Gaul than an engagement took place between the British army and the Barbarians who had entered Gaul by the passes of the Alps, in which the former were successful, and a great slaughter of the enemy took place. The Roman troops in Gaul submitted to Constantine, and he thus obtained possession of the whole of that country. In the meantime, intelligence having reached Rome of Constantine’s successful usurpation, and that the provinces of Gaul had become subject to him, Stilicho returned to Rome from Ravenna, and sent Sarus in command of an army against him. Justinian, one of Constantine’s generals, was encountered and slain. Neviogastes, another, was put to death by treachery; and Sarus proceeded to besiege Valentia, where Constantine then was. The usurper now appointed Edovinchus, and Gerontius a native of Britain, his generals; and Sarus, dreading their military reputation, retreated from Valentia, which he had invested for seven days. The new generals followed and attacked him, and it was with difficulty he reached the Alps and escaped into Italy, having had to bribe the ‘Bagaudæ,’ or armed peasantry, who were in possession of the passes, by giving up to them the whole of his booty to permit his army to pass through.

Constantine now placed garrisons in the passes of the Alps, and likewise secured the Rhine, in order to protect 110the territory he had acquired from invasion. Being now in undisturbed possession of Gaul, he created his eldest son Constans, who had been a monk, Cæsar, and sent him into Spain to wrest that country likewise from the government of Honorius. Constans proceeded accordingly to Spain, having Terentius as his general, and Apollinarius as prefect of the Prætorium, and was encountered by the relatives of Honorius who commanded there, and who surrendered to him after a battle in which Constans had the advantage, and an unsuccessful attempt to destroy him by arming the peasantry. Having thus become possessed of two of the relations of the Emperor—Verinianus and Didymus—Constantine sent messengers to Honorius entreating forgiveness for having allowed himself to accept the Empire, and stating that it had been forced upon him by the soldiery. The Emperor was in no position to contend with Constantine, and being afraid of the fate of his relations, acceded to his request and admitted him to a share in the imperial authority.

Constans in the meantime returned from Spain, bringing with him Verinianus and Didymus, having left there Gerontius, the Briton, as general, with the troops from Gaul, part of which consisted of the British nation of the Attacotts, who had been enlisted in the Roman army by Stilicho,^[100] to guard the passes through the Pyrenees. The unfortunate relatives of Honorius were no sooner brought before Constantine than they were put to death, and an embassy was sent to Honorius in the person of Jovius, a distinguished orator, to excuse the death of his relatives, and to request that the peace might be confirmed. The plea was, that they had been put to death without his consent. Jovius prevailed with Honorius by pointing out to him that he 111was in no condition to act otherwise, and by promising him assistance from Constantine’s army in quelling commotions in Italy and Rome.

Termination of Roman Empire in Britain.

Constans had, in the meantime, been sent back to Spain, and took with him Justus as his general. This gave great offence to Gerontius the Briton, who probably only waited for a pretext to endeavour to overturn the government of Constantine; and, having gained over the soldiers in Spain, who, being principally Attacotts, were probably more accessible to the influence of their countrymen, he incited the Barbarians in Gaul to revolt, and invited those beyond the Rhine to enter the provinces. The latter ravaged them at pleasure, the main attack having been upon those of Britain. This took place in the year 409, and that part of the Barbarians who were thus invited and encouraged to attack the provinces of Britain were, we know from other sources, their old enemies, the Picts, Scots, and Saxons. The civil government of the Romans still continued in Britain, but Honorius, being unable to afford them assistance, wrote letters in the following year to the cities in Britain, urging them to look after their own safety. This was equivalent to an abandonment of the imperial authority over Britain; and the provincial Britons, who, no doubt in common with the inhabitants of the other provinces, groaned under the intolerable weight of the Roman civil government, rose against them, and having, by one unanimous and vigorous effort, freed their cities from the invading Barbarians, drove out the Roman prefects likewise, and shook off the Roman yoke.

In the following year Honorius, finding that the existence of the opposing tyrants, Constantine and Gerontius, had prevented him from opposing the Barbarians, and led to the defection of Britain and Armorica, resolved to make an effort for their destruction, and sent Constantius into Gaul with an army, who shut Constantine into the town of Arles, took 112it, and slew him. Gerontius, at the same time, no doubt aiming at the possession of Britain for himself, followed up his proceedings by slaying Constans at Vienne, and setting up Maximus, said by one author to have been his son, in his place. Gerontius was shortly after slain by his own soldiers, and Maximus, stripped of the purple, fled into exile among the Barbarians in Spain. The death of Gerontius thus prevented him from reaping the fruit of his designs, whatever his object in precipitating the Barbarians again upon the provinces of Britain may have been.

No attempt was made to recover Britain. It no longer formed a portion of the Roman Empire, and the Roman legions never returned to it. This great and momentous change in the political and social condition of the island took place in the year 410; and thus terminated the Roman dominion in that island, which, for good or for evil, had so long endured, and so powerfully influenced the fortunes of its inhabitants.

Such is the narrative of the Roman occupation, so far as it affected the northern portion of the island; such the knowledge the Romans had attained, and the record their historians have left us, compressed in few facts, and accompanied by meagre details of the position, character, and habits of the northern tribes occupying the barren regions of Caledonia, who, though often assailed, and sometimes with temporary success, preserved their independence, and remained in hostility to the Roman government throughout the whole period of their dominion in the island.^[101]

The termination of the Roman dominion in Britain produced a great and marked change in its political position and destinies. It ceased to form a part of the great European Empire, and for the time lost the link which connected it with the civilisation of the west. It no longer took part in the common life of the western nations; and, isolated from all that created for them a common interest, or unconsciously combined them in a common struggle, out of which the elements of a new historical world were to emerge, it seemed to relapse into that state of barbarism from which the influence of the Roman dominion had for the time extricated it. The British Isles seemed as it were to retire again into the recesses of that western ocean from which they had emerged in the reign of the Emperor Claudius; and a darkness, which grew more profound as their isolated existence continued, settled down upon them and shrouded their inhabitants from the eye of Europe till the spread of that great and paramount influence which succeeded to the dominion of the Roman Empire, and inherited its concentrating energy—the Christian Church—took Britain within its grasp, and the works of its monastic and clerical writers once more brought its fortunes within the sphere of history.

When the page of history once more opens to its annals, we find that the barbaric nations, whom we left harassing the Roman province till the Romans abandoned the island, had now effected fixed settlements within the island, and formed permanent kingdoms within its limits. South of the Firths 115of Forth and Clyde we find her containing a Saxon organisation and tribes of Teutonic descent hitherto known by the general name of Saxons, in full possession of her most valuable and fertile districts, and the Romans of the old British provincials confined to the mountains of Wales and Cumbria, the western districts extending from the Solway to the Clyde, and the peninsula of Cornwall. North of the Firths we find the barbaric tribes of the Picts and Scots, which had so often harassed the Roman province from the north and west, formed into settled kingdoms with definite limits; while Hibernia or Ireland now appears under the additional designation of Scotia.^[102]

So little was known of Britain during this interval of upwards of a century and a half, so undefined were the notions of the Continental writers, that Procopius, writing from Constantinople in the sixth century, describes Britain as extending from east to west, and consisting of two islands, ‘Brittia’ and ‘Brettannia,’ Brittia lay nearest Gaul, and was divided by a wall, the country to the east of which, or that nearest the Continent, he believed to be inhabited, fertile, and productive, and to be occupied by three nations,—the ‘Angiloi,’ ‘Phrissones,’ and ‘Brittones synonymous with the Isle;’ but the region to the west of the wall, by which he indicates Caledonia or the districts north of the Forth and Clyde, he only knew as a region infested by wild beasts, and with an atmosphere so tainted that human life could not exist; and he repeats a fable derived, he says, from the inhabitants, that this region was the place of departed spirits. The country south of the Humber he considered a separate island, named ‘Brettannia.’^[103]

Stephanus Byzantinus, writing from the same place half a century earlier, considered ‘Albion,’ ‘Brettia,’ and 116‘Pretania’ separate islands, inhabited respectively by the ‘Albiones,’ ‘Brettanoi,’ and ‘Pretanoi.’^[104]

Even Gildas, himself of British descent, and writing from the neighbouring shore of Armorica, takes his description of the size of Britain from the cosmogony of Ethicus, written two centuries earlier, merely qualifying it by the addition, ‘except where the headlands of sundry promontories stretch farther into the sea,’^[105] apparently referring to Caledonia, but he evidently considered the country north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde as a separate island from the rest of Britain. He applies the same epithet of ‘transmarine’ to its inhabitants and to the Scots from Ireland. He calls the regions between the walls the extreme part of the island, and he writes of its transactions as if he had no personal knowledge of them, but had received them by report from a distant land; for he says he will relate his history,^[106] ‘so far as he is able, not so much from the writings and written memorials of his native country, which either are not to be found, or if ever there were any of them have been consumed in the fires of the enemy, or been carried off by his exiled countrymen, as from foreign report, which, from the interruption of intercourse, is by no means clear.’^[107]

117In order to realise thoroughly the cause of this darkness and confusion which appear to have settled upon Britain 118and its affairs after the departure of the Romans, we must consider its real position towards Rome as viewed from thence. During the period of the Roman dominion it resembled a distant colony exposed to the incursions of frontier tribes whom no treaties could bind and no defeats subjugate, requiring a large military force for its protection, the accounts of whose proceedings reached Rome at distant intervals, and only attracted more than a passing attention when a crisis occurred in her affairs, which must have been considered rather as a vexatious interruption in matters of nearer and more engrossing interest than a subject of general attention. When the Roman government was withdrawn, she resembled such a distant colony with all connection severed between her and the home government, abandoned to the incursions of her enemies, and left to protect and rule herself.

How completely such a change would for the time blot out a distant colony from the map of the civilised world may be readily conceived; and when she again emerged in the form of a political state, containing once more the elements of civilisation and of a common interest with the rest of the world, the intermediate period of confused and uncertain knowledge would appear almost analogous to that dark age of barbarian life which precedes the birth of infant states, and on which the dim light of tradition and the lays of a rude people engaged in internecine war alone throw an uncertain ray. So it was with Britain. Deserted almost entirely by the Continental historians, and deprived of the clue which any connection with European events would afford, we are left for the history of this interval to the uncertain guide of tradition; and although it necessarily fails in affording us 119the means of obtaining a connected and trustworthy history, yet by discriminating between what is tradition or fable and what may fairly be accepted as history, and by combining the indications which traditional accounts derived from different sources afford, with the scattered notices contained in writings contemporary, or nearly so, with the events, we may yet be able to present the salient features of the history of this period with some confidence in their reality, and in something like chronological order.

These sources of information, uncertain as they are, and faint as is the light which they throw upon the history of the country during this interval, yet reveal very distinctly indications that to the rule of the Romans in the island there succeeded a fierce and protracted struggle between the provincial Britons and the various barbarian tribes, to whose assaults they had been exposed for so many years, till it terminated in the settlement of the latter in the country, and the formation of four kingdoms, embracing these several races within definite limits. They tell us also something of those races, and of their character and relation to each other. The contest which succeeded the departure of the Romans was one not merely for the possession of the Roman territory, but for the succession to her dominion in the island. The competing parties consisted, on the one hand, of the provincial Britons who had just emerged from under the Roman rule; and, on the other, of those independent tribes, partly inhabitants of the island and partly piratical adventurers from other regions, who had so frequently ravaged the Roman province, and now endeavoured to snatch the prize from the provincial Britons, and from each other.

The races engaged in this struggle were four—the Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the Saxons or Angles.^[108] The two former were indigenous, the two latter foreign settlers.

120With regard to the former, so many years of Roman dominion in the island could hardly fail to have produced, in some respects, a deep and lasting effect upon the native population; but it did not leave, as might have been expected from the existence of the Roman province for so long a period, a provincial people speaking the Roman language, and preserving their laws and customs. The tendency of the Britons was to throw off the stamp of Roman provincialism with the civil government against which they had rebelled, and to relapse into their primitive Celtic habits and modes of thought. This arose partly from the character of the Roman civil rule, partly from the different effect produced by it in different parts of the country. The distance of Britain from the seat of government, its fertility, and the uncertainty of the Roman tenure of the island, caused it to be regarded less as a valuable portion of the Empire than as a distant mine from which every temporary advantage ought to be drawn at whatever cost to the natives. The Roman civil rule was harsh and oppressive; the British provinces a field for exaction, from which everything it could be made to yield was extracted and carried off without remorse. The effects, too, of the Roman rule were various. On the provincials of the fertile, accessible, and completely subjugated districts, they were more deep and lasting. To a great extent they lost their nationality and became Roman citizens. With it went also their natural courage, and either the desire or the spirit to resume an independent position, and they became enervated or effeminate. On the inhabitants of the northern and western portions of the province the effect must have been lighter and more ephemeral in its character. They were more in the position of native tribes under a foreign rule than of the civilised inhabitants of a province. They were 121exposed to the continual incursions of the barbaric tribes beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire; and as they had in a greater degree preserved their peculiar habits and national characteristics, the withdrawal of the Roman army and civil government was more the removal of a restraint which left them at liberty to resort to their old habits and resume their independent existence as best they might. Even upon the barbarian tribes who had remained in hostility to the Roman rule it exercised an indirect influence. It created union among them—the gradual combination of small communities into larger associations under a general name, and the moulding of a warlike barbarian people into a social organisation in advance of what they had been.

But the great legacies of Rome to Britain were the idea of monarchy,^[109] the centralisation of authority, and the municipal government, the position of the ‘civitas’ or city as the centre of local authority to the surrounding territory. In provincial Britain the local government under the civil staff of the Romans was vested in the cities with their senate or ‘curia,’ the ‘decuriones’^[110] which composed it, and the magistrates elected by them. It was to them Honorius addressed his letters, and when the Roman civilians were driven out they succeeded to their authority, each city forming the centre of a small territorial rule. Of the provincial Britons we find clear indications of a marked distinction between these two classes: the first consisting of those who considered themselves more peculiarly Romans, and bore the impress of their language and habits, among whom were also to be found the descendants of the Roman soldiers who had become 122naturalised prior to the termination of the Roman government in Britain, and remained in the island. There were in fact three descriptions of persons who might be termed Romans. There was, first, the Roman army, consisting to a great extent of barbarian auxiliaries, parties of whom remained stationed at the same places during the greater part of their occupation of the island. There was, secondly, the civil government, which, from the time of Constantine, if not from that of Diocletian, had been distinct from the military organisation, and had imposed upon the provinces a numerous and oppressive body of civil officials, principal and subordinate; and there were, thirdly, the descendants of those of the military who had received benefices or grants of land, or had connected themselves by marriage with the natives, and were thus naturalised among them. The Roman troops had been withdrawn by the various usurpers who assumed the purple in the island. The civil government had been expelled by the people, by whom, in common with all the provincials of the Roman Empire, it was detested and reluctantly submitted to; but the third class remained, and naturally became the leaders of those provincials who had become, as it were, Romanised. This class of the provincial Britons would be found mainly in that part of the province longest subjected and most easily accessible to Roman influence, bounded by the Humber and the Severn, and in the eastern and more level portion of the territory between the Humber and the Firths of Forth and Clyde, where the proper frontier of the province existed.

The second great class of the provincial Britons consisted of those who had been later conquered, and, occupying the wilder and more secluded regions of the north and west, retained less of the impress of the Roman provincial rule. These, on the departure of the Romans, fell back more upon a British nationality; and while the former fell an easy prey to the invader, the latter, retaining their British speech in its 123integrity, and possessing more of the warlike habits of a people inhabiting mountainous and pastoral districts, after the first paralysing effect of the absence of their usual protectors, the Roman troops, had passed away, took part in the struggle which ensued with vigour and animation.

Gildas, the British historian, alludes plainly enough to these two classes when he says that ‘the discomfited people, wandering in the woods, began to feel the effects of a severe famine, which compelled many of them without delay to yield themselves up to their cruel persecutors to obtain subsistence. Others of them, however, lying hid in mountains, caves, and woods, continually sallied out from thence to renew the war, and then it was for the first time they overthrew their enemies who had for so many years been living in their country.’^[111]

Such were the provincial Britons when the great contest commenced; but we are here mainly concerned with those who occupied the western districts extending from the river Derwent, which falls into the Western Sea at Workington in Cumberland, to the river Clyde on the north, forming one of four subsequent kingdoms under the name of Cumbria.

Among the barbaric tribes who likewise entered into the struggle for the prize, the first in order were the Picts. The accounts of them given by Gildas, Nennius, and Bede, vary considerably. Gildas first mentions them as taking a part in the irruption of the barbarians into the Roman province after the departure of Maximus with the Roman army, but he calls them a transmarine nation, and says they 124came from the north-east.^[112] He tells us that after the withdrawal of the frontier to the southern wall, which we have seen took place on the departure of Constantine in 406, they occupied the districts up to that wall as natives;^[113] and that when finally repelled by an effort of the provincial Britons, they then for the first time settled down in the extreme part of the island, where they still remained at the time he wrote his history. The natural inference from his language is that he considered that the Picts were a foreign people who first obtained a settlement in the island in the beginning of the fifth century, unless he regarded the region north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde as a separate island, and considered that it lay north-north-east from the standpoint from which he wrote.^[114] The gloss which Bede puts upon his language, that by transmarine he merely referred to their crossing the firths, seems a forced and narrow construction of his language. Nennius too viewed the Picts as a foreign people who settled in the island, and says that they first occupied the Orkney Islands, whence they laid waste many regions and seized those on the left hand or north side of Britain, where they still remained, keeping possession of a third part of Britain to his day;^[115] but then he placed their settlement as early as the fourth century before the birth of Christ.

Bede says that ‘at first this island had no other inhabitants than the Britons, but that when they, beginning at the south, had made themselves masters of the greatest part of the island, it happened that the nation of the Picts from 125Scythia, as is reported,^[116] putting to sea in a few long ships, were driven by the winds beyond the shores of Britain, and arrived on the northern shores of Ireland, where, finding the nation of the Scots, they desired a settlement among them, and this being refused by the Scots, they sailed over to Britain and began to inhabit the northern parts of the island.’ He adds that having no wives they applied to the Scots, who gave them on condition that when the succession came into doubt they should choose their king from the female royal race rather than from the male, a custom which he says it is well known is observed among the Picts to his day.^[117] Bede does not say at what time this settlement took place; but it is obvious that he is reporting a tradition, and that Nennius’s account is also traditionary; while Gildas does not seem to be aware that any tradition of their origin or their original seat was known to the Britons.

When we turn to the classical writers we find that under the name of the Picts they clearly understood that aggregate of tribes who, throughout the entire occupation of the provinces of Britain by the Romans, were known to them as the Barbarians who dwelt beyond the northern wall—those ancient enemies of the Romans who had so frequently harassed them in the quiet possession of Britain. From the beginning of the third century the older names by which many of the barbarian tribes beyond the frontiers of the Empire had been known to the Romans appear to have given way to new appellations, embracing a larger combination of tribes; and as in Germany the new generic names of ‘Alamanni,’ ‘Franci,’ ‘Thuringi,’ and ‘Saxones’ now appear, the constituent elements of which combinations can be identified with the tribes bearing the older names, so at the same period the name of ‘Picti’ appears as a designation of the barbaric tribes in Britain. It is first mentioned by Eumenius the panegyrist in the year 296. As the Picts 126seemed at first destined to carry off the prize, and, although eventually obliged to confine themselves to their ancient limits, formed the groundwork of the future kingdom of Celtic Scotland, it will be necessary, with a view to the main object before us, to trace their characteristics with somewhat more minuteness of detail.

When Agricola first penetrated beyond the Solway Firth, and extended his conquests over a hitherto unknown country as far as the Tay, his biographer records the tribes he encountered as new nations, and in his general description of the inhabitants of the island he discriminates between the tribes whom Agricola first made known to the Romans, and whom he calls inhabitants of Caledonia, and the rest of the Britons. That they were the same people who had been known to the Romans by a report not long before as ‘Caledonii Britanni’ there can be little doubt. They possessed, it is true, no diversity of language or of manners sufficient to attract the attention of the Roman historian; but still there were some distinctive features which led him to consider them as not identic with the provincial Britons, and to give that part of the island occupied by them a separate name. There was one physical mark of difference that at once attracted his observation. They were larger in body and limb, and less xanthous.

In the following century we learn more regarding these new nations. We find that in the reign of Hadrian they consisted of fourteen tribes, and extended from the districts between the Solway and the Clyde to the extreme north of Scotland. A closer examination of these tribes shows evident indications of a different degree of civilisation and of advancement in social organisation among them. In this respect they fall naturally into three groups, and they are likewise geographically divided into the same groups by three leading tribes extending entirely across the island from sea to sea. The most southern of these was the tribe of the 127‘Damnonii,’ in itself representing, with the tribe of the ‘Novantæ’ in Galloway, one of these three divisions, and extending from the Firth of Forth to the great estuary of the Clyde, and from the mountains of Dumfriesshire to the river Tay. A line drawn from the head of Loch Long to the Moray Firth separates the tribe of the ‘Caledonii’ from that of the ‘Vacomagi,’ each extending parallel to the other from south-west to north-east. The entire platform of these fourteen tribes thus naturally falls into three not very unequal portions. The numbers of the tribes, however, are more unequally distributed. In the northern and more mountainous portion were no fewer than nine out of the fourteen tribes, the great tribe of the ‘Caledonii’ joining the frontier people on the south-east. In the more lowland districts, from the Moray Firth to the Firth of Forth, were only three tribes, of which the ‘Vacomagi’ extended along the north-west boundary, and the fertile plains from the Tay to Galloway were entirely possessed by one great tribe, the ‘Damnonii,’ while the ‘Novantæ’ occupied Galloway. This very plainly points to a more advanced social organisation as we proceed south, and the same fact is further indicated even more clearly by the existence of towns among some of them only.

Among the three tribes extending from the Forth to the Moray Firth we find what the geographer Ptolemy terms πόλεις or towns, but not very numerous, and placed on the frontier of each tribe, so as to show they were organised for the defence of the community. Among the tribes in the more northern portion there is no trace whatever of the existence of such towns, while in the great southern tribe of the ‘Damnonii’ there are enumerated no fewer than six, as many as are to be found in the three tribes north of the Forth; and we likewise find them placed more in the interior of the territories of the tribe, while the ‘Novantæ’ in Galloway possesses two.

128Not many years after this account of the tribes, the Roman wall was constructed between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, through the heart of the territories of the ‘Damnonii,’ thus dividing the nation into two parts, one of which was included within the province and subjected to the Roman government, while the other remained beyond the boundary of Roman Britain. Of the towns enumerated by Ptolemy, three were now within the province, and the other three were situated north of the wall.

When the Roman classical writers again furnish us with any particulars of these tribes, we find that the progress of social organisation had advanced a step further, and that they were now combined into two nations—the ‘Caledonii’ and the ‘Mæatæ.’ The historian Dio expressly states that these were the two divisions of the hostile nations beyond the Roman province, and that all other names of tribes beyond the wall had merged into these two denominations, of which, he adds, the ‘Mæatæ’ were next the wall. The name of ‘Caledonii’ identifies that nation with the group of northern tribes, of which the ‘Caledonii’ were the leading tribe, while the ‘Mæatæ’ must have included those extending from the ‘Caledonii’ to the wall. The ‘Mæatæ,’ soon after they first appear under that name, were obliged to yield up a considerable portion of this territory to the Romans. The ceded district must have been that nearest the wall; and if, as we have seen, it consisted of the plains extending from the wall to the Tay, it included exactly that portion of the nation of the ‘Damnonii’ which lay on the north side of the wall, who now passed under the Roman influence, as well as the southern portion of that nation.

At the time the independent tribes of the north are thus described as consisting of two nations—the ‘Caledonii’ and the ‘Mæatæ’—it is recorded of them, as a characteristic feature, that they retained the custom of painting their 129bodies, by puncturing with iron the figures of animals on their skin; and when the inhabitants of these northern regions next appear on the scene after the interval of nearly a century, we find the whole aggregate of these tribes bearing the general name of ‘Picti.’ This name, afterwards so well known and so much dreaded, first appears as their designation after the fall of the insular empire of Carausius and Allectus, in whose armies they seem to have been largely enrolled. They are said at this time to have consisted of the ‘Caledones and other Picts.’ Fifty years later, when the first of those great and systematic irruptions into the province by the simultaneous action of several barbarian nations burst forth, the ‘Picti’ are more accurately described by the historian as now consisting of two nations—the ‘Dicaledonæ’ and the ‘Vecturiones;’ while the occupation of the Roman territory nearest them during the first four years, brought to their assistance, in their more extended attack upon the Roman province, a part of its population under the new designation of the ‘Attacotti.’

We thus see that prior to the extension of the Roman province under Antoninus, the people known to the Romans by report as the Caledonian Britons, and described by Tacitus as a distinct people under the designation of inhabitants of Caledonia, consisted of fourteen independent tribes; that a part of the largest of the southern tribes having been cut off from the rest by the Roman wall, the tribes remaining independent combined into two nations—the ‘Caledonii’ and ‘Mæatæ;’ that the Mæatæ having to cede a part of their territory, the remainder of the nation lose that name and appear under that of ‘Vecturiones,’ the ‘Caledonii’ or ‘Caledones’ being now termed ‘Dicaledonæ,’ inhabiting the north-western regions bounded by the Deucaledonian sea, while the combined nation bore the name of ‘Picti.’ Such seems the natural inference from the successive notices of the northern tribes by the Roman historians; and while they 130give no hint that they did not consider them the same people throughout, and while the identity of the northern division at all times is sufficiently manifest by the preservation of the name of Caledonians under analogous forms, the poets clearly indicate that they considered the Picts the indigenous inhabitants of Caledonia; for while they consider ‘Ierne’ or Ireland as the home of the Scots, and the ‘Orcades’ or Orkneys as the position from whence the Saxons issued on their expeditions, they assign to the Picts, as their original seat, the same ‘Thule’ which the earlier poets had applied as a poetical name for Caledonia, and the home of the Caledonian Britons.

The same twofold division of the Pictish nation existed among them till at least the eighth century, when Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, for he tells us that the provinces of the northern Picts were separated by high and lofty mountains from the southern regions of that people; and that the southern Picts had their seats within that mountain range, alluding probably to the range of the so-called Grampians, which formed the south-western boundary of that division of the nation which throughout bore the name of Caledonians. This distinction, too, between the two branches of the nation must have been still further increased by the fact recorded by Bede, that the northern Picts were only converted to Christianity by the preaching of St. Columba in the year 565; while the southern Picts had long before embraced Christianity through the preaching of St. Ninian,^[118] who, he tells us, built a church at ‘Candida Casa,’ or Whithern, in Galloway, which he dedicated to St. Martin of Tours. Ailred probably repeats a genuine tradition when he says in his Life of St. Ninian 131that he was building this church when he heard of the death of St. Martin, which happened in the year 397, so that the southern branch of the Pictish nation was at least nominally a Christian people, while the northern Picts remained pagan for a period of upwards of a century and a half.

The Irish equivalent for the name ‘Picti’ was ‘Cruithnigh;’ and we find during this period a people under this name inhabiting a district in the north of Ireland, extending along its north-east coast from the river Newry, and from Carlingford Bay to Glenarm, and consisting of the county of Down and the south half of the county of Antrim. This district was termed ‘Uladh,’ and also ‘Dalaraidhe,’ Latinised ‘Dalaradia,’ and its inhabitants were the remains of a Pictish people believed to have once occupied the whole of Ulster.^[119] South of the Firths of Forth and Clyde we find the Picts in two different localities. Gildas tells us that after the boundary of the province they occupied the northern and extreme part of the island as settlers up to the wall, and this probably refers to the districts afterwards comprised under the general name of ‘Lodonea,’ or Lothian, in its extended sense, comprising the counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, and the Lothians. In the north-western part of this region they appear to have remained till a comparatively late period, extending from the Carron to the Pentland hills, and known by the name of the plain of Manau, or Manann, while the name of Pentland, corrupted from Petland, or Pictland, has preserved a record of their occupation.

The name of ‘Picti’ was likewise applied to the inhabitants of Galloway, comprising the modern counties of Kirkcudbright and Wigtown, till a still later period, and survived 132the entire disappearance of the name as applied to any other portion of the inhabitants of Scotland, even as late as the twelfth century. This district was occupied in the second century by the tribe termed by Ptolemy the ‘Novantæ,’ with their towns of Rerigonium and Lucopibia, and there is nothing to show that the same people did not occupy it throughout, and become known as the Picts of Galloway, of which ‘Candida Casa,’ or Whithern, was the chief seat, and occupied the site of the older Lucopibia.^[120]

133The oldest record connected with the Picts is the Pictish Chronicle, apparently compiled in the tenth century, of 134which two separate editions are preserved, one of which probably emerged from Abernethy and the other from Brechin.^[121] It contains a list of kings of the Picts who are supposed to have reigned over them from their origin to the termination of their monarchy. The earlier portion of this list is of course mythic, and the reigns of the supposed kings are characterised by their extreme length; but the latter part must form the basis of their history, after the Picts became settled and assumed the form of a kingdom within definite limits. The earlier part is mainly useful for philological purposes. The last of these shadowy monarchs is Drust, son of Erp, who is said to have reigned a hundred years and fought a hundred battles, and it is added that in his nineteenth year St. Patrick went to Ireland. This places him about the time of the repeated incursions of the Picts into the Roman province. His successor Talore is said to have reigned only four years, but with the reign of his brother Nectan Morbet, to which twenty-four years are assigned, we probably have something historical. A calculation of the reigns of the subsequent kings in the list, tested by the dates furnished by the annalists from time to time, would place the commencement of this reign in the year 457, and the termination in 481. The Chronicle tells us 135that Nectan had been banished to Ireland by his brother, and that in consequence of a prophecy by St. Bridget that he would return to his own country and possess the kingdom in peace, he, in the third year of his reign, received Darlugdach, abbess of Kildare, and two years after founded the church of Abernethy in honour of St. Bridget; but this tale is inconsistent with the date of St. Bridget, whose death is recorded in 525. It, however, appears to connect Nectan with the territory in which Abernethy was situated.^[122]

A strange tale is related of him too in the Acts of Saint Boethius, or Buitte, of Mainister Buitte in Ulster, whose death is recorded in 521, which likewise connects him with the same part of the country. St. Buitte is said, on returning from Italy with sixty holy men and ten virgins, to have landed in the territories of the Picts, and to have found that Nectan, the king of that country, had just departed this life, on which he restores him to life, and the grateful monarch bestowed upon him the fort or camp in which the miracle had been performed that he might found a church there.^[123] If he entered the Pictish territories by the Firth of Tay, it is probable that the place formerly called Dun-Nechtan, or the fort of Nechtan, and now corrupted into Dunnichen, in Forfarshire, is the place intended, and that the name of Boethius or Buitte is preserved in the neighbouring church of Kirkbuddo, situated within the ramparts of what was a Roman camp.

Of the two next kings we know nothing but their names and the length of their reigns. We then come to two Drests or Drusts—Drest son of Gyrom, and Drest son of Wdrost—who reigned together for five years, from 523 to 528, and here again we find some legendary matter connected with one of them.

In the Liber Hymnorum, or Book of Hymns of the Ancient Church of Ireland, edited by the Rev. Dr. J. H. 136Todd, there is a hymn or prayer of St. Mugint, and the scholiast in the preface narrates the following tradition: ‘Mugint made this hymn in Futerna. The cause was this: Finnen of Magh Bile went to Mugint for instruction, and Rioc and Talmach, and several others with him. Drust was king of “Bretan” then, and had a daughter, viz. Drusticc was her name, and he gave her to Mugint to be taught to read.’ It is unnecessary to add the adventure which followed. Dr. Todd considers that ‘Futerna is manifestly Whiterna or Whitern, the Wh being represented by F;’by F;’^[124] and that the Drust of the legend is one of these two Drusts who reigned from 523 to 528. As Finnen’s death is recorded in 579, the date accords with the period when he may have sought instruction. O’Clery, in the Martyrology of Donegal, quotes a poem which refers to the same legend:

This Drust is therefore clearly connected with Galloway; and we thus learn that when two kings appear in the Pictish Chronicle as reigning together, one of them is probably king of the Picts of Galloway.^[126]

The Drusts are followed by two brothers of Drest son of Gyrom, a Talerg, and another Drest son of Munait, and then we find ourselves on firm historic ground when we come to Bridei son of Mailcu.^[127] He is said to have reigned thirty years, and to have been baptized in the eighth year 137of his reign by St. Columba. As that saint is recorded to have come from Ireland to Britain in the year 563, this places the first year of his reign in the year 556, and the termination of his reign in the year 586. His death is, however, recorded by Tighernac in the year 583. Bede terms him Bridius, son of Meilochon, a most powerful king reigning over the Picts, and says that St. Columba converted his nation to Christianity in the ninth year of his reign, having preached the word of God to the provinces of the northern Picts;^[128] and Adamnan places his fort and palace on the banks of the river Ness.^[129] The Pictish Chronicle states that Galam Cennaleph reigned one year with Bridei, and Tighernac records the death in 580 of Cendaeladh, king of the Picts.^[130] He too was probably a king of the Picts of Galloway, and traces of his name also can be found in the topography of that district.^[131]

We have now traced the history of the Picts down to the last half of the sixth century, when we find ourselves on firm ground, and leave them a Christian people, united in one kingdom under the rule of a powerful monarch.

But if the word ‘Picti’ was a term applied to the native tribes beyond the northern frontier of the Roman province, and the future kingdom of the Picts was formed from a combination of them, it is equally clear that the term ‘Scoti’ first appears as an appellation of the inhabitants of Ireland. Gildas tells us that the Scots assailed the province from the north-west,^[132] which, from his standpoint, indicates Ulster as 138the region whence this band of Scots had emerged, and when he describes the Picts as settling down in the extreme part of the island, where they still remained to his day, he adds, that the shameless Irish robbers, as he terms the Scots, returned home, at no distant date to reappear.^[133] By this expression he appears to indicate that there was a subsequent settlement of them in the island, but he makes no further allusion to it.

Nennius, after giving an account of the traditionary settlement of the Scots from Spain in Ireland, adds a notice of their later settlements in Britain; but the text of this part of his work is unfortunately corrupt, and seems to have been so from an early period, as the Irish translation of it in the eleventh century contains obvious marks of its being an attempt to explain what was obscure to the translator. He appears to indicate settlements in North and South Wales, and in Dalrieta.^[134]

Bede’s account is more consistent. He says that in course of time, Britain, after the Britons and Picts, received a third nation, that of the Scots, into that part of the country occupied by the Picts who came from Ireland under their leader Reuda, and either by friendly arrangement or by the sword acquired those seats among the Picts which they still possess, and that from their leader Reuda they 139were termed ‘Dalreudini.’ He adds, that ‘Hibernia’ or Ireland was the native country of these Scots, and that their new settlement was on the north side of that arm of the sea which formerly divided the Britons from the Picts, and where the Britons still have their chief fastness, the city called ‘Alcluith.’^[135] There is no doubt that Alcluith is the rock in the Clyde on which Dumbarton Castle is situated; the Firth of Clyde, the arm of the sea in question; and that Bede correctly describes the position of the Scottish settlement in his own day, as well as its name of Dalriada, from which he deduces his Reuda as their ‘Eponymus.’

The notices of the Scots by the Roman writers are quite in harmony with these traditionary accounts. They make their first appearance in 360, when they joined the Picts and the Saxons in assailing the Roman province. It is true that an expression of the Roman historian may be held to imply that they had first appeared on the scene seventeen years earlier, in the year 343; but that part of Ammianus’s work is lost, and we have no distinct account of what took place when Constans visited Britain in that year. When Theodosius drove back the invading tribes after their eight years’ occupation of the province, we are clearly told by Claudian that the Scots were driven back to ‘Ierne’ or Ireland; and throughout all the subsequent incursions in which the Scots took part, he implies that it was from thence they were made.

The oldest document connected with the history of their settlement in Britain will be found in the Synchronisms of Flann Mainistrech, compiled about the reign of Malcolm the Second, in the early part of the eleventh century. We are there told that twenty years after the battle of Ocha, the children of Erc passed over into ‘Alban’ or Scotland.^[136] The battle of Ocha is a celebrated era in Irish chronological history, 140and was fought in Ireland in the year 478, which places this Irish colony in the year 498; and Tighernac the annalist, who died in 1088, is quite in accordance with this when, under the year 501, he has ‘Fergus Mor, son of Erc, held a part of Britain with the tribe of Dalriada, and died there.’^[137] A district forming the north-east corner of Ireland, and comprising the north half of the county of Antrim, was called Dalriada. It appears to have been one of the earliest settlements of the Scots among the Picts of Ulster, and to have derived its name from its supposed founder Cairbre, surnamed ‘Righfhada’ or Riada. It lay exactly opposite the peninsula of Kintyre, from whence it was separated by a part of the Irish Channel of no greater breadth than about fourteen miles; and from this Irish district the colony of Scots, which was already Christian,^[138] passed over and settled in Kintyre, and in the island of Isla. The earlier settlements indicated by the traditionary accounts of Nennius and Bede no doubt refer to the incursions of the Scots in the fourth century, and their temporary occupation of Britain during eight years.^[139] The circumstances which enabled a 141small body of Scots to effect this settlement among the Picts cannot now be ascertained, and they appear to have extended themselves over a considerable portion of territory during the first sixty years of their kingdom, without meeting with much difficulty, during the reigns of three of their petty kings—Domangart, son of Fergus, and his two 142sons, Comgall and Gabran—till Brude, son of Mailchu, termed by Bede a powerful monarch, became king of the Picts, when a few years after he commenced his reign he attacked the Dalriads and drove them back to their original seat in Kintyre, slaying their king Gabran.^[140] He was succeeded by Conall, the son of Comgall, who appears to have remained with diminished territories in Kintyre; and it was during this period, when the Scottish possessions were reduced to that part of Argyllshire which extends from the Mull of Kintyre to Loch Crinan, the whole of which was originally comprehended under the name of Kintyre, that St. Columba came over from Ireland on his mission to convert the Picts—a mission prompted possibly by the hazardous position in which the small Christian colony of the Scots was placed in close contact with the still pagan nation of the northern Picts under their powerful monarch Brude. Something like this seems to be expressed in that remarkable poem of the eleventh century, called the Prophecy of St. Berchan, where it is said of Columba—

The death of Conall, son of Comgall, king of Dalriada, in the thirteenth year of his reign, is recorded by Tighernac, and he adds that a battle was fought in Kintyre, at a place called Delgon, in that year, in which his son Duncan and a large number of the tribe of Gabran were slain.^[142] This 143battle seems to have been a further attack by the Picts with the view of suppressing them altogether, as the same poem thus alludes to it:—

The death of Conall opened the succession to the children of Gabran according to the law of tanistry, and so far as we can gather from a statement in Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba, it fell to Eoganan to fill the throne, but St. Columba was led by a vision to prefer his brother Aidan, whom he solemnly inaugurated as king of Dalriada, in the island of Iona.^[144] It is more probable that he was led to prefer Aidan from his possessing qualities which pointed him out as the fittest man to redeem the fortunes of the Dalriads, and took this mode of giving a sanction to his choice, which Aidan appears soon to have vindicated, as he is termed in the Albanic Duan ‘king of many divisions,’^[145] that is, of extended territories. The Dalriads seem, as yet, to have been considered as forming a part of Irish Dalriada, and as a colony from them, to have been still subject to the mother tribe; but St. Columba resolved to proceed a step further, and to make him an independent king. Accordingly he, along with Aidan, attended a great council held at Drumceat in the year 575, when a discussion arose between him and the king of Ireland as to the future position of Scotch Dalriada towards Ireland, and it was agreed that the Scotch Dalriads should be freed from all tributes and exactions, but should join with the Irish Dalriads, as the parent stock, in all hostings and 144expeditions.^[146] Aidan thus became, as it were, the second founder of the Dalriadic colony in Scotland, and its first monarch as an independent kingdom.^[147]

The third of the Barbarian tribes who had assailed the Roman province, and afterwards effected a settlement in the island, and the second of those who were foreign settlers, were the Saxons. The traditionary account of their settlement is thus given. Gildas tells us that when the Picts and Scots crossed the southern wall in their last invasion of the province, and drove the Britons before them, the provincial Britons applied to Aetius, a powerful Roman citizen, for protection. He states that this letter bore the address ‘To Aetius, now consul for the third time, the groans of the Britons,’ and contained the expression, ‘The Barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the Barbarians; thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned;’^[148] that no assistance being given from Rome, the more warlike part of the Britons overthrew their enemies, who had been for so many years living in their country; that the Picts then settled for the first time in the northern part of the island, and the Scots returned to Ireland; that this was followed by a great plenty in Ireland; that a rumour suddenly arose that their inveterate foes were rapidly approaching to destroy the whole country, and to take possession of it, as of old, from one end to the other; that a council was called to settle what was best and most expedient to be done to repel the irruptions and plunderings of these nations; and 145that the councillors, along with that proud tyrant, the leader of the Britons,^[149] sealed the doom of their country by inviting in among them the fierce and impious Saxons, ‘a race,’ says the Christian and patriotic Gildas, ‘hateful alike to God and men,’ to repel the invasions of the northern nations. They arrive in three “cyuls” or long ships, and land on the eastern side of the island, where they settle. They are followed by a larger body of their countrymen, who join them. The Barbarians, being thus introduced as soldiers and supplied with provisions, become dissatisfied with their monthly provisions, break the treaty, and proceed to destroy the towns and lands till they reach the Western Sea. Then follows a lamentable description of the ruin caused by them; and of the Britons, some were enslaved, some fled over the sea, and others took arms under a leader of the Roman nation—Ambrosius Aurelianus, attack their cruel conqueror and obtain a victory. A war then follows, in which sometimes the citizens and sometimes the enemy have the advantage, till the year of the siege of the Badon Mount,^[150] which was also the year of his birth. Such is a résumé of Gildas’s narrative of the settlement of the Saxons in Britain, and to it only two dates can be attached. There is no question that the letter which was sent to Aetius belongs to the year 446, when he was for the third time consul; and the siege of Badon Hill took place, according to the Annales Cambriæ, in the year 516.

Procopius, who wrote at the same time as Gildas, tells us that three very numerous nations possess Brittia, over each of which a king presides; which nations are named ‘Angeloi,’ ‘Phrissones,’ and those surnamed from the island, ‘Brittones,’ He thus considers that those whom Gildas calls generally 146Saxons, consisted of two nations, the Angles and the Frisians; but he tells us nothing as to their settlement in the island.

In our present text of Nennius we find three different accounts of the settlement of the Saxons. The first is thus told us. ‘After the departure of the Romans, the Britons were forty years in anxiety. Guorthegirn then reigned in Britain, and while he reigned he was oppressed by fear of the Scots and Picts, the Roman power, and the dread of Ambrosius. In the meantime three cyuls came from Germany, driven into exile, in which were Hors and Hengist. Guorthegirn received them kindly, and gave them the island of Thanet. While Gratianus the Second and Equantius were ruling at Rome, the Saxons were received by Guorthegirn in the 347th year after the passion of Christ.’^[151] The 347th year after the passion of Christ is equal to the 374th year after his incarnation, and in that year Gratianus was consul a second time in conjunction with Æquitius. He then proceeds, ‘After the Saxons had continued some time in the island of Thanet, Guorthegirn promised to supply them with clothing and provision, on condition they would engage to fight against the enemies of his country, but is unable to fulfil his engagement, and bids them depart. Hengist then sends for reinforcements, who come in sixteen vessels with his daughter.’ Then follows the well-known incident of the banquet, and the cession of Kent. Hengist then proposes to send for his son and his cousin to fight against the Scots, and asks Guorthegirn to give them the regions next the northern wall. Octa and 147Ebissa come with forty cyuls, and circumnavigating the Picts lay waste the Orkneys, and occupy several districts beyond the Frisian sea, as far as the confines of the Picts. They are followed by other ships, which come to Kent.^[152]

The second account is this—‘From the first year in which the Saxons came into Britain to the fourth year of King Mervin are reckoned four hundred and twenty-nine years.’^[153] The fourth year of the reign of Mervin, king of North Wales, corresponds with the year 821, and this places the arrival of the Saxons in the year 392.

The last account runs thus—‘Guorthegirn, however, held the supreme authority in Britain in the consulship of Theodosius and Valentinian, and in the fourth year of his reign the Saxons came into Britain, Felix and Taurus being consuls in the four hundredth year of the incarnation of our Lord.’^[154] 148The consulship of Theodosius and Valentinian fell in the year 425, and that of Felix and Taurus in the year 428, which is thus given as the date of the settlement of the Saxons.

The geographer of Ravenna, who wrote in the same century in which the work which bears the name of Nennius was originally compiled, reports the tradition thus:—‘In the Western Ocean is the island which is called Britannia, where the nation of the Saxons formerly coming from ancient Saxony, with their chief Anschis, are now seen to inhabit.’^[155]

Finally, Bede, in the succeeding century, the historian of the Anglic nation, gives us the traditionary history in the following shape. He repeats in very much the same terms the account given by Gildas of the incursions of the Picts and Scots beyond the southern wall; the letter to Aetius asking assistance, which, he adds, he was unable to give on account of the war with Blaedla and Attila, kings of the Huns; the great famine; the efforts made by the more warlike part of the Britons; the return of the Irish plunderers to their own home,^[156] and the quietness of the Picts in the extreme part of the island; the great plenty which followed; the alarm of renewed invasion, when ‘they all agreed with their king Vortigern to call over to them and from the parts beyond the sea the Saxon nation.’^[157] Bede then proceeds thus:—‘In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 449, Martian, being made emperor with Valentinian, and the forty-sixth from Augustus, ruled the empire seven years. Then the nation of the Angles or Saxons, being invited by the aforesaid king, arrived in Britain with three long ships, and had a place assigned them 149to dwell in by the same king in the eastern part of the island, that they might thus appear to be fighting for the country, whilst their real intentions were to enslave it. Accordingly they engaged with the enemy, who had come from the north to give battle, and obtained the victory; which, being known at home in their own country, as also the fertility of the country and the cowardice of the Britons, a more considerable fleet was quickly sent over, bringing a still greater number of men, which, being added to the former, made up an invincible army. The new-comers received from the Britons a place to inhabit among themselves, upon condition that they should wage war against their enemies for the peace and security of the country, whilst the Britons agreed to furnish them with pay.’ Bede then tells us that those who came over were of three nations, the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes; and that from the Angles came all the tribes that dwell on the north side of the river Humber, and the other nations of the English, and that the two first commanders are said to have been Hengist and Horsa. He then says—‘In a short time swarms of the aforesaid nations came over into the island, and they began to increase so much that they became terrible to the natives themselves who had invited them. Having on a sudden entered into a temporary league with the Picts, whom they had by this time repelled to a distance by the force of their arms, they began to turn their weapons against their confederates.’^[158] Bede then takes from Gildas the account of the ravages by the Saxons, and their victory by Ambrosius Aurelianus, down to the mention of the siege of ‘Mons Badonicus,’ which he places forty-four years after the arrival of the Saxons, or in the year 492. He then narrates the breaking out of the Pelagian heresy, the coming of Germanus and Lupus to Britain, the war upon 150the Britons by the Saxons and the Picts, which he connects with the league he had just mentioned as having been entered into between them, and the victory under the influence of Germanus, usually called the Allelujatic victory. This part of his narrative he takes from the life of Germanus, written within forty years of his death by Constantius of Lyons.^[159]

Such is the form into which Bede has reduced this legendary history. Let us now see how far, by the aid of contemporary notices, we can extract the few really historical facts imbedded in it. Though Gildas tells us very distinctly that the Barbarians who assailed the Roman province after Maximus, who usurped the Empire, had departed with the Roman army, and the British youth consisted solely of the two nations of the Picts and Scots, yet certain it is that bodies of Saxons were joined with them in their incursions. For the fact that they formed one of the barbarian tribes who burst into the province in 360 we have the united testimony of Ammianus and Claudian, and the latter authority is equally clear that they formed one of the bands who invaded the province after Maximus and were driven back by Stilicho. Ammianus tells us that in 368 the Count of the Maritime Tract was slain, and in the Notitia Imperii we find the same functionary termed Count of the Saxon Shore. In the same document this designation of the Saxon Shore is also applied to the country about Grannona in Gaul,^[160] where the Saxons 151had established regular settlements. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the name of the Saxon Shore was given to the coast extending from the Wash on the north to near Portsmouth in the south, not because it was exposed to the ravages of the Saxons, but because they had likewise made settlements there.^[161] We may well believe, then, that between the year 368 and the date of the Notitia, about the beginning of the fifth century, the Saxons who had been assailing the province from the east had effected a settlement on the shores of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Kent; and this accords with the two earliest dates given in Nennius, 374 and 392. The statement by Gildas that the Saxons came on the invitation of a proud tyrant and leader of the Britons, to whom, in the succeeding century, the name of Guorthegirn is given, and who is associated with the arrival of the Saxons at these early dates, seems to find its counterpart in the invitation given to the Barbarians to invade Gaul and Britain by Gerontius, a Count of Britain in the service of Constantine, in the year 407, and in the later form of the tradition they are certainly identified.^[162] Bede tells us that after the arrival of the Saxons in 449 they united with the Picts, whom they had driven back, and attacked the Britons, when they were defeated in the Allelujatic victory; but Constantius, from whom this event is taken, and who was nearly a contemporary writer, dates this event in the year 429, thus showing the Saxons in combination with the Picts twenty years before the date assigned by Bede for the arrival of the former; and here again the true date of this event is in harmony with the third date assigned in Nennius for the arrival of the Saxons, viz., the year 428.

Finally, we have the testimony of Prosper Aquitanus, whose chronicle was compiled in the year 455, that in 441 152the British provinces had already been reduced under the power of the Saxons.^[163] Five years after this the letter to Aetius was written, and it follows that the Barbarians, against whom it made that despairing cry for assistance, were the Saxons, and to them the expressions quoted from the letter are much more applicable than to the Picts and Scots.^[164] The misplacing of this document in Gildas’s narrative has given rise to the false chronology which has been attached to it, and we are warranted in concluding that the settlement of the Saxons on the south-eastern shore had commenced as early as the year 374, and that Britain was considered as under subjection to them at least eight years before the date in which Bede places their first arrival.

Gildas records no events between the victory, which he attributes to the leader of the Roman party, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and the siege of Mount Badon in 516. Nennius, who connects Ambrosius with the Roman power, and alludes to a discord between him and Guitolin, of which he gives no particulars, but which he places in the year 437, fills up this interval with the exploits of Arthur.

The Arthur of Nennius was, however, a very different personage from the shadowy and mythic monarch of the later Welsh traditions, and of the Arthurian romance. He is described by Nennius as merely a warrior who was a military commander in conjunction with the petty British kings who fought against the Saxons.^[165] The Saxons referred 153to were those whom Nennius had previously described as colonising the regions in the north under Octa and Ebissa, and it is to that part of the country we must look for the sites of the twelve battles which he records. The first was fought at the mouth of the river Glein. The second, third, fourth, and fifth, on another river called Dubglas, in the region of Linnius, and this brings us at once to the Lennox, where two rivers called the Douglas, or Dubhglass, fall into Loch Lomond. This was certainly one of the districts about the wall called ‘Guaul’ which had been occupied by Octa’s colony; and Nennius tells us elsewhere that Severus’s wall, which passed by Cairpentaloch to the mouth of the river Clyde, was called in the British speech ‘Guaul.’^[166] The sixth battle was fought at a river called Bassas. The seventh in the Caledonian wood,^[167] which again takes us to the north for the site of these battles. The eighth in the fastness of Guinnion, which is connected by an old tradition with the church of Wedale, in the vale of the Gala Water. The ninth at the City of the Legion. The tenth on the strand of the river called Tribruit. The eleventh in the mount called Agned, which once more brings us to the north, as there can be no doubt that Edinburgh, called by the Welsh Mynyd Agned, is the place meant, and this battle appears to have been directed against the Picts, who were in league with the Saxons.^[168] The twelfth was the battle at Mount Badon,^[169] in 154which Nennius tells us that 960 men of the enemy perished in one day from the onslaught of Arthur, and that he was victorious in all of these battles. Nennius adds that while the Saxons were defeated in all of these battles, they were continually seeking help from Germany, and being increased in numbers, and obtaining kings from Germany to rule them till the reign of Ida, son of Eobba, who was the first king in Bernicia, with which sentence he closes his narrative, and this still further tends to place these events in the north. So far we may accept Arthur as a historic person, and this account of his battles as based on a genuine tradition.^[170] The chronicle attached to Nennius tells us that he was slain twenty-one years afterwards in the battle of Camlan, fought in 537 between him and Medraud.^[171] As Medraud was the son of Llew of Lothian, this battle again takes us to the north for its site.^[172]

Ten years after this we find the scattered tribes of the 155Angles and the Frisians occupying the districts on the east coast from the Tees to the Forth, and those who had been the opponents of Arthur in most of these battles, formed into the kingdom of Bernicia by Ida, son of Eobba, in the year 547,^[173] who placed his capital on a headland not far from the Tweed, where he erected a fort called in British Dinguardi, or Dinguoaroy, and in Anglic Bebbanburch, afterwards Bamborough. Ida reigned twelve years, and died in 559, when he was succeeded by Ella, who belonged to a different family, and added the districts between the Humber and the Tees, termed Deira, thus forming one kingdom of Northumbria, extending from the Humber as far north as the territory occupied by the Angles reached. The province of Bernicia, however, remained under the rule 156of Ida’s sons, and it is with this province alone that we are concerned in this work.^[174]

Ida left twelve sons, six of whom reigned successively over Bernicia, and it is with these sons that the conflict between the Britons and Saxons in the north was continued. Adda, the eldest, reigned seven years, and was followed by Clappa, one year, which brings us to the year 567, when Hussa, the next brother, begins to reign; and we are told that ‘against him four kings of the Britons—Urbgen, Riderchen, Guallauc, and Morcant—fought.’^[175] One of their kings, Riderchen, belonged to that party among the Britons who were termed Romans, from their supposed descent either from Roman soldiers or from Roman citizens; the other three to the native or warlike party among the Britons. These seem mainly to have belonged to that part of the nation which occupied the western districts, while the so-called Romans were to be found principally in the central regions. Of the result of this war during Hussa’s reign we are told nothing; but dissensions seem now to have broken out among the Britons themselves, who formed two parties, arising from other grounds besides those of supposed descent. The existence in the country of a pagan people like the Angles, and the extent to which they had subjected the natives, exercised a great influence even over those who were not subject to their power. The Picts, who were either subjected by them or in close alliance with them, 157were more immediately under their influence, and seem to a great extent to have apostatised from the Christianity introduced among them by St. Ninian, and a great part of the British population in the south fell back upon a half paganism fostered by their bards, who recalled the old traditions of the race before they had been Christianised under the Roman dominion. There was thus a Christian and what may be called a Pagan party. The so-called Romans mainly belonged to the former, and this Riderchen or Rhydderch was at their head. The latter embraced the native Britons, whose leaders traced their descent from Coil Hen, or the aged, and their head was Gwendolew.

These dissensions now broke into open rupture, and a great battle is recorded to have taken place between them in the year 573, which was to decide who was to have the mastery. It was termed the battle of Ardderyd, and the scene of it was at Arthuret, situated on a raised platform on the west side of the river Esk, about eight miles north of Carlisle. This name is simply the modern form of the word Ardderyd. Two small hills here are called the Arthuret knowes, and the top of the highest, which overhangs the river, is fortified by an earthen rampart. About four miles north of this is a stream which flows into the Esk, and bears the name of Carwhinelow, in which the name of Gwendolew can be easily recognised; and near the junction of the Esk and the Liddel, at no great distance from it, is the magnificent hill-fort called the Moat of Liddel. Here this great battle was fought, the centre of a group of Welsh traditions.^[176] 158It resulted in the victory of the Christian party and the establishment of Rhydderch as the king of the Cumbrian Britons. We find him mentioned in Adamnan’s Life of Saint Columba as reigning at Alclyde or Dumbarton, and from the seat of his capital his kingdom came to be called Strathclyde. Adamnan tells us that Rodercus, son of Tothail, who reigned at the Rock of Cluaithe (Petra Cloithe, 159Alclyde, or Dumbarton), being on friendly terms with St. Columba, sent him a message to ask him whether he would be killed by his enemies or not, and the saint replied that he would never be delivered into the hands of his enemies, but die at home on his own pillow; which prophecy, adds Adamnan, regarding King Roderic, was fully accomplished, for, according to his word, he died quietly in his own house.^[177] Adamnan was born only twenty-one years after the death of Rhydderch.

The next brother who reigned over Bernicia was Freodulf, for six years, but no war is recorded in his reign; but that of his successor Theodoric, who reigned from 580 to 587, introduces us to a new champion for the Britons, Urbgen, the City-born—the Urien of the Bards—who, with his sons, is said to have fought stoutly against him; and it is added that sometimes the enemy and sometimes the natives prevailed. This Theodoric is the Flamddwyn or Flame-bearer of the Bards.^[178] He was succeeded by the last of the brothers who reigned, Aethelric, who, after a short reign of two years, was followed in 594 by his son Ethelfred Flesaurs, of whom Bede tells us that he was a most powerful king and covetous of glory, who more than all the chiefs of the Angles ravaged the nation of the Britons. For no one among the tribunes, no one among the kings, after exterminating or subjugating the natives, caused a greater 160extent of their territory to become either tributary to the nation of the Angles or to be colonised by them.^[179]

During the last three reigns another actor had appeared on the scene, and this was Aidan the Scot. Before his accession to the throne of Dalriada in 574 he appears as one of the kinglets among the nations south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and seems to have had claims upon the district of Manau or Manann, peopled by the Picts. After his accession he allied himself with Baedan, son of Cairell, who then ruled over the Irish Cruithnigh, and called himself king of Ulster. By him the Saxons were driven out of Manann, and he retained possession of it till his death in 581.^[180] Two years after Tighernac records the battle of 161Manann by Aidan, of which, however, we have no particulars except that he was victorious; and again, in 596, the battle of Chirchind, in which four of his sons were slain.^[181] Adamnan evidently refers to this battle, which he calls ‘the battle of the Miathi,’ when he tells us in his Life of Saint Columba that while the Saint was in Iona ‘he suddenly said to his minister, Diormit, “Ring the bell.” The brethren, startled at the sound, proceeded quickly to the church, with the holy prelate himself at their head. There he began, on bended knees, to say to them, “Let us pray now earnestly to the Lord for this people and king Aidan, for they are engaging in battle at this moment.” Then, after a short time, he went out of the oratory, and, looking up to heaven, said, “The barbarians are fleeing now, and to Aidan is given the victory—a sad one though it be;” and the blessed man in his prophecy declared the number of the slain in Aidan’s army to be three hundred and three men.’^[182] It is difficult to 162fix the site of this battle, but it was no doubt fought against the Southern Picts, who seem to have been still known by the name of Miathi, perhaps the same as Mæatæ.

In 603 Rhydderch appears to have died, and Bede tells us that Aidan came against Aedilfrid with a large and powerful army. It consisted no doubt of a combined force of Scots and Britons, at whose head Aidan was placed as Guledic, and he appears also to have had the aid of Irish Picts. He advanced against the Bernician kingdom, and entered Aedilfrid’s territories by the vale of the Liddel, from the upper end of which a pass opens to the vale of the Teviot, and another to that of the North Tyne. The great rampart called the Catrail, which separated the Anglic kingdom from that of the Strathclyde Britons, crosses the upper part of the vale of the Liddel. Its remains appear at Dawstaneburn, whence it goes on to Dawstanerig, and here, before he could cross the mountain range which separates Liddesdale from these valleys, Aidan was encountered by Aedilfrid and completely defeated, his army being cut to pieces at a place called by Bede ‘Degsastan,’ in which we can recognise the name of Dawstane, still known there. On the part of Aedilfrid, his brother Theobald, called by Tighernac, Eanfraith, was slain by Maeluma, the son of Baedan, king of Ulster, and the body of men he led into battle cut off.^[183] On Nine Stone Rig, opposite Dawstane, there still exists a circle of nine stones; and on the farm of Whisgills, some miles lower down the valley, there is an 163enormous cairn in the middle of an extensive moor, and near it a large stone set on end about five feet high, called the standing stone; and at Milnholm, on the Liddel, an ancient cross of one stone. These are probably memorials of the battle and flight which followed it. It was fought within sight of the ancient hill-fort which we have identified as Coria, one of the cities of the Ottadeni in the second century.

Bede adds that this battle was fought in the year 603, and the eleventh year of the reign of Aedilfrid, which lasted for twenty-four years, and that from this time forth till his own day (that is, till 731), none of the kings of the Scots ventured to come in battle against the nation of the Angles, and thus terminated the contest between these tribes for the possession of the northern province substantially in favour of the latter people, who under Aedilfrid now retained possession of the eastern districts from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, as far west as the river Esk.

Having thus given the traditionary history of that dark interval which intervened between the departure of the Romans from the island of Britain in the beginning of the fifth century, and the period when we become once more acquainted with its history in the latter part of the sixth century, and find the barbarian tribes who had assailed the Roman province now settled in the form of kingdoms with definite limits; and having endeavoured to extricate from it a chronological narrative of events based on historic truth, we may pause here to make some inquiry into the ethnology of the races composing these kingdoms.

The traditionary writers describe the whole of these four nations—the Britons, Picts, Scots, and Saxons—as having been colonies of foreign races who came into Britain at different periods; and, in a sense, this is true of all of them, though the immigration of the first two took place at a very remote period, and long before we have any historical record connected with the inhabitants of the island. Archæology, however, enables us to trace the previous existence of a people of a different race, indications of which are to be found to a limited extent in the earlier notices of Britain and in its topography.

A distinguished writer on ethnology lays down certain propositions which he terms fixed points in British ethnology. His first proposition is this: ‘Eighteen hundred years ago the population of Britain comprised peoples of two types of complexion, the one fair, and the other dark. The dark 165people resembled the Aquitani and the Iberians; the fair people were like the Belgic Gauls.’ His second proposition is, ‘The people termed Gauls, and those called Germans, by the Romans, did not differ in any important physical character.’ These two propositions we may accept as well founded.^[184] Certain it is that when the Romans entered Britain and became acquainted with its inhabitants in that part of the island nearest Gaul, they do not record any difference in their physical appearance. On the contrary, Tacitus remarks that they resembled each other in every respect. When the war with the Silures, who occupied territories in the south-west, brought them in contact with that people, Tacitus thus records the result of their observation. Their complexion was different and of a darker hue. Their hair was curly, and they resembled the Iberians: and when Agricola’s campaigns made them acquainted with the inhabitants of Caledonia, the only observation they made was that they were larger-limbed and had redder hair, and in this respect resembled the Germans more than the Gauls.

At an early period, the Greek writers, in whom we find the earliest notices of Britain, seem to have had a persuasion that the portion of the inhabitants of Britain who were more particularly connected with the working of tin, possessed peculiarities which distinguished them from the rest. At first they knew only of islands called the Cassiterides, so called from a word signifying tin, as the quarter from whence tin was brought. They then became aware that tin was wrought in Britain as well, and they came to view the Cassiterides as islands lying between Spain and Britain. Diodorus tells us that ‘they who dwell near the promontory of Britain which is called Belerion (Land’s End) are singularly fond of strangers, and, from their intercourse with foreign 166merchants, civilised in their habits. These people obtain the tin by skilfully working the soil which produces it; this being rocky, has earthy interstices, in which, working the ore, and then fusing, they reduce it to metal; and when they have formed it into cubical shapes, they convey it to a certain island lying off Britain, named Ictis; for at the low tides the intervening space being laid dry, they carry thither in wagons the tin in great abundance.’ He also says, ‘Above the country of the Lusitanians, there are many mines of tin in the little islands called Cassiterides from this circumstance, lying off Iberia, in the ocean, and much of it also is carried across from the Bretannic Isle to the opposite coast of Gaul, and thence conveyed on horses by the merchants, through the intervening Celtic land, to the people of Massilia, and to the city called Narbonne.’ Though the name Ictis leads one to refer this description to the Isle of Wight, it is more probable that the present St. Michael’s Mount is meant. At ebb tide it is accessible from the mainland, and tin is found there in two ways, in streamlets and in mines. By the Cassiterides, the Scilly Islands seem to be intended.^[185]

Strabo reports of Posidonius that he says that tin is not found upon the surface, as authors commonly relate, but that it is dug up; and that it is produced both in places among the Barbarians who dwell beyond the Lusitanians, and in the islands Cassiterides; and that from the Bretannic Isles it is carried to Massalia; and he adds, ‘The Cassiterides are ten in number, and lie near each other in the ocean, towards the north from the haven of the Artabri: one of them is desert, 167but the others are inhabited by men in black cloaks, clad in tunics reaching to the feet, and girt about the breast; walking with staves, and bearded like goats. They subsist by their cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life. And having metals of tin and lead, these and skins they barter with the merchants for earthenware and salt, and brazen vessels.’ He mentions that they were visited by Publius Crassus, apparently one of Caesar’s officers, ‘who perceived that the metals were dug out at a little depth, and that the men being at peace were already beginning, in consequence of their leisure, to busy themselves about the sea,’^[186] The black cloaks and goats’ beards seem to be an exaggerated and distorted representation of the darkness of the complexion and the curled hair attributed to the Silures. Pomponius Mela and Pliny in the first century both allude to the Cassiterides, so called, say both, because they abound in tin, and so does Solinus in similar terms; but the latter also states that ‘a stormy channel separates the coast which the Damnonii occupy from the island Silura, whose inhabitants preserve the ancient manners, reject money, barter merchandise, value what they require by exchange rather than by price, worship the gods, and both men and women profess a knowledge of the future.’ His description resembles that of Diodorus, and he probably considered Cornwall as an island, and connects it by name with the Silures.^[187]

In the following century we find that the name of Cassiterides has been dropped, and they are now called the 168Hesperides, while their inhabitants were believed to have been Iberians. Dionysius Periegeta says, in the end of this century—‘But near the sacred promontory, where they say is the end of Europe, the Hesperides Isles, whence tin proceeds, dwell the rich sons of the noble Iberians.’^[188] In the fourth century, Rufus Festus Avienus calls these islands the Oestrymnides. He says that the northern promontory of Spain was called Oestrymnis, and adds, ‘Below the summit of this promontory the Oestrymnic bay spreads out before the inhabitants, in which the Oestrymnic Isles show themselves’—

Then, after mentioning the sacred island of the Hiberni and the island of the Albiones, he adds, ‘It is customary for the people of Tartessus to trade in the bounds of the Oestrymnides;’^[189] and Priscianus Periegeta, who flourished in the beginning of the sixth century, calls them the Hesperides, and says that over-against the sacred promontory which men 169call the end of Europe lie the Hesperides, full of tin, which the strong people of the Iberi occupy.^[190]

If these notices show that a persuasion existed among many that the population of the Scilly Isles, Cornwall, and South Wales was Iberian, an examination of the ancient sepulchral remains in Britain gives us reason to suppose that a people possessing their physical characteristics had once spread over the whole of both of the British Isles. The latest writer on the subject thus sums up the result of the investigation into the character of these remains:—‘The materials for working out the craniology of Europe in prehistoric times do not justify any sweeping conclusions as to the distribution of the various races, but those which Dr. Thurnam has collected in Britain offer a firm basis for such an inquiry. In the numerous long barrows and chambered-gallery graves of our island, which, from the invariable absence of bronze and the frequent presence of polished stone implements, may be referred to the neolithic age, the crania belong, with scarcely an exception, to the first two of these divisions (the Dolichocephali or long skulls). In the round barrows, on the other hand, in which bronze articles are found, they belong mainly to the third division (Brachycephali or broad skulls), although some are Orthocephalous (having oval skulls). On evidence of this kind Dr. Thurnam concludes that Britain was inhabited in the neolithic age by a long-headed people, and that towards its close it was invaded by a bronze-using race, who were dominant during the bronze age. This important conclusion has been verified by nearly every discovery which has been made in this country since its publication. The long skulls graduate into the broad, the oval skulls being the intermediate forms, and this would naturally result from the intermingling of the blood of the 170two races.’^[191] Ireland presents precisely the same phenomena.^[192] The same writer thus sums up the result of the inquiry:—‘Dr. Thurnam was the first to recognise that the long skulls, out of the long barrows of Britain and Ireland, were of the Basque or Iberian type, and Professor Huxley holds that the river-bed skulls belong to the same race. We have therefore proofs that an Iberian or Basque population spread over the whole of Britain and Ireland in the neolithic age, inhabiting caves, and burying their dead in caves and chambered tombs, just as in the Iberian peninsula also in the neolithic age.’^[193]

Of the Celtic race, which succeeded the Iberians in the British Isles, and whose descendants still remain here, the Romans tell us nothing, save that those in the interior of the country were believed to be indigenous, and that those on the regions bordering upon the sea which divides Britain from Gaul had passed over from the latter country; but here we have the advantage of possessing an additional element of information in their traditions. These represent, in more or less of an archaic form, the popular notions prevailing among the people themselves of their ethnology, their supposed descent, and their mutual relation to each other. They usually appear in two different shapes—one in which the tribes inhabiting the same country, but distinguished from each other by national or ethnological differences, appear as successive colonies, arriving at different times in the country from distant regions, founded either upon genuine tradition or artificially upon some fancied resemblance in name or characteristic; the other, where each race is represented by an ‘eponymus’ from whom they are supposed to have been descended, and to have derived their name, and these 171supposed eponymic ancestors are connected together in an artificial family, in which the paternal ancestor represents the race, and the maternal the country or city they occupy. An analysis of these legends, then, is an almost indispensable preliminary to any attempt to ascertain their true place in the ethnology of the island.

For the oldest forms of the British traditions we must look to Nennius. According to him, the Britons were a colony of Trojans who came from Italy, and were the first inhabitants of the island. ‘Æneas the Trojan had by Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, king of Italy, besides his son from whom the Romans descended, a younger son, Brutus, who was expelled from Italy and came to the islands of the Tyrrhene Sea. From thence he went to Gaul and built the city of the “Turones,” called Turnis. At length he came to this island, named from him Britannia, dwelt there, and filled it with his descendants.’ His account of the colonies of Picts and Scots which followed has been noticed in the preceding chapter. He then says that he had learnt another account of these Britons from the ancient books of his ancestors. According to this form, ‘the first man who came to Europe of the race of Japhet was Alanus, with his three sons, Hessitio, Armenon, and Negue. Hessitio had four sons, Francus, Romanus, Britto, and Albanus. Armenon had five sons, Gothus, Ualagothus, Gebidus, Burgoandus, and Longobardus. Negue, however, had three sons, Wandalus, Saxo, and Boguarus. From Hessitio are sprung four nations, the Franci, the Latini, the Albani, and the Britti. From Armenon five, the Goths, Walagoths, Gebiddi, Burgunds, and Longobards; and from Neguius four, the Boguarii, Vandals, Saxons, and Turingi.’ This is a rude attempt to express in this form the ethnology of Europe. We have the Britons and the people of Albania or the north represented by two brothers, Brittus and Albanus; and we have the Saxons affiliated to another ancestor. There is no appearance either in this or the 172previous form of ethnologic tradition of these inhabitants of Britain having been preceded by the Iberi.^[194]

The Irish ethnologic legends are found in a prose tract, termed the Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Conquests.^[195] The legends are supposed to have been preserved by Fintan, who was baptized by St. Patrick, and gave him an account of everything he remembered himself. It was reported that he had lived before the flood, and had been miraculously preserved in order that the memory of these events should not be lost.

The tale is this:—Forty days before the Deluge, Ceasar landed in Eirin, at Dunnamarc, with Fintan, Bioth, and Ladhra, and fifty maidens, but they all died before the Deluge happened. The first peopling of Ireland after the Flood was by Partholon and his colony, who came from Migdonia in Greece, and took his way through the “Muir Torrian,” or Mediterranean, by Sicily, and, leaving Spain on the right, arrived in Ireland, where he landed, with his three sons, Rughraidhe, Slainge, and Laighline, and a thousand soldiers, at Inversceine, in the west of Munster, on the 14th of May, but after three hundred years this colony was entirely swept off by a plague at the Hill of Howth.

Thirty years after Nemhidh landed with a colony in Ireland. He came from Scythia, through the Euxine Sea, past the Rhiphæan Mountains, to the North Sea, whence he sailed 173to Ireland with his four sons, Starn, Iarbhainel Faidh or the Prophet, Aininn, and Fergus Leithderg or Redside. After his death his followers were expelled by a people called the Fomhoruigh or sea robbers, and left Eirin in three bands. One, under Simon Breac, son of Starn, went to that part of Greece called Thrace. The second, under Iobaath, son of Beothuig, son of Iarbhainel, went to the regions of the north of Europe; and the third, under Briotan Maol, son of Fergus Leithderg, to Dobhar and Iardobhar, in the north of Alban, and dwelt there.

Nemhidh and his race were two hundred and sixteen years in Ireland, after which it remained a wilderness for two hundred years, when a people called the Firbolg arrived in Ireland from Thrace. They were the descendants of Simon Breac, and the Greeks had subjected them to slavery, obliging them to dig the earth and raise mould, and carry it in sacks or bags of leather, termed bolgs in Irish. Whereupon they came to a resolution to shake off the yoke, and make boats out of the leathern sacks in which they carried the earth. They arrived under the five sons of Deala—Slainge, Rughruidhe, Gann, Geannan, and Seangann—who divided Ireland into five provinces. Their followers were divided into three septs: the Firbolg, or men of the bags, who under Gann and Seangann landed at Iorrus Domnann in Connaught; the Fir Domhnan, so called from the domhin or pits they used to dig, landed under Geannan and Rughruidhe at Tracht Rughruidhe in Ulster; and the Fir Gaillian, or men of the spear, so called from the gai or spears they used to protect the rest at work, under Slainge at Inverslainge in Leinster.

They founded the monarchy of Eirin, and held it thirty-six years; when under Eochaidh, son of Erc, their last king, a people called the Tuatha De Danaan arrived in Ireland. They were descended from Iobaath, son of Beothuig, son of Iarbhainel the Prophet, son of Nemhidh, who had taken refuge in the north of Europe. They lived in the land of 174Lochlin, where they had four cities—Falias, Gorias, Finias, and Murias. After they had continued a long time in these cities, they passed over to the north of Alban, and dwelt seven years in Dobhar and Iardobhar, taking with them four articles of value—the Lia Fal, or Stone of Destiny, from Falias; the sword of Lughaidh Lamhfhada from Gorias; his spear from Finias; and the caldron of the Dagda from Murias. After seven years they left Alban, and landed on Monday the 1st of May in the north of Ireland, and sent ambassadors to the king of the Firbolg, and demanded the sovereignty of Erin. Upon this a great battle was fought at Muigh Tuireadh, in which the Firbolg were defeated with the loss of ten thousand men, and the remainder fled to the islands of Arran, Isla, Rachlin, and Innsigall, where they remained till they were eventually driven out of the isles by the Cruithnigh or Picts.

The Tuatha De Danaan remained one hundred and ninety-seven years in Ireland, when the sons of Miledh arrived from Spain with the Scots, and wrested the kingdom from them. This Miledh was said to have originally borne the name of Golamh, and to be the son of Bile, son of Breogan, who took possession of Spain. He had eight sons—two, Donn and Aireach Feabhruadh, by Seang, daughter of Refloir, king of Scythia; and six, Eibherfionn and Amhergin, Ir and Colpa, Arannan and Eireamon, by Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The Tuatha De Danaan were under the rule of three brothers—MacCuill, MacCeacht, and MacGreine—who had their seat at Oileach Neid in the north of Ulster, and from whose three wives—Eire, Fodla, and Banba—the island had these names given to it. The sons of Miledh arrived with their fleet at Inverslainge, now Wexford, but were driven from shore by the spells of the Tuatha De Danaan, and went round to Inbhersceine in the west of Munster. Three of the sons—Donn, Ir, and Arannan—were drowned in a storm, but Eimher and his followers landed at Inbhersceine, 175and encountered Eire with the Tuatha De Danaan at Slieve Mis in Ulster, and defeated them. In this battle, Scota, the wife of Miledh, fell. Eireamon, with another division of the fleet, landed at Inbhercolpe, now called Drogheda, and was joined by Eibhear there, when they met the rest of the Tuatha De Danaan at Taillten in Meath, and slew there three kings with their wives. Having thus entirely reduced the island, Eireamon became their first king. He divided Ireland into four provinces. He gave the province of Ulster to Emhear, son of Ir; Munster to the four sons of Emhear Finn; Connaught to Un and Eadan; and Leinster to Crimthan Sgiathbhel of the Fir Domnan.^[196]

In the time of this Crimthan Sgiathbhel, king of Leinster, the Cruithnigh came from the land of Thrace. They were the children of Gleoin Mac Ercol, that is, of Gelonus, son of Hercules, and were called Agathirsi. They came away with nine ships and three hundred and nine persons, landed at Inverslainge under six brothers—Solan, Ulfa, Nechtan, Drostan, Aengus, and Leithenn—and had passed through France, where they built the city of Pictavis. The king of Leinster offered them a settlement, provided they would drive out a people called the Tuatha Fidhbhe. This they accomplished. Of the brothers, Leithenn died in France; and Drostan, Solan, Nechtan, and Ulfa in Ireland. Gub, and his son Cathluan, acquired great power in Erin, till Eireamon drove them out, and gave them the wives of the men who had been drowned with his brother Donn. Six of them remained in the plains of Bregia in Meath. Those that left Erin sailed to Inver Boinne to dwell in the country beyond Ile, and from thence they conquered Alban from Cath to Forchu.^[197]

An older account of the settlement of the sons of Miledh, 176and that of the Cruithnigh in connection with it, is probably to be found in a poem contained in the Book of Leinster, and attributed to Maelmurra of Othain, who died in the year 884.^[198] They are said in this poem ‘to have been Greeks in their origin, and descended from Fenius, who came from Scythia to Nembroth, where he built the great tower, and founded a school for languages. This Fenius Farsaid had a son Nel, who went to Egypt, and married Scota, daughter of Forann (Pharaoh), by whom he had a son, Gaedhel Glass, and his people were called Gaedhil from him, Feni from Fenius, and Scuith or Scots from Scota. After Forann was drowned in the Red Sea, they seized his ships, and passed by India and by Asia to Scythia; and then by the Caspian Sea to the Slieve Riffi or Rhiphæan Mountains. They settled in Golgutha, where they dwelt two hundred years. Brath, son of Deagath, then left Gaethligh for the islands of the Muir Torrian or Mediterranean, and by Crete and Sicily to Spain. His son, Breogan, conquered Spain, and founded Brigantia, or the tower of Breogan. His son, Ith, discovered Erin, and landed at Bentracht or Magh Ith in Leinster, and died at Slemnaibh (unknown). The six sons of Miledh—Donn, Colptha, Amergin, Ir, Eber, and Erimon, with Luguid, son of Ith, came to revenge his death with four-and-twenty plebeians to attend them—two on each chief. Cruithne, son of Cing, took their women from them, except Tea, the wife of Eireamon. They fought Banba with her hosts at Sliabh Mis, Fodhla at Ebhlinne, and Eire at Uisneach. The Tuatha Dea sent them forth, according to the laws of war, over nine waves. Eireamon went with one half of the host to Inbhercolphtha; Donn with the other half to Inbhersceine, but himself died at sea. They spread themselves through Erin to her coasts, and made alliance with the Firbolg and the clan of Nemid, their wives having been stolen from them. 177They made alliance with the Tuatha Dea, and half the land was given to them. Eireamon took the north as the inheritance of his race. Eber took the south. Lugaidh, son of Ith, possessed certain districts, and Erin is full of the race of Ir.’ Such is a short abstract of this curious poem. The Milesians are here represented not as driving out the previous inhabitants, but as making alliance with them, and obtaining wives from the Tuatha De Danaan, their own wives having been taken from them by the Cruithnigh.

Another version of this form of the legend of the Cruithnigh, is that ‘Cruithnechan, son of Cinge, son of Lochit, went from the sons of Miledh to the Britons of Fortrenn, to fight against the Saxons, and remained with them. But they had no wives, for the women of Alban had died. They then went back to the sons of Miledh, and swore by heaven and earth, and the sun and the moon, and by the dew and the elements, and by the sea and the land, that the regal succession should be on the mother’s side, and they took twelve of the women whose husbands had been drowned with Donn.’^[199]

In the form which these legends of the colonisation of Ireland assume in the Book of Conquests there are five successive colonies, but the first two, those of Partholan and Nemhidh, are separated from each other and from the latter by long internals, while the last three, beginning with the Firbolg, are continuous, each succeeding the other without interval. The older form, as contained in Maelmurra’s poem, knows nothing of Partholan and his colony, names the Firbolg first, and appears to identify the Clanna Nemidh with the Tuatha Dea.^[200] An unfortunate resemblance between the name of the Firbolg and Cæsar’s Belgæ 178has led most writers to assume that they were the same people, to the great confusion of the early history of Ireland. There is nothing in the legend—and what we are told of the Firbolg is simply legendary—to warrant this, and the interpretation there given to the names Firbolg and Firdomnan harmonises very singularly with the legendary accounts of the tin-workers of Cornwall and the tin islands. It is not difficult to recognise in the tradition that the Firbolg derived their name from the leathern sacks which they filled with soil, and with which they covered their boats, and the Firdomnan from the pits they dug, the people who worked the tin by digging in the soil and transporting it in bags in their hide-covered boats. The traditions too of the physical characteristics of these early colonists of Ireland lead to the same conclusion. It is thus quoted in the preface to M‘Firbis’s Book of Genealogies: ‘Every one who is white [of skin], brown [of hair], bold, honourable, daring, prosperous, bountiful in the bestowal of property, wealth, and rings, and who is not afraid of battle or combat, they are the descendants of the sons of Miledh in Erinn. Every one who is fair-haired, vengeful, large; and every plunderer; every musical person; the professor of musical and entertaining performances; who are adepts in all Druidical and magical arts; they are the descendants of the Tuatha De Danaan in Erinn. Every one who is black-haired, who is a tattler, guileful, tale-telling, noisy, contemptible; every wretched, mean, strolling, unsteady, harsh, and inhospitable person; every slave, every mean thief, every churl, every one who loves not to listen to music and entertainment, the disturbers of every council and every assembly, and the promoters of discord among the people, these are the descendants of the Firbolg, the Fir Gailian of Liogairné, and of the Firdomnan in Erinn. But, however, the descendants of the Firbolgs are the most numerous of all these. This is taken from an old book.’^[201]

179That there were two distinct types of people in ancient Ireland—‘one a high-statured, golden-coloured or red-haired, fair-skinned, and blue or grey-blue-eyed race; the other a dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale-skinned, small or medium statured, little-limbed race,’^[202]—is very certain, and the traditionary account of the characteristics of the Firbolg identifies them with the latter, and with the lowest type of the Irish people. They belong to the same class with the Silures, and may be held to represent the Iberian race which preceded the Celtic. Of the fair-skinned race the Tuatha De Danaan correspond in character with Tacitus’s large-limbed and red-haired Caledonians, and the brown-haired Milesians or Scots present a less Germanic type.^[203]

In this legend of the sons of Miledh, too, we can recognise the appearance of the second form in which such traditions usually embody themselves—that of the ethnologic family. Miledh was descended from Gaedhel Glass, the ‘eponymus’ of the Gaedhelic race. He was son of Scota, who was also wife of Miledh, and represented Ireland under its name of Scotia. His three sons, Heber, Heremon, and Ir, along with Ith, son of Breogan, from whom the population 180of Ireland which succeeded the Tuatha De Danaan is brought, represent the different races of which it was composed. Bede distinguishes the Scots as divided into northern and southern Scots.^[204] The former are represented by Heremon, the latter by Heber, who divided Ireland between them.^[205] The descendants of Ir, to whom Ulster was assigned, are the Cruithnigh, who were its inhabitants till confined by the Scots to Dalaradia. The small tribes of Ith, son of Breogan, who inhabited a district in the south-west of Ireland, are the people whom Ptolemy calls Brigantes and places there. The sons of Miledh are said, in the Annals of the Four Masters, to have arrived in Ireland in the age of the world 3500, which, according to their computation, corresponds with the year 1694 before Christ; and in the following year Eremhon and Emher, or Heremon and Heber, are said to have assumed the joint sovereignty of Ireland and divided it into two parts between them. Then follows an artificially-constructed history, in which the name of each successive king, with the length of his reign, the son of Miledh from whom he was descended, and the battles he fought, are given with the same minuteness of detail throughout, until we find ourselves at length within what may be termed the historic period of Irish history.^[206]

181It would be out of place here to enter into a critical analysis of these annals, or to discuss further the ethnology of Ireland, except in so far as it may tend to throw light upon that of Scotland; but it may so far elucidate the legends which follow if we notice shortly what they tell us regarding the descendants of Ir, to whom Ulster was assigned in the distribution of the provinces of Ireland. About four centuries after the arrival of the sons of Miledh the Annals place seven kings of the race of Ir in succession upon the throne of Ireland. These are Ollamh Fodhla, who is said to have established the Feis Teamhrach, or great annual feast, at Tara, and to have appointed a Toshech over every cantred, and a Brughaidh, or farmer, over every townland. He was called Ollamh Fodhla because he had been first a learned Ollamh, or chief poet, and afterwards king of Fodhla, or Ireland. He was followed by his son Finachta, so named because snow (Snechta) fell with the taste of wine (Fiona); and he by another son, Slanoll; and he by a third son, Gede Ollgothach; and he by Fiacha, son of Finnachta; and Fiacha by Bearnghal, son of Gede Ollgothach; and Bearnghal by Olioll, son of Slanoll, when the government of Tara was wrested from the Ultu or race of Ir. The oldest of the annalists, Tighernac, commences his annals in the year 305 before Christ, with Cimbaoch, son of Fintain, of this race, who reigned at Eaman or Eamania eighteen years; 182and adds this significant sentence, ‘All records of the Scots before Cimbaoch are uncertain.’^[207] From Cimbaoch, Tighernac gives a succession of Irian kings reigning at Eamania down to Fiacha Araidhe, who was slain in battle in the year 248 by the Heremonian kings of Tara and Leinster. His people are called by Tighernac Cruithniu, and from him Dalaraidhe, or Dalaradia, takes its name. In 254 he mentions that some of the Ultonians were driven by the king of Ireland to Manann;^[208] and in 332 he records the battle of Achadh Leithdearg, in Fernmuigh, in which Fergus Foga, the last king of Eamania, was slain by the three Collas of the line of Heremon, who, says Tighernac, ‘afterwards destroyed Eamhian Macha or Eamania, and the Ultonians did not dwell in it from thenceforth, and they took from them their kingdom from Loch Neagh westward,’ which became known as Airgialla, now Oriel. The Irians were from this time confined to the district of Dalaradia, and now appear under the name of Cruithnigh.

An old form of the Irish legend contained in the Acts of Saint Cadroë, compiled in the eleventh century, corroborates this account to some extent. According to this legend, the Scots were Greeks from the town of Chorischon upon the river Pactolus, which separates Choria from Lydia. Having obtained ships, they went by Pathmos, Abidos, and the islands of the Hellespont, to Upper Thrace, and being joined by the people of Pergamus, and the Lacedæmonians, they are driven by the north wind past Ephesus, the island of Melos, and the Cyclades, to Crete, and thence by the African sea they enter the Illyrian gulf. Then by the Balearic Isles 183they pass Spain, and through the Columns of Hercules to remote Tyle, and finally land at Cruachan Feli in Ireland. On landing and exploring the country, they discover the nation of the Picts.^[209] They then attack and defeat the inhabitants of Cloin, an ancient city on the Shannon. The Chorischii then, seeing the land flowing with milk and honey, attack the islanders, and take possession of Arlmacha, their metropolis, and the whole land between Loch Erne and Ethioch. This is clearly the same event as the taking of Eamania by the three Collas, and their precursors in the country are here called the nation of the Picts. They then take Kildare and Cork, a city of Munster, besiege and enter Bangor, a city of Ulster. After many years, passing over the sea, they occupy the Euean island, now called Iona, and crossing the contiguous sea enter the region of Rossia by the river Rosis, and take possession of the towns Rigmonath and Bellethor,^[210] situated at a distance from it, and thus the whole country, called after their own name Chorischia, they now called Scotia^[211] after the wife of a certain son of Æneas the 184Lacedæmonian,^[212] called Nelus or Niulus, who was their chief, and obtained an Egyptian wife, Scota, and in her language, having lost their own mother-tongue, and in course of years became converted to Christianity by St. Patrick. This legend, in a great measure, appears to refer to ecclesiastical foundations.

The only legend which we can connect directly with the Scots who settled in Britain, and formed the small kingdom of Dalriada in the West Highlands, is that contained in the poem of the eleventh century, usually termed the Albanic Duan. It records the successive possessors of Alban, and states that the first who possessed it was Albanus, son of Isacon, and brother of Briutus, and that from him Alban of Ships has its name. He was banished by his brother across the Muir n-Icht, or Straits of Dover, and Briutus possessed it as far as the promontory of Fotudain. Long after Briutus the Clanna Neimhidh or Nemedians possessed it. The Cruithnigh then came from Ireland and possessed it. Seventy kings, from Cathluan, the first king, to Constantine, the last, possessed the Cruithnian plain. They were followed by the three sons of Erc, son of Eochaidh, the children of Conaire, the chosen of the strong Gael, three who obtained the blessing of St. Patrick, who took Alban after great wars. The rest of this poem belongs to history.

This legend combines the British with the Irish forms. We have Briutus and Albanus, sons of Isacon, as in the ethnologic family given by Nennius, the ‘eponymi’ of the Britanni and Albani, and the latter representing the first inhabitants of the north. The Nemedian colony is obviously that part of the Irish legend in which one body of the descendants of Nemedius settled in Dobhar and Iardobhar in North Alban, out of which the Tuatha De Danaan emerge. The colony of the Cruithnigh belongs also to the Irish form 185of the legend, and the settlement of the sons of Erc is historic, except perhaps in so far as in this poem Loarn is made to precede Fergus as the first king of Dalriadic Alban.^[213] There is no appearance here of the Firbolg, but they are made in the Irish legend to precede the Picts in the Western Isles.^[214]

Of the Pictish legends there are still three forms to be noticed. One which may be called the national legend of the Picts, and belongs especially to the whole nation which possessed the country north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde; a second, which is the legend of the Irish Picts of Dalaradia in Ulster; and a third, connected with the Picts of Galloway.

For the first and most important legend we must look to the Pictish Chronicle, a work of the tenth century. There are two editions of it. One in Latin, but obviously translated from a Gaelic original, and the other in the Irish Nennius; and the first contains a preface, mainly taken from the work of Isidore of Seville, in the sixth century, a work which formed the basis of Nennius’s compilation also. In this preface we have additional facts told us: first, that the Scots, who are now corruptly called Hibernienses, were so called, either as Scythians because they came from Scythia and derive their origin from it, or from Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who was, it is said, queen of the Scots. The second is that natives of Scythia were called from their fair hair Albani, and that from these Albani both Scots and Picts derive their origin.^[215] It then proceeds to tell us that Cruidne, son of Cinge, was the father of the Picts inhabiting 186this island, and had seven sons—Fib, Fidach, Fodla, Fortrenn, Got, Ce, Circinn. The edition in the Irish Nennius adds to this, ‘And they divided the land into seven divisions as Columcille says,

and the name of each man is given to their territories.’ Five of these divisions can still be identified: Fib is Fife, Fotla is Athfoitle, now corrupted into Atholl; Fortrenn is the district between the rivers Forth and Tay; Circinn the district of Mearns, a name corrupted from Maghgirginn, now Kincardineshire; and Cait is Cathenesia, or Caithness. It is obvious, therefore, that this legend belongs to the Pictish inhabitants of these seven divisions. The seven sons are then followed by Gede Ollgothach, whose name is the same as one of the seven kings of the descendants of Ir, who in the first legend occupied the throne of Ireland. We then have Oenbecan and Olfinecta; and the Irish edition tells us that Onbecan, son of Caith, son of Cruthne, took the sovereignty of the seven divisions, and that Finach was lord of Erin at that time, and took hostages of the Cruithnigh. He also is one of the seven Irian kings. After three more names we have Brude bont, and are told that from him thirty Brudes reigned over Albania and Hibernia or Alban, and Erin, for a period of 150 years. These Brudes have each a name attached to them, and the Irish edition tells us that these names were also names of divisions of the country, and that the account is taken from the books of the Cruithnigh.^[216] It is obvious that this legend views the Picts of Alban and of Erin as forming one people, and being in close connection with each other.

The legend of the Irish Picts of Dalaradia has a close 187bearing upon this one. It is called ‘Of the descent of the Dalaraidhe,’ and is this. ‘Twice eighteen soldiers of the tribes of Tracia went to the fleet of the sons of Miledh to Germany, and they took them away with them and kept them as soldiers. They had no wives, and afterwards took wives of the race of Miledh; and when they had cleared their swordland among the Britons, first Magh Fortrenn, and then Maghgirginn, the succession to the sovereignty was through females. They took with them from Erin thrice fifty maidens to become mothers of sons, whence Altnaninghean or the rock of the maidens in Dalaraidhe is called. There were thirty kings of the Cruithnigh over Erin and Alban, viz. of the Cruithnigh of Alban, and of Erin, that is the Dalaraidhe. They were from Ollamhan, from whence comes Mur Ollamhan at Tara, to Fiacha, son of Baedan, who fettered the hostages of Erin and Alban. Seven kings of the Cruithnigh of Alban governed Erin at Tara,’ Then follow the seven kings of the race of Ir, who are said in the Irish legend to have ruled at Tara.^[217] The thirty kings of this legend who ruled over Erin and Alban are surely the thirty kings who bore the name of Brude in the previous legend, who also reigned over Erin and Alban during 150 years. In it Finach or Ollfinachta, who precedes them, is said to have taken hostages of the Cruithnigh. In this legend the thirty kings are said to have reigned over Erin and Alban, to Fiacha, son of Baedan, who fettered the hostages of Erin and Alban. Baedan was a king of Dalaradia, who died in 581, and Tighernac records in A.D. 602 the battle of Cuile Cail, in which Fiachaidh, son of Baedan, was victorious; and in 608 the death of Fiachach, son of Baedan, by the Cruithnigh.^[218] These entries relate surely to the event above recorded, and give us a date between 602 and 608 for the 188termination of the reign of these thirty kings, and 452 or 458 for its commencement. This event no doubt marks the separation of the Irish Picts or Cruithnigh of Dalaradia from all connection with the kingdom of the Picts in Scotland, and their full incorporation into the Irish monarchy.

The last of the Pictish legends relates to the Picts of Galloway. It is inserted in the Irish Nennius, and follows the account of the final departure of the Romans, when the Picts took possession of the districts extending to the southern wall, and settled there as inhabitants. It is as follows:^[219] ‘After this Sarran assumed the sovereignty of Britain, and established his power over the Saxons and the Cruithnigh. He married Erc, daughter of Loarn, king of Alban, but she eloped from him with Muredach, son of Eogan, son of Niall, to Erin, by whom she had a son called Murceartach MacErca, afterwards king of Ireland. Sarran then married her sister Babona, by whom he had four sons, Luirig and Cairnech and Dallan and Caemlach, and he died after victory and triumph in the House of Martain.’ By the House of Martain the monastery of Candida Casa, founded by St. Ninian, and dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, is evidently meant, which shows that Sarran’s Cruithnigh were the Picts of Galloway. ‘Luirig succeeded him, and built a fort within the precincts of the monastery of Cairnech his brother—that is, of Candida Casa—upon which Cairnech promises Murceartach MacErca, who was at that time with the king of Breatan, that is Luirig, learning military science, that he should be king of Erin and Britain for ever, if he could prevent Luirig from exercising his power against the church. Luirig refusing, Murceartach kills him, and he and Cairnech take hostages and power in that land (that is Galloway), and also the sovereignty of Britain and Cat (Caithness), and Orc (Orkney) and Saxan (Saxonia or Lothian). Murceartach then takes the wife of Luirig, and has by her four sons,—Constantine and 189Gaedel Ficht, from whom descend the lords^[220] of Breatan and the kings of Breatan Cornd, or Cornwall; and Nellan, from whom the race of Nellan, and Scandal, from whom the race of Scandal. It is in Erin the descendants of the two last are.’ It is unnecessary to follow the legend further. The kings of Cornwall and the knights of Bretan are here said to be descended from Constantine and Gaedel Ficht. Constantine is no doubt the legendary king of Cornwall, who is said to have become a Christian missionary, and preached to the Scots and Picts, and the latter is obviously the ‘eponymus’ of the Picts of Galloway, from whom their lords, here called ‘Ruirig Bretan,’ are descended.

Such being the legendary matter connected with the Picts and Scots, which appears to contain their popular traditions as to their origin, it remains to add those which tell us of the original home of the Saxons who settled in Britain. Bede says that the nation of the Angles or Saxons who settled in Britain consisted of three peoples of Germany:—The Jutes, from whom sprang the people of Kent and the Isle of Wight; the Saxons, from whom came the East, Middle, and West Saxons—that is, those of Essex, Middlesex, and Wessex; and the Angles, from whom came the East and Mid Angles, the Mercians, and the whole race of the Northumbrians—that is, all those nations of the Angles which inhabited the country north of the Humber. He states that the original settlements of these three races were in the Cimbric Chersonese, that the Saxons came from Old Saxony, which seems to have been nearly modern Holstein; the Angles from that country called ‘Angulus,’ which in his day was nearly deserted, by which the present province of Angeln in Sleswick is probably meant; and the Jutes north of them, the Angles being between them and the Saxons. Whether in this Bede is reporting a tradition of the people themselves, or whether it is 190merely a speculation of his own, he does not tell us.^[221] Nennius brings the Saxons from Germania generally;^[222] but in the genealogies annexed to his work, which are not much later than the period when Bede wrote, he deduces the pedigrees of the kings of Kent, East Anglia, Mercia, Deira, and Bernicia from four brothers, sons of Woden; so that he seems to have considered these five nations, being Bede’s Jutes and Angles, as forming one people, whose successive arrivals he describes, under the name of Saxons,^[223] while he omits Bede’s three nations of East, Middle, and West Saxons, who did not arrive in the island till the end of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth century, thus confining his account to those who arrived in the early part of the fifth century. The description which Bede gives of the country from which the Saxons came does not correspond with what we learn of its early history from other sources. The first people whom we read of as inhabiting the Cimbric Chersonese were the Cimbri, the Teutones, and the Ambrones, who assailed the Roman Empire about a century before Christ. The name of Teutones appears to have passed through several forms into that of Juthæ or Jutæ, and the Ambrones seem to be the same people whom Ptolemy places in the southern part of the peninsula, now Holstein, and calls Saxones, and to whom he also gives three islands, now Northstrand, Busen, and Heligoland.^[224] The Angles Ptolemy places on the west bank of the river 191Elbe, somewhat more to the south, in what is now the Duchy of Magdeburg.^[225]

The name of Saxones, however, in the third century, no longer designated a single nation, but had a much wider signification, and was applied to a confederacy of the nations extending along the north coast from the Elbe to the Ems, if not the Rhine. These were the Cauci, Cherusci, and Angrivarii. Between the Ems and Rhine were the Frisii or Frisones. From the Ems to the Elbe were the Cauci; and south of them were the Cherusci and Angrivarii, about the Weser; and on the west bank of the Elbe the Teutones and the Angles. It is in this wider sense that the name of Saxons was applied to those people who harassed the coast of Britain in the concluding half-century of the Roman province. It is to the people inhabiting this country that the name of Old Saxons was applied, to distinguish them from the Saxons in Britain. Beyond the Elbe were the original Saxons, and mixed with both were Frisians—one body extending along the coast from the Ems to the Weser, and another beyond the Saxons in Sleswick, where Bede places his Jutes. The islands, too, which Ptolemy called the islands of the Saxons, and which lay off the west coast of the Cimbrian Chersonese, appear afterwards as Frisian Islands. Whether this was an actual mixture of Frisians with the Saxons, or a mere extension of the name to a part of the Saxons, it is difficult to determine;^[226] but although a small district in the east of Sleswick, extending from the Schley to Flensburg, bore the name of Angeln, there is no record of any people called Angli having ever occupied it. They are placed on the west bank of the Elbe behind the Cauci, and their name too probably spread much beyond its original limits.^[227] Of the Saxons who settled in Britain prior to the 192year 441, the colony which occupied the northern district about the Roman wall were probably Frisians, as the Firth of Forth is termed by Nennius the Frisian Sea, and a part of its northern shore was known as the Frisian Shore, but the great bulk of the immigrants were Angli. Bede gives us the expression of ‘the nation of the Angles’ for the whole Saxon people. Augustine’s mission to Kent was a mission to the Angles. The church he founded there was the church of the Angles. The name of Anglia was, however, unknown to Bede; and in his Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth he quotes a letter written by Huaetberctus, abbot of the monastery of Wearmouth, to Pope Gregory in 716, in which he says his monastery was in ‘Saxonia.’^[228] The name of Saxons, applied in a general way to those who settled in Britain prior to 441, seems therefore to have been used in its geographical sense. Procopius was probably right in saying that they consisted of Frisians and Angles.^[229] The tribes who arrived much later, and founded the petty kingdoms of the East, West, and South Saxons, probably alone belonged to the Saxons proper. The bulk of the natives consisted of the Angli, and their national name soon superseded the general appellation of Saxons, though the geographical term ‘Saxonia’ still remained attached to the most northern part of their territory.

Having thus analysed the legends of the four races, it becomes necessary, before we attempt to draw any deductions from them, to inquire into the relation of their languages to each other. Bede gives us a list of the languages used in Britain in his day. He tells us that at that time in Britain the knowledge of the same divine truth and true sublimity was confessed and studied in the languages of five nations—viz., that of the Angles, the Britons, the Scots, the 193Picts, and the Latins, which latter language, from the study of the Scriptures, has become common to all.^[230] None of these languages, of course, represent that of the Iberians. For it we must look to the south of France and Spain, where the Euskara, or Basque, appears to represent it. It is a peculiar language, and has no relation to any of the languages belonging to the Arian family. Putting it and the Latin aside, we have here the languages of the four nations, the Angles, Britons, Scots, and Picts, who succeeded the Iberians, and whose legends we have just analysed, distinguished from each other. There can be no doubt of the race and language to which the first three belonged. We have the remains of their languages still spoken among us, and each possesses a literature which enables us to trace the progress of the language from its older forms to the present day.

The language of the Angles was a Low German dialect, resembling most nearly the Frisian; and in its earlier form consisted of three varieties, the southern, midland, and northern English.

The language of the Britons is still spoken in Wales, but not now in Cornwall, though it lingered there till the middle of last century. We possess, however, written remains of the Cornish language, sufficient to show that the Cornish and Welsh form two varieties of the British language in the island, differing but slightly from each other, and showing a dialectic difference somewhat resembling that between Low and High German.

The language of the Scots was undoubtedly the Irish language still spoken there, and which is identic with the Gaelic of the Scotch Highlands and the Manx of the Isle of Man. They form indeed but one language, which may be 194called Gaelic, and show no greater variety among each other than those which characterise the vernacular speech of different provinces of the same nation.

These two languages—the British and Scottish—belong to the same family, and are usually, for convenience sake, classed together as forming the Celtic language of the British Isles; but the difference between them is marked and wide, and they must be viewed as two distinct branches of the Celtic language, possessing vital peculiarities of form and structure which distinguish them from each other, and the people by whom they were spoken, as forming two distinct races—cognate, indeed, as belonging to the same Celtic family, but clearly separated by national and linguistic differences. These two races are known in Irish as Breatan and Gaedheal, and in Welsh as Brython or Cymry and Gwyddyl. To the one belong the Welsh and the people of Cornwall and Bretagne, speaking three different dialectic varieties of the same language. To the other belong the Irish, the Scotch Highlanders, and the Manx, who all call their language Gaelic.

In the attempt we are about to make to assign to the Picts their proper place among these races, we shall, as the most convenient nomenclature, call the two great divisions of the Celtic language, British and Gadhelic; and the three varieties of the first, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton; and of the second, Irish, Scotch Gaelic, and Manx. Those Pictish words which obviously belong to either we shall class with them; but where they are peculiar to the Picts, and yet have the characteristics of Gadhelic, we shall term them Pictish Gaelic. The position of the Pictish language differs from that of the others in this respect, that we cannot point to any spoken language in the island which can be held to represent it as a distinctive dialect, unless we could suppose it to have merged in one or other of the spoken languages of the island.^[231] But here we are met at once by a difficulty. 195If Bede, by calling these five distinct languages, meant to convey the fact that they were so different from each other as to constitute separate tongues, then the Pictish could not have belonged to the same family with any of the others. It could not have been a German dialect, because it is distinguished from the language of the Angles. It could not, on the same ground, have been British, nor could it have been Irish or Scotch Gaelic; but Bede’s language does not warrant so broad a conclusion as this. He does not say that the Divine truth was studied in five different languages, but in the languages of five nations. It implies that the nations were distinct from each other, in so far as they formed separate kingdoms, and that the Scriptures were studied in the language of each. The differences between them may have been great, or they may have been mere varieties of the same language, so far as any inference from Bede’s language is concerned. It might very well be said in a Bible Society report that the Scriptures were translated into French, German, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish. Here French is as different from German as Latin from Anglic; but Dutch is a Low German dialect, and resembles the Low German more nearly than High German does; and Danish and Swedish are quite as near to each other. The question then to be solved is, Where are we to place the Pictish language? Is it a Celtic or a Teutonic dialect? and if either, was it the same with any of the known spoken dialects, or in what respect did it differ? The answer to these questions will in a great measure show to what race they belonged.

The argument for the Pictish being a Teutonic language 196is mainly historic, and is at first sight very plausible. It may be thus shortly stated:—Tacitus says that the Caledonians had a German origin. The Picts were the same people as the Caledonians. The Welsh Triads say that the Picts came from Llychlyn, which is Scandinavia. The Picts occupied the Lowlands of Scotland, and broad Scotch is the language of the Lowlands. It is a Teutonic dialect, and no other language can be traced as ever having been spoken in the same districts which the Picts had occupied.^[232] Such an argument as this could only have been stated with any plausibility before the science of comparative philology existed. If the Picts were the same as the Caledonians of Tacitus, of which there is indeed no doubt, and if they were a Teutonic people, they must have left their original country and settled in Caledonia prior to the first century. A separation from the original stock for so many centuries must infallibly have led to a great divergence in the language, and their Teutonic speech must have presented marked dialectic differences from that of the rest of the race from which they sprang. The broad Scotch, however, of the Lowlands was absolutely identic with the northern English, a variety of the Saxon, or rather Anglic, which prevailed north of the Humber. Nor is it correct to say that this language was spoken in all the districts occupied by the Picts, for they included in their territories the North Highlands, where the spoken language has been, equally far back, the Scotch 197Gaelic. Further, Tacitus infers a German origin for the inhabitants of Caledonia, not from their language, but from their physical characteristics—the large limbs and the red hair; and it is now quite established that there was no essential diversity in this respect between the German and the Celtic races viewed as a whole. The Welsh Triads which contain the passage referred to may now be regarded as spurious.

Are there, then, any historic grounds which would lead us, irrespective of philological considerations, to consider the Picts as belonging either to the Welsh or to the Gaelic race? The only answer that can be made to this is, that there is almost a concurrent testimony of the Celtic inhabitants of Britain to the Picts having belonged to that branch of the race which the Welsh called Gwyddyl, and the Irish Gaedheal. Throughout the whole of the Welsh documents the Picts are usually denominated Gwyddyl Ffichti, while the Irish are simply termed Gwyddyl. Although this word Gwyddyl is generally used to designate a native of Ireland, and is so translated, this is its modern usage only; and it is impossible to examine the older Welsh documents without seeing that it was originally the designation of the Gadhelic race wherever situated, and the Picts are thus clearly assigned to it.^[233] This is quite in accordance with what may be called 198the statement by the Picts themselves. The two races of Cymry or Brython and Gwyddyl are symbolised in the ethnologic family by the two brothers, Brittus and Albanus, from whom descend the Britanni and Albani; and the Pictish Chronicle, which may be viewed as their national record, states that the Scots and Picts were two branches of the Albani. The race of the Picts were not, however, confined to Britain. They originally extended over the whole of the north of Ireland, and though eventually confined to the territory on the east of Ulster called Dalnaraidhe, or Dalaradia, they remained there as a separate people under the name of Cruithnigh till a comparatively late period. Down to the beginning of the seventh century they formed, with the Picts of Scotland, one nation; but during the whole period of their separate existence the Irish Annals do not contain a hint that they spoke a language different from the rest of Ireland; and in the Irish ethnologic family they are made the descendants of Ir, one of the sons of Milesius, whose descent is derived from Gaethel Glas, the ‘eponymus’ of the Gaelic race.^[234]

It is true that Adamnan tells us that St. Columba used an interpreter in his intercourse with the northern Picts, whom he converted in the sixth century, but this is usually stated much too broadly. Adamnan describes St. Columba as conversing freely with Brude, king of the Picts, with Broichan, his Magus or Druid, and with the king’s messengers, without the intervention of an interpreter.^[235] On two occasions only does he mention that an interpreter was 199required; and on both occasions it is connected with his preaching the Word of Life.^[236]

There is no point on which so much misconception exists as that of the precise amount of divergence between two languages necessary to prevent those speaking them from understanding each other. It is frequently asserted that a Welshman can understand an Irishman, and conversely; and it is invariably assumed that the three dialects of British—the Welsh, Cornish, and Breton—are mutually intelligible. But this is not the case, and, in point of fact, a very small difference is sufficient to affect the mutual intelligibility. A mere change in the vowel sounds, with a difference in the position of the accent, although the vocabulary might be absolutely the same, would be sufficient to render mutual intercourse difficult; and, although one might make a shift to follow a conversation, or a few sentences of simple import might be understood, no very great dialectic difference would be required to make a formal address unintelligible.^[237] Saint 200Columba was an educated man, possessing all the learning of the age, and had to instruct a rude and unlettered people whose vernacular idiom would vary in different parts of the country from the cultivated language of a Christian ecclesiastic. He seems to have had no difficulty with the king and those about him; but of the two occasions when he is recorded to have used an interpreter, one was when an old Pictish chief called Artbrannan arrived by sea to meet him in the island of Skye, and therefore probably came from some remote island or place still farther north where the vernacular speech may have had a greater amount of difference from that which Saint Columba used; and it may be remarked that the island apparently furnished the interpreter, and its inhabitants undoubtedly spoke a Gaelic dialect, as they called the spring where Artbrannan was baptized ‘Dobur Artbrannan.’^[238] The other case was when Saint Columba preached the Word of Life to a peasant somewhere in the province of the Picts;^[239] and it may be added that when he preached the Word of Life to an old man in the Vale of 201Urquhart, who was apparently of a higher class, and lived not far from the headquarters of the Picts, no interpreter appears to have been required.^[240] Giving, therefore, the fullest weight to this consideration, it amounts to no more than this, that the difference between Pictish and Irish may not have been greater than that between Breton or Cornish and Welsh.

Legend again comes in to help us here. The tale that the Picts or Cruithnigh were a colony of soldiers, who had no wives, and that they obtained wives from the Irish settlers by force or by agreement, has undoubtedly a linguistic meaning. All legends are, in fact, attempts to convey a popular explanation of some social or ethnologic peculiarity, the origin of which is lost while the form survives; and when the explanation of one feature has assumed the form that a part of the native population had been a foreign colony from a different country, then the fact of their speaking a native tongue was attempted to be explained by supposing that they had married wives of the native race. This idea is based upon the conception that children learn their language from their mothers, and is conveyed in the popular expression of ‘the mother tongue,’ Thus, in relating the legendary settlement of the Britons in Armorica, Nennius, in order to explain how the settlers retained their own language, has this addition in some copies—‘Having received the wives and daughters (of the Armoricans) in marriage, they cut out their tongues lest their children should learn the mother tongue’^[241] In the older form of the Irish legend, the race of Miledh, who are brought from Scythia, are said on their settlement in Ireland to have married wives of the Tuatha De Danaan, whom they 202found in the country. In that contained in the Life of St. Cadroë the country is named by Nel or Niul, in the language of his wife Scota, his own having been corrupted. As soon, therefore, as the idea was formed that the Picts of Scotland and Ireland were not the old inhabitants of the country, but a foreign colony who settled among them, if their language was at all akin to that of the native population, the popular explanation must at once have arisen that they had married wives of the native race, from whom they learned their language; and in the case of the Picts of Scotland this would appear the more probable from a kind of female succession to the throne having prevailed among them. In the British form of the tradition they apply to the Britons for wives, and are refused, and recommended to apply to the Irish, from whom they obtain them; and this may imply that there was a British element in the language of a part of the natives, though that of the main body was Irish. In the Irish traditions they obtain their wives at once from the sons of Miledh, who give them the widows of those of the Milesian colony who were said to have been drowned in the attempt to land. In what may be viewed as the legend of the Picts themselves, it is confined to that of the Irish Cruithnigh, and does not appear in those of the Picts of Scotland. That it was, however, understood as implying that the language of the Picts was derived from these supposed ancestresses of the race, seems to be clear enough. The legend is undoubtedly given in Layamon’s Brut, in order to explain the language of the Picts, which adds—

And in the chronicle quoted in the Scala Chronica it is said that they obtained wives from Ireland ‘on condition that their issue should speak Irish, which language remains 203to this day in the Highlands among those who are called Scots.’^[243]

The portion of the Pictish people which longest retained the name were the Picts of Galloway. Completely surrounded by the Britons of Strathclyde, and isolated from the rest of the Pictish nation, protected by a mountain barrier on the north, and the sea on the west and south, and remaining for centuries under the nominal dominion of the Angles of Northumbria, they maintained an isolated and semi-independent position in a corner of the island, and appear as a distinct people under the name of Picts as late as the twelfth century, when they formed one division of the Scottish army at the battle of the Standard.^[244] If any part of the Pictish people might be expected to retain their peculiar language and characteristics, it would be the Picts of Galloway; and if that language had been a Cymric dialect, it must have merged in the speech of the British population around them. In one of the legends which seems peculiarly connected with them, Gaedel Ficht or the Gaelic Pict appears as the ‘eponymus’ of the race; and Buchanan tells us that in his day, that is, in the reign of Queen Mary, ‘a great part of this country still uses its ancient language.’^[245] What that language was we learn from a contemporary of Buchanan, William Dunbar the poet, who, in the ‘Flyting’ between him and Kennedy, taunted his rival with his extraction from the natives of Galloway and Carrick, and styles him ‘Ersch Katheraine,’ ‘Ersch brybour baird,’ and his poetry as ‘sic eloquence as they in Erschery use.’ This word ‘Ersch’ was the term applied at the time to Scotch Gaelic, as when Sir David Lyndesay says—

And Kennedy retorts upon Dunbar—

We find, therefore, that in this remote district, in which the Picts remained under their distinctive names as a separate people as late as the twelfth century, a language considered the ancient language of Galloway was still spoken as late as the sixteenth century, and that language was Gaelic.^[247]

The question then remains, Are there any fragments of the Pictish language still preserved upon which we can base a proper philological inquiry into its place among the languages of Britain? For such an investigation the materials are slender, but they are not totally wanting. There are a few Pictish names and words preserved by Adamnan, Bede, and other writers, and there is the list of Pictish monarchs, both mythic and historical, preserved in the Pictish Chronicle. This list may be divided into two parts, the mythic and the historical; but a comparison of this list with other chronicles leaves little room for doubt that the proper names throughout the whole are here presented to us in their Pictish form, and the occasional occurrence of the addition of epithets to the names aids the inquiry.^[248] It is obvious that the mere comparison of a very few words with the vocabulary of other 205languages can do little to help us in this matter, and a list of proper names still less; but the form of the words affords a very important means of ascertaining the character of a language. This has been shown in a very striking manner in the Teutonic dialects, by the operation of Grimm’s law, and between the Celtic dialects there are also phonetic differences equally available for such an inquiry. The interchange, for instance, between Welsh and Gaelic of the labial or dental with the guttural, and the digamma GW with F, and that between Welsh and Cornish of T with Z, supplies us with a clue which can be easily applied to the form of words, however few in number they may be; and, in this point of view, the proper names likewise afford us a test of the character of the language. A comparison of Pictish proper names with the Welsh and Irish shows us that they are all constructed on the same principle, by the combination of certain syllables as prefixes, with others as affixes, in different varieties of connection; and where these syllables show the phonetic differences of the dialects, they furnish as good a means of comparison as the few words of the language which have been preserved.^[249] In examining these words and proper names, 206it will be necessary, however, to endeavour to connect them with that part of the Pictish nation to which they properly belong. It must not be assumed, at the outset, that the Picts were strictly and entirely homogeneous, and there may have been some dialectic differences in the language of different parts of the same nation. Of a twofold distinction of some kind, indeed, we find evident indication in their history. We have already traced this twofold division among the tribes described by Ptolemy as occupying the country north of the Forth and Clyde, and the forms of their names do certainly indicate something of the kind. Of the nine tribes who occupy the western district, the names of six begin with the guttural or hard C;^[250] while of the three great tribes which extended on the east coast from the Moray Firth to the Firth of Forth, one name begins with a dental, and the other two with the Roman V, which represents Gw in Welsh and F in Gaelic.^[251] 207In the third and fourth centuries we find these same people divided into two nations, which certainly implies a twofold distinction of some kind. The one appears as Caledones and Dicaledonæ with the guttural C, and the other, first Mæatæ and then Vecturiones with the Roman V. So far as we can judge from the forms of these names, the presumption is, that the western tribes, characterised by the guttural initial, belonged to the Gaelic race; but there is nothing in the form of the names beginning with the V to show to which race they belonged. When we proceed to analyse the list of proper names contained in the Pictish Chronicle, we find that they commence with Cruidne, son of Cinge, the ‘eponymus’ of the race. This is undoubtedly an Irish form from Cruith, form or colour. He has seven sons, who are said to have given their names to seven provinces. They are Caith, Ce, Circinn, Fib, Fidach, Fodla, Fortrenn, and we can identify five of the provinces—Caith representing Caithness, Circinn Kincardineshire, Fib Fife, Fodla Atholl, Fortrenn the district between the Forth and the Tay; but in these names we recognise the same distinction. Three have the initial guttural and four the initial F; the latter, however, belong equally to the Gaelic race, to which the initial F is peculiar, and represents the Welsh Gw. The names, too, are Irish in form. Fidach appears as an Irish name in the Annals of the Four Masters. Fodla was the epithet of a king of Ireland; it was also the name of a queen of the Tuatha De Danaan, and was one of the old names of Ireland; and Fortrenn means in Irish powerful.^[252] These seven sons are followed by three kings, Gede Olgudach, Aenbecan, and Olfinecta. Two of these names, the first and the last, are the same with two of the seven Irian kings said to have reigned at Tara, and we are told in one of the legends that Ainbeccan was son of 208Caith and ‘Ardrigh’ or sovereign over the seven divisions while Finachta reigned in Ireland.^[253] So far, then, we find nothing but Irish forms. The next name in the list is Guidid Gaedbrechach, and this is undoubtedly a Welsh form. In one of the Irish editions he has the epithet of Breathnach or the Briton.^[254] He is followed by Gest Gwrtich and Wurgest, and these are Cornish forms. Here, then, we trace the first appearance of a British element. We then have the statement that thirty Brudes reigned over Hibernia, and Albania or Erin, and Alban, for 150 years. In the list of the names only twenty-eight are given, and they fall into two parts—one where each name of Brude is followed by a monosyllable, and the other where the same monosyllable has prefixed to it the syllable Wr; and one of the Irish editions adds that they were not only the names of men, but of divisions of land. It will be remarked that one half of these monosyllabic names have the initial guttural, three beginning with C and four with G, and of the other half, one begins with labial P, and two with F, which seems to point to a twofold distinction similar to what we have already noticed. The name Brude belongs to the northern Picts, as the first historic king of the name is called by Bede king of the provinces of the Northern Picts, and it may be viewed as an Irish form.^[255] After these 209Brudes we have a list of twenty-one names, beginning with Gilgide and ending with Drust, son of Erb, which brings us to the end of the mythic division. Of these names some are obviously mythic, as appears from the length of their supposed reigns, and others appear to represent historic persons. The eighth name in this list is ‘Dectotreic frater Diu’ or ‘Tiu.’ The form of the name is Teutonic, and is the same name as Theodric. Nennius terms Theodric, son of Ida, Decdric, and there can be little doubt that he is the king meant. He is called, in the Welsh poems, Flamddwyn, or the Flame-bearer, and here the brother of Tiu, the Germanic god of war. This portion of the list would appear, therefore, to belong to that part of the Pictish people who occupied the eastern districts up to the southern wall in the year 410, and were subjected by the Angles of Bernicia, under Hussa and Theodric, the Flame-bearer, the sons of Ida. The four names which follow have as much a Teutonic as a Celtic appearance, and may also refer to these Bernician rulers. The last nine names are, however, certainly Celtic. Ru is one of the thirty Brudes. Of Gartnaith Loc it is said that four Gartnaidhs came from him; and we find just four Gartnaidhs in the historic period. One of these, who succeeded Brude Mac Mailchon, is said to have founded Abernethy, and the legend of Mazota locates him in Forfarshire,^[256] and another bears the epithet ‘Duiperr,’ which is rendered in another list, ‘Dives’ or the rich. It is the Irish 210word ‘Saoibher,’ rich, with the interchange of D for S.^[257] Of the names which follow Gartnaidh, Breth may be either British or Irish. Uip Oignamet is one of the thirty Brudes; Canatulachama is an Irish form, and is obviously the Catinolachan, said in one of the Irish legends to be one of the sons of Cathluan, who led the Picts to Alban, and one of their champions. Wradech Uecla is represented in Irish by the name Feradach, and appears to be a Cornish form, and this brings us to the historic names. We find the same names here occur repeatedly. These are Drest, Drust, or Drostan nine times, Talorcan six times, Brude six times, Gartnaidh four times, Nectan three times, and Cinoid, Galan, Alpin, Ungust, and Wrgust each twice. Of these names, Drest is an Irish form; the Welsh form being Gorwst or Grwst, showing the interchange of D and G.^[258] Talorcen may be either, though more probably British. Brude, as we have seen, is an Irish form, and belongs to the northern Picts. Gartnaidh, Nectan, and Cineoch or Cinoid are Gaelic forms, and these names may be connected with the southern Picts. Galan may be either. Alpin is represented by Elffin in Welsh, and is a British name in a Gaelic form, showing the interchange of Ff and P,^[259] and Ungust and Wrgust are 211Cornish forms, and belong to the province called ‘Fortrenn,’ or the districts of Stratherne and Menteith.^[260]

The result then of this analysis is that the earliest part of the list of Pictish kings is purely Irish or Gaelic in its forms, and that this Gaelic part belongs to the northern Picts; that another part of the list shows Gaelic forms, but more removed from the Irish, with a considerable British element; that this part of the list is more connected with the southern Picts; that the British element is not Welsh but Cornish, and belongs to that part of the territories of the southern Picts which lay between the Tay and the Forth. The explanation probably is that this district formed part of the territory occupied by the Damnonii, who, as they bore the same name, were probably of the same race as the Damnonii of Cornwall; and when a part of this tribe was included in the Roman province, the northern part beyond the wall which formed the boundary of the province was incorporated into the Pictish kingdom. They were probably the ‘Breatnu Fortrein’ or Britons of Fortren of the Irish legends,^[261] and gave kings of its race to the throne; while Scone, which was their capital during the latter period of the Pictish kingdom, was exactly on the frontier between the two populations.

Another part of the list, which shows a mixture of Welsh, Gaelic, and Teutonic names, belongs to the Picts who took the eastern districts between the walls from the British population, and were in turn subjected by the 212Angles. The only names in the list which can be attached to the Picts of Galloway are Drust and Cindaeladh, and these are Gaelic forms, the latter showing the Gaelic ‘Ceann,’ a head. Reginald of Durham, who wrote in the latter part of the twelfth century, reports one word of the Pictish language of Galloway. He tells us that certain clerics of Kirkcudbright were called in the language of the Picts, ‘Scollofthes,’ and in the title of the chapter he implies that the Latin equivalent was ‘Scolasticus.’ This word is in Welsh ‘Yscolheic,’ and in Irish ‘Sgolog.’ This word does not therefore give us the means of discriminating, though it approaches most nearly to the Irish form.^[262]

Such being the results which we obtain from an analysis of the lists of Pictish kings, and an examination of the few Pictish words preserved to us, the meaning of which we can ascertain, there remains one other source of information. The topography of the country furnishes us with a not unimportant element of evidence in endeavouring to ascertain the character of the languages of the tribes which have possessed it, and the linguistic family to which they belong, but this test has hitherto been much too loosely and carelessly applied. It can only be depended upon, if rightly used, under certain conditions, and controlled by definite rules of interpretation and comparison.

The oldest names in a country are those which mark its salient physical features,—the large rivers and mountains, the islands and promontories jutting into the sea. These usually resist longest the effect of changes in the population, and the introduction of different languages, and their primitive names remain attached to them through successive 213fluctuations in the speech of the people who surround them; while the names belonging to the inhabited part of the soil, and places, connected with the social life of the people, and their industrial occupation, give way more readily, and are less tenaciously attached to them. The names of rivers and islands are usually root-words, and sometimes so archaic that it is difficult to affix a meaning to them. Those of the mountains and valleys, the townships and homesteads, are more descriptive, and consist of two words in combination,—one which may be termed generic and common to the class to which the physical feature belongs; and the other specific, distinguishing one member of the same class from another by some peculiarity of form, colour, or situation. In countries where the topography obviously belongs to the same language with that spoken by the people who still possess it, though perhaps in an older stage of the language, it presents little difficulty. It is only necessary to ascertain the correct orthography of the names, and apply the key furnished by the language itself in that stage of its forms to which the words belong. This is the case with the greater part of Ireland and with the Highlands of Scotland, where the local names obviously belong to the same Gaelic language which is still the vernacular speech of its population. It is the case too with Wales, where the people still speak that form of British to which its topography belongs; and with Cornwall, where the language was spoken to the middle of last century; but in that part of the country where the Saxon, or rather the Anglic, has superseded the Celtic as the language of the people, the case is different, and great caution must be used in applying this test. This is the case in the north-eastern Lowlands of Scotland, and in the whole country south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, including Galloway, where the people speak what is usually called broad Scotch, and is the same with the old Northumbrian English.

214There is no difficulty in distinguishing the names which have been imposed by the Angles themselves, and which have superseded the older Celtic names. There is one broad distinction between the Anglic and the Celtic forms. In the latter the generic term precedes the specific, and in the former it follows it. But in order to ascertain what Celtic races occupied these districts before they were superseded by the Angles, we must examine the older stratum of Celtic names which still remain, and compare them with those of the districts in which the language is still spoken by the people. The usual mode in which this has been done has been either to assume that wherever a Celtic name in the one district is also found in the other, it affords proof that the Celtic people who occupied the two districts belonged to the same branch of the Celtic race, or else to take the modern form of the word, and to interpret it by such words in the different Celtic dialects as appear to come nearest to it in sound.^[263] There is, however, a great fallacy in both methods. In the first, because there is a very considerable number of words which are common to both branches of the Celtic language, and this number was greater formerly than it is now, and the words approached more closely to each other in form; but some words which were once common to both are now obsolete in one and preserved in the other, and the form of the same word has sometimes become differently modified in each so as to have less resemblance. When the name therefore belongs to this class it affords no 215test of difference or similarity of race. There is also in people belonging to the same race a capricious preference by one of one synonym, and by the other of another, which shows an apparent difference of nomenclature when none really exists.^[264] The only true test, in a comparison of this kind, is to limit it to those words, in the form of which the phonetic differences between the different dialects must be apparent. The fallacy in the other mode is that when the population of a country speaks a different language from that to which its topography belongs, the names of places undergo a process of corruption and change till the modern form diverges very much from the original word, and in order to ascertain its true meaning, or to make it the means of affording a genuine comparison with the topography of those districts where the language still remains, it is necessary to trace back the word historically to its oldest form, and interpret it by the language in its then stage of progress.^[265]

In examining, then, the Celtic topography of those districts in which the people and language have been superseded by the Anglic, we ought first to look to those names of places which have been preserved by writers contemporary with the existence of the four kingdoms as separate states; and before doing so we may remark that in the river and island names, which are the oldest, there are one or two archaic words which we may venture to recognise as Iberian or Basque. A common appellation of rivers is the Celtic word for water. 216Uisge in Gaelic and Wysg in Welsh furnish the Esks and Ouses which we find here and there; so do Dobhar in Gaelic and Dwfr or Dwr in Welsh, as well as Gwy, which signify water, and give us the Dours and the Wyes. The Basque word for water is Ur, and analogy would lead us to recognise it in the rivers called Oure, Urr, Ure, Urie, Orrin, and Ore. The syllable Il, too, enters largely into the topography of the Basque countries; and the old name for the island of Isla, which was Ile, and which legend tells us was occupied by Firbolg, is probably the same word, as are the rivers of that name in Banff and Forfar, and the Ulie in Sutherland, known to Ptolemy as the ‘Ila.’

Tacitus furnishes us with five names in this part of Britain—‘Caledonia,’ the ‘Tavaus’ estuary, the ‘Clota’ or Clyde, the ‘Bodotria’ or Firth of Forth, and the ‘Mons Granpius,’ Of these names two only are genuine survivals to the present day—the ‘Tavaus’ estuary and that of ‘Clota.’ There is little doubt that the former takes its name from the Gaelic word ‘Tamh,’ smooth. The Welsh equivalent is Taw, from which the name of the Welsh river the Tawi is formed.^[266] Ptolemy, besides the ‘Tava,’ ‘Bodotria,’ or‘ ‘Boderia’ as he calls it, and the ‘Clota’ or Clyde, has of the islands the names of which still survive, ‘Maleus’ or Mull, and ‘Scetis’ or Skye; and of the rivers, the ‘Longus,’ which corresponds with the river in Argyllshire called the Add, and in Gaelic the ‘Abhainn Fhada,’ or long river, the ‘Deva’ or Dee in Aberdeenshire, the ‘Loxa’ or Lossie, the ‘Celnius’ or Cullen, the ‘Deva’ or Dee in Galloway, and the ‘Tinna’ or Eden in Fife. Of these the Deva comes more nearly to the Gaelic Dubh, black, than to the Welsh Du.

Gildas, in the sixth century, mentions only the ‘Mons Badonis,’ which, if it is rightly placed in the north, affords no criterion. In the following century the geographer of Ravenna gives us a large collection of local names, many of 217which are obviously corrupted forms of those in Ptolemy. Although the exact position of each name is not defined, yet they are obviously placed in geographical groups, three of which belong to the region with which we are dealing. One group, consisting of forty-eight names, is placed between the Roman wall extending from the Solway to the Tyne, and what the geographer describes as ‘where Britain is discerned to be most narrow from sea to sea,’^[267] by which the narrow isthmus between the Firths of Forth and Clyde is obviously meant, and includes the stations on the wall; the second with ten names placed upon this isthmus; and the third with twenty-seven names beyond it. In the first group we can recognise two Welsh forms in the names placed together, and next to ‘Carbantium,’ which must be ‘Carbantorigum’ the town of the Selgovæ, of ‘Tadoriton’ and ‘Maporiton.’^[268] In the second group, we have the sixth name, ‘Medio Nemeton,’ which latter word is surely the Irish Nemed, a sanctuary.^[269] When we enter the third group, we come at once upon Gaelic forms. The fourth name, ‘Cindocellun,’ is obviously compounded of the Gaelic ‘Ceann,’ a head, and the name of the Ochil range. Besides these three groups we have a small group of eight names termed places, loca, by which districts seem to be meant, as the last four ‘Taba, Manavi, Segloes, and Daunoni’ are obviously the district about the Tay; Manau or Manann; the district occupied by the Selgovæ, or Dumfriesshire; and that occupied by the Damnonii, or the shires of Ayr, Renfrew, and Lanark. There is then a list of rivers in Britain generally, and another of islands, which need not be adverted to.

Most of the names furnished by Adamnan in the seventh century belong to the Western Isles, among which he mentions 218Ilea, Malea, Egea, and Scia, and to the territory of the Scots, but a few belong to what he terms the province of the Picts, and some of these he gives only in their Latin equivalents.^[270] There is the ‘Stagnum Aporicum’ or ‘Aporum,’ in which we recognise Lochaber. The river of ‘Nesa,’ the lake called ‘Lochdiæ,’ and the district of ‘Ardaibmurcol,’ and bay of ‘Arthcambus,’ are obviously Gaelic forms. He also mentions the ‘Petra Cloithe,’ or rock of Cluaith, by which Alcluith is meant. Eddi, who wrote about 720, in his Life of Wilfrid, gives us two names in the district of Lothian—Coludesburg, now Coldingham; and Dyunbaer, now Dunbar.^[271] The former is Saxon, but the latter unmistakably Gaelic, and must belong to the Picts, who superseded the British Ottadeni, and formed the population of that district during the fifth and sixth centuries.

Bede, in the same century, gives us in one chapter of his work an important group of names. In describing the Firths of Forth and Clyde, he says that the former has in the middle of it the city of ‘Giudi;’ and the latter, on the right bank, the city Alcluith, which he says signifies the ‘petra’ or rock Cluith. Giudi belongs to the Welsh form, and Ail is the Welsh for a rock. Then, in describing the northern wall, he says it begins at a place two miles west of the monastery of ‘Aebbercurnig,’ in a place called, in the language of the Picts, ‘Peanfahel,’ but in the language of the Angles ‘Penneltun,’ and terminates near ‘Alcluith.’^[272] The place meant 219can only be the village of Walton, which is exactly three English miles from Abercorn. Now these names belong to that district in which the territories of the four kingdoms met, and which we have termed the debateable land. Its original population consisted of a part of the tribes of the Damnonii. It was overrun by the Picts, and was occupied by Octa’s colony of Frisians or Angles. We learn from a passage added to Nennius, that the British name of this place was Penguaul; and, just as we might expect where there is a mixed population, the Picts adopt the name in the form of Peanfahel, retaining the Pen but altering the British Gu to the Gadhelic F, while the Angles, likewise retaining the Pen, omit the Gu and add the Anglic ‘tun,’ a town, at the end. It no more follows from this passage that the first syllable Pen was a Pictish form than that it was Anglic; and when in the same passage of Nennius it is said that the Scotch name was ‘Cenail,’ the writer seems to have mistakenly identified the place with Kinneil, which is three miles farther west and six miles from Abercorn. Aebbercurnig may be either British or Pictish Gaelic, and Alcluith is, as we have said, a British form. Bede gives us also a few names in Lothian. These are the city of Coludi, Mailros, Degsastan, and Incuneningum. These are all Anglic forms except Mailros, which seems to belong more to the Gaelic form. The name Incuneningum has been supposed to mean the district of Cuningham in Ayrshire; but Bede distinctly says that it was in the region of the Northumbrians, which is quite inapplicable to any part of Ayrshire, which was in the kingdom of Strathclyde, and though for a time subjected to the Northumbrians, had recovered its liberty in 686, while the king of Northumbria is recorded in 750 to have then only added Cyil and the 220adjacent regions to his kingdom. The place meant is more probably Tyninghame in East Lothian.^[273]

The Irish Nennius gives us three words as the three old names of Ireland—Eire, Fodla, Banba—derived from three queens of the Tuatha De Danann. According to the legend, however, these Tuatha De Danann came to Ireland from Alban, or Scotland, where they inhabited a territory called Dohbar and Iardohbar, obviously of Gaelic form; and in the north-eastern Lowlands we find these three words entering into the topography. On the south shore of the Moray Firth we have the river Eren, now the Findhorn, and Banbh, now Banff. The word Fodla enters into the name of Atholl; and in Perthshire we have again Banbh, or Banff, and Ereann, now the river Earn.^[274]

Having thus passed rapidly under review the local names reported to us by these early writers, we come now to deal with the topography of these districts, as it presents itself in the present day, and to consider what light we may derive from it as to the race and language of those who imposed these local names. Here, at the outset, we are met by the argument which is usually urged and popularly considered to be conclusive. It may be thus stated in the words of Mr. Isaac Taylor:—‘Inver and Aber are also useful test words in discriminating between the two branches of the Celts (the Cymric and the Gaelic).... If we draw a line across the map from a point a little south of Inveraray to one a little north of Aberdeen, we shall find that (with very few exceptions) the Invers lie to the north of the line, and the Abers to the south of it. This line nearly coincides with the present southern limit of the 221Gaelic tongue, and probably also with the ancient division between the Picts and the Scots.’^[275] This would be a plausible view if it were true, but unfortunately there is no such line of demarcation between the two words; and though it may be true that it would nearly coincide with the present southern limit of the Gaelic, it is historically false that it was the ancient division between the Picts and the Scots. When we examine, however, the real distribution of these words, we find it very different from the representation of it given either by Mr. Kemble or by Mr. Taylor. South of Mr. Taylor’s line there are in Aberdeenshire thirteen Abers and twenty-six Invers; in Forfarshire eight Abers and eight Invers; in Perthshire nine Abers and eight Invers; and in Fifeshire four Abers and nine Invers. Again, on the north side of this supposed line there are twelve Abers extending across to the west coast, where they terminate with Abercrossan, now Applecross, in Rossshire. In Argyllshire alone, which was occupied by the Dalriadic Scots, there are no Abers. The true picture of the distribution of these two words north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde is this—in Argyllshire, Invers alone; in 222Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, Invers and Abers in the proportion of three to one and two to one; and on the south side of the supposed line, Abers and Invers in about equal proportions. But the distribution south of the Firths must not be overlooked. It has a material bearing on this question. If these words afford a test between British and Gadhelic, we might naturally expect to find as many Abers in what was the Strathclyde kingdom as in Wales; but there are no Abers in the counties of Selkirk, Peebles, Ayr, Renfrew, Lanark, Stirling, and Dumbarton, occupied by the Damnonii; four Abers in Dumfriesshire, and six in Lothian, occupied by the Selgovæ and Ottadeni, and none in Galloway occupied by the Picts; and when we proceed farther south we find nothing but Abers in Wales, and no appearance of them in Cornwall. These words, therefore, afford no test of dialectic difference, and do not possess those phonetic changes which would enable us to use them as a test. There were in fact three words used to express the position of rivers towards each other, or towards the sea—Aber, Inbher, and Cumber or Cymmer, which were originally common to both branches of the Celtic language. They obviously come from the same root, ‘Ber,’ and they do not show any phonetic differences. These words are severally retained in some dialects, and become obsolete in others.^[276] Aber and Inver were both used by the southern Picts, though not quite in the same way, Inver being generally at the mouth of a river, Aber at the ford usually some distance from the mouth. Aber has become almost obsolete in Cornwall, part of Strathclyde, and among the northern Picts, where we can almost see the process by which it passes over into Apple, or Obair, in Scotland, and into Apple in Cornwall.^[277] In Ireland Inver seems undergoing 223a similar process, being once very numerous, but now reduced to comparatively few names.

The same remarks apply to a group of generic terms which enter largely into the topography of these districts, and are popularly supposed to be peculiar to the Welsh, but are in reality common to both dialects, such as Caer, Llan, Strath, Tor, Glas, Eaglis, and others.

In order to afford a proper test, we must take words which contain the phonetic interchange of consonants, such as P and C in Pen and Ceann, Gw and F in Gwyn and Finn, or words that similarly show the dialectic differences. Mr. Taylor attempts to apply this test. He says, ‘In Argyllshire and the northern parts of Scotland the Cymric pen is ordinarily replaced by the ben or cenn, the Gaelic forms of the same word. The distinctive usage of pen and ben enables us to detect the line of demarcation between the Cymric and Gaelic branches of the Celtic race. The Gadheli Cenn, a head, is another form of the same word.’^[278] Accepting this statement, when we examine the real distribution of these words it is fatal to the author’s argument. There is not a single Pen north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the districts occupied by the Picts abound with Bens and Cenns or Kins.^[279] We find, however, in these districts four root-words 224that are peculiar to them, and are met with nowhere else. These, therefore, may be considered as Pictish. The first is Pit, the old form of which is Pette. It is not to be found in Wales. It appears to signify a portion of land, and is used synonymously with Both, a dwelling, and Baile, a town.^[280] The other three are Auchter, For, and Fin. Auchter is obviously the Gaelic ‘Uachter,’ upper, and as such we have it in Ireland. It is not in Wales. The old forms of For and Fin are Fothuir and Fothen.^[281] They do not occur in Wales, and are obviously Gaelic forms, from the initial consonant F.

In Galloway there are no Pens. The root Bar enters very largely into its topography. It is also very common in Argyllshire, and is also to be found in Ireland. It is the Gaelic Barr, the top or point of a thing. Ar and Arie also appear frequently in Galloway and Argyllshire. It is the Gaelic ‘Airidh,’ a hill pasture.

The Celtic topography of these districts thus resembles a palimpsest, in which an older form is found behind the more modern writing, and the result of an accurate examination of it leads us to lay down the following laws:—

1st, In order to draw a correct inference from the names of places, as to the etymological character of the people who imposed them, it is necessary to obtain the old form of the 225name before it became corrupted, and to analyse it according to the philological laws of the language to which it belongs.

2d, A comparison of the generic terms affords the best test for discriminating between the different dialects to which they belong; and for this comparison it is necessary to have a correct table of their geographical distribution.

3d, Difference between the generic terms in different parts of the country may arise from their belonging to a different stage of the same language, or from a capricious selection of different synonyms by separate tribes of the same race.

4th, In order to afford a genuine test for discriminating between dialects, the generic terms must contain within them those sounds which are differently affected by the phonetic laws of each dialect; and

5th, Applying these laws, the generic terms do not show the existence of a Cymric language in the districts occupied by the Picts.^[282]

The result of our inquiry into the ethnology of Britain and the race and language of the occupants of its northern districts, hasty and general as, from the limits of this work, it has necessarily been, may be thus summed up:—

The Celtic race in Britain and Ireland was preceded by a people of an Iberian type, small, dark-skinned, and curly-haired. They are the people of the long-headed skulls, and their representatives in Britain were the tin-workers of Cornwall and the Scilly Islands, who traded with Spain, and the tribe of the Silures in South Wales, and, in the legendary history of Ireland, the people called the Firbolg. The Celtic race followed them both in Britain and in Ireland. These are the people of the round-headed skulls, and consisted of two great branches, whose language—the British and the Gadhelic—though possessing evident marks that they had a common origin, and that both branches belonged originally to one race, is yet distinguished by marked dialectic differences. Each of these great branches again was divided into varieties. Of the Gadhelic branch, one was a fair-skinned, large-limbed, and red-haired race, and were represented in Britain by the people of the interior whom the Romans thought to be indigenous, and who, after the Roman province was formed, were called by them the Picts or painted people. They are represented in the legendary history of Ireland by the Tuatha De Danann and by the Cruithnigh, a name which was the Irish equivalent of the Latin ‘Picti,’ and was applied to the Picts of 227Scotland, and to the people who preceded the Scots in Ulster, and were eventually confined to a district in the eastern part of it. The other variety was a fair-skinned brown-haired race, represented in the legendary history as the race of Milidh or Milesius, and, after the fourth century, known by the name of Scots.

The other great branch of the Celtic race, which extended itself over the whole of that part of Britain which became subject to the Roman power, and was incorporated into a province of the Roman Empire, were those we have termed British, and resembled the Gauls in their physical appearance. The two varieties of their language in Britain are represented by the Cornish and the Welsh.

The Celtic race was followed by a Teutonic people, who were of the low German race, and issued from the low-lying country along the north coast of Germany, extending from the Rhine to the Cimbric Chersonese. After assailing the Roman province during the last half-century of its existence, when they were known by the name of Saxons, they made settlements during the first half of the fifth century in what was called the Saxon Shore, and along the east coast from the Humber to the Firth of Forth. These earliest settlers consisted partly of Frisians, but mainly of the people called ‘Angli,’ who were part of a confederation of tribes who bore the general name of Saxons, and were followed at a later period by those who seemed to have belonged to the people originally called Saxons.

Out of these Celtic and Teutonic races there emerged in that northern part of Britain which eventually became the territory of the subsequent monarchy of Scotland, four kingdoms within definite limits and under settled forms of government; and as such we find them in the beginning of the seventh century, when the conflict among these races, which succeeded the departure of the Romans from the island, and the termination of their power in Britain, may 228be held to have ceased, and the limits of these kingdoms to have become settled.

North of the Firths of Forth and Clyde were the two kingdoms of the Scots of Dalriada on the west and of the Picts on the east. They were separated from each other by a range of mountains termed by Adamnan the Dorsal ridge of Britain, and generally known by the name of Drumalban. It was the great watershed which separated the rivers flowing eastward from those flowing westward, and now separates the counties of Argyll and Perth. The northern boundary appears to be represented by a line drawn from the mouth of Loch Leven through the district of Morvern, separating the old parish of Killecolmkill from that of Killfintach, then through the island of Mull by the great ridge of Benmore, and by the islands of Iona and Colonsay to Isla, where it separated the eastern from the western districts of the island.^[283]

THE
FOUR KINGDOMS

W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London.

229The Scottish colony was originally founded by Fergus Mor, son of Erc, who came with his two brothers Loarn and Angus from Irish Dalriada in the end of the fifth century, but the true founder of the Dalriadic kingdom was his great-grandson Aedan, son of Gabran. It consisted of three tribes, the Cinel Gabran, the Cinel Angus, and the Cinel Loarn, which were called the ‘three powerfuls of Dalriada.’ The Cinel Gabran consisted of the descendants of Fergus, whose son Domangart had two sons, Gabran and Comgall, and their possessions consisted of the district of Cowall, which takes its name from Comgall, that of Cindtire or Kintyre, which then extended from the river Add, which flows into the bay of Crinan, to the Mull of Kintyre, and included Knapdale and the small islands of this coast. The Cinel Angusa settled in Isla and Jura, while the names of their townships which have been preserved embrace the eastern half of the island only. The Cinel Loarn possessed the district of Lorn, which takes its name from them and extends from Loch Leven to the point of Ashnish. Between the possessions of the Cinel Loarn and those of the Cinel Gabhran extended what is now the great moss of Crinan, called in Gaelic ‘Monadhmor;’ and on the bank of the river Add, which meanders through it, there rises an isolated rocky hill, the summit of which bears the mark of having been strongly fortified, while the great stones and cairns on the moss around it preserve the record of many an attempt to take it. This fortified hill was called Dunadd, a name which it still retains, and was the capital of Dalriada. It was also called, from the moss which surrounds it, Dunmonaidh. The possessions of these Dalriadic tribes surrounded a small district extending from the districts of 230Lorn, Kintyre, and Cowal, to Drumalban, in the centre of which was the lake of Loch Awe. As this territory was not included in the possessions of any of these tribes, it probably still retained its original population, and contained the remains of the earlier inhabitants before the arrival of the Scots. The kings of this small kingdom of Dalriada all belonged to the race of Erc, and succeeded each other according to the Irish law of Tanistry, which often assumed the form of an alternate succession from the members of two families descended from the common ancestor. In Dalriada it alternated first between the descendants of Gabran and Comgall, the two grandsons of Fergus, and afterwards between the Cinel Gabran and Cinel Loarn.^[284]

The remaining districts north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde formed the kingdom of the Picts. Throughout the whole course of their history as an independent nation there seems to have been a twofold division of this people, and they were eventually distinguished from each other as the northern and the southern Picts. Bede tells us that they were separated from each other by steep and rugged mountain chains, and he terms in one place the northern Picts, the Transmontane Picts.^[285] This mountain range can only refer to the great chain termed the Mounth, which extends across the island from Ben Nevis in Lochaber, till it terminates 231near the east coast between Aberdeen and Stonehaven. The whole country north of this range from sea to sea belonged to the northern Picts, who appear to have been purely Gaelic in race and language. The southern Picts are said by Bede to have had seats within these mountains, which refers no doubt to the districts intersected by the lesser chains which extend from the main range towards the south-east, and from the barrier of the so-called Grampians. These districts consist of the Perthshire and Forfarshire Highlands, the former of which is known by the name of Atholl. The western boundary of the territory of the southern Picts was Drumalban, which separated them from the Scots of Dalriada, and their southern boundary the Forth. The main body of the southern Picts also belonged no doubt to the Gaelic race, though they may have possessed some differences in the idiom of their language; but the original population of the country extending from the Forth to the Tay consisted of part of the tribe of Damnonii, who belonged to the Cornish variety of the British race, and they appear to have been incorporated with the southern Picts, and to have introduced a British element into their language. The Frisian settlements, too, on the shores of the Firth of Forth may also have left their stamp on this part of the nation. The former are probably the Britons of Fortrenn of the Pictish legends, and the latter have apparently left a record of their presence in the term of the Frisian Shore, known as the name of a district on the south of the Firth of Forth; and the name of Fothrik, applied to a district now represented by Kinross-shire and the western part of Fifeshire, may preserve a recollection of their Rik or kingdom.

The Picts seem to have preserved a tradition that the whole nation was once divided into seven provinces, whose names were derived from seven sons of Cruithne, the ‘eponymus’ of the race, and the reference to Saint Columba, as 232perpetuating this in a stanza, relegates it to this period. Of these names five can be recognised. In Fib we have Fife, Fodla enters into the name of Atholl, Circinn into that of the Mearns, Fortrenn was certainly the district from the Tay to the Forth, and Caith was the district of Cathenesia, originally of great extent, and embracing the most northern part of the island from sea to sea.

The seat of government appears to have been sometimes within the territory of the southern Picts, and at others on the north of the great chain of the Mounth. When we can first venture to regard the list of the Pictish kings preserved in the Pictish Chronicle as having some claim to a historical character, we find the king having his seat apparently in Forfarshire; but when the works of Adamnan and Bede place us upon firm ground, the monarch belonged to the race of the northern Picts, and had his fortified residence near the mouth of the river Ness.

When we examine the historical part of the list of the Pictish monarchs, we find that it exhibits a very marked peculiarity in the order of succession. We see brothers, sons of the same father, succeeding each other, but it does not present a single instance, throughout the whole period of the Pictish kingdom, of a son directly succeeding his father. Bede gives us the law of succession thus: ‘That when it came into doubt they elected the king rather from the female than from the male royal lineage, a custom,’ he says, ‘preserved among the Picts to his day.’^[286] It is thus stated in the poem attached to the Irish Nennius, ‘that from the nobility of the mother should always be the right to the sovereignty;’ and in the prose legends, ‘that the regal succession among them for ever should be on the mother’s side.’ ‘That not less should territorial succession be derived from men than from women 233for ever;’^[287] ‘so that it is in right of mothers they succeed to sovereignty and all other successions.’ ‘That they alone should take of the sovereignty and of the land from women rather than from men in Cruithintuath for ever.’ ‘That of women should be the royal succession among them for ever.’^[288] These statements, when compared with the actual succession, lead to this, that brothers succeeded each other in preference to the sons of each, not an unusual feature in male succession; but, on their failure, the contingency alluded to by Bede arose, and the succession then passed to the sons of sisters, or to the nearest male relation on the female side, and through a female. This, however, does not exhaust the anomalies exhibited in this list of kings, for we find that the names given as those of the fathers of the kings differ entirely from those of their sons, and in no case does a son who reigns bear the same name as that of any one of the fathers in the list. The names of the reigning kings are in the main confined to four or five names, as Brude, Drust, Talorgan, Nechtan, Gartnaidh, and these never appear among the names of the fathers of kings, nor does the name of a father occur twice in the list. Further, in two cases we know that while the kings who reigned were termed respectively Brude and Talorcan, the father of the one was a Briton, and of the other an Angle.^[289] The conclusion which Mr. M‘Lennan, in his very original work on primitive marriage, draws from this is, that it ‘raises a strong presumption that all the fathers were men of other tribes. At any rate there remains the fact, after every deduction has been made, that the fathers and mothers were in no case of the same family name;’^[290] and he quotes this as a reason for believing that exogamy prevailed among the Picts. But this explanation, though it 234goes some way, will not fully interpret the anomalies in the list of Pictish kings. The only hypothesis that seems to afford a full explanation is one that would suppose that the kings among the Picts were elected from one family clan or tribe, or possibly from one in each of the two divisions of the northern and southern Picts; that there lingered among the Picts the old custom among the Celts, who, to use the language of Mr. M‘Lennan, ‘were anciently lax in their morals, and recognised relationship through mothers only;’^[291] that intermarriage was not permitted in this royal family or tribe, and the women had to obtain their husbands from the men of other tribes, not excluding those of a different race;^[292] that the children were adopted into the tribe of the mother, and certain names were exclusively bestowed on such children. Such an hypothesis seems capable of explaining all the facts of the case; and if the male child thus adopted into the tribe of the mother became king, and was paternally of a foreign race, it will readily be seen how much this would facilitate the permanent occupation of the Pictish throne by a foreign line of kings. It would only be necessary that one king, who was paternally of a foreign tribe, and whose succession to the throne could not be opposed in conformity with the Pictish law of succession, should become powerful 235enough to alter the succession to one through males, and perpetuate it in his own family. Although the Pictish people might resist to the utmost their subjection to a foreign nation, and would make every effort to throw off the yoke, there would be nothing in the mere occupation of the throne by a family of foreign descent, who derived their succession originally through a female of the Pictish royal tribe, to arouse their national feeling to any extent against it.

The death of Brude mac Mailchon, the king of the northern Picts, whom Saint Columba converted, is recorded by Tighernac in the year 584,^[293] after a reign of thirty years; and as no battle is mentioned between him and the Dalriads after the arrival of Saint Columba, it seems probable that the boundaries of the respective kingdoms by the Picts and Scots of Dalriada were amicably settled by the same influence which procured the recognition of the independence of Dalriada at the convention of Drumceitt. Brude was succeeded by Gartnaidh, who is called son of Domelch, who reigned eleven years, and his death took place in 599,^[294] two years after that of Saint Columba himself. He is succeeded by Nectan, who bears the unusual designation of grandson of Uerd, and who occupied the throne at the beginning of the sixth century.^[295]

The districts south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and extending to the Solway Firth on the west and to the Tyne on the east, were possessed by the two kingdoms of the Britons on the west and of the Angles of Bernicia on the east. The former extended from the river Derwent in Cumberland in the south to the Firth of Clyde in the north, which separated the Britons from the Scots of Dalriada. The British kingdom thus comprehended Cumberland and Westmoreland, with the exception of the baronies of Allerdale or Copeland in the 236former and Kendal in the latter, and the counties of Dumfries, Ayr, Renfrew, Lanark, and Peebles, in Scotland. On the east the great forest of Ettrick separated them from the Angles, and here the ancient rampart of the Catrail which runs from the south-east corner of Peeblesshire, near Galashiels, through the county of Selkirk to the Peel Hill on the south side of Liddesdale, probably marked the boundary between them. The population of this kingdom seems to have belonged to two varieties of the British race,—the southern half, including Dumfriesshire, being Cymric or Welsh, and the northern half having been occupied by the Damnonii who belonged to the Cornish variety. The capital of the kingdom was the strongly-fortified position on the rock on the right bank of the Clyde, termed by the Britons Alcluith, and by the Gadhelic people Dunbreatan, or the fort of the Britons, now Dumbarton; but the ancient town called Caer Luel or Carlisle in the southern part must always have been an important position. The kingdom of the Britons had at this time no territorial designation, but its monarchs were termed kings of Alcluith, and belonged to that party among the Britons who bore the peculiar name of Romans, and claimed descent from the ancient Roman rulers in Britain. The law of succession seems to have been one of purely male descent.

Of Aedilfrid, who at this time ruled over Bernicia, and soon after extended his sway over Deira also, it is told us by Bede that he ‘conquered more territories from the Britons, either making them tributary, or expelling the inhabitants and planting Angles in their places, than any other king;’ and to his reign we attribute the greatest extension of the Anglic power over the Britons. He appears to have added to his kingdom the districts on the west between the Derwent and the Mersey, thus extending Deira from sea to sea, and placing the Northumbrian kingdom between the Britons of the north and those of Wales. The river Tees appears to have separated Deira from Bernicia, and the Angles of Bernicia, 237with whom we have more immediately to do, were now in firm possession of the districts extending along the east coast as far as the Firth of Forth, originally occupied by the British tribe of the Ottadeni and afterwards by the Picts, and including the counties of Berwick and Roxburgh and that of East Lothian or Haddington, the rivers Esk and Gala forming here their western boundary. The capital of Deira was York, and that of Bernicia the strongly-fortified position on the coast nearly opposite the Farne Islands, crowning a basaltic rock rising 150 feet above the sea, and accessible only on the south-east, which was called by the Britons Dinguayrdi, by the Gael Dunguaire, and by the Angles Bebbanburch after Bebba the wife of Aedilfrid, now Bamborough. About half-way along the coast, between Bamborough and Berwick-on-Tweed, lay, parallel to the shore, the long flat island called by the Britons Ynys Medcaud, and by the Angles Lindisfarne.^[296]

In the centre of Scotland, where it is intersected by the two arms of the sea, the Forth and the Clyde, and where the boundaries of these four kingdoms approach one another, is a territory extending from the Esk to the Tay, which possessed a very mixed population, and was the scene of most of the conflicts between these four states. Originally occupied by the tribe of the Damnonii, the northern boundary of the Roman province intersected it for two centuries and a half, including part of this tribe and the province, and merging the rest among the barbarians. On the fall of the Roman power in Britain, it was overrun by the Picts, and one of the earliest settlements of the Saxons, which probably was composed of Frisians, took place in the districts about the Roman wall. It was here that during the sixth century the main struggle took place. It falls naturally into three divisions. The first extends from the Esk and the Pentland 238Hills to the Roman wall and the river Carron. This district we find mainly peopled by Picts, the remains probably of those who once occupied the eastern districts to the southern wall, and preserved a kind of independence, while the rest were subjected by the Angles.

From the Picts the Angles give the hills which formed its southern boundary the name of the Pehtland, now Pentland hills. Near its south-eastern boundary was the strong natural position called by the Britons Mynyd Agned and also Dineiddyn, and by the Gael Dunedin. Nine miles farther west, the Firth of Forth is narrowed till the coast approaches within two miles of that of Fife, and affords a ready means of access; and on the south shore of the upper basin of the Forth, and near the termination of the Roman wall, was the ancient British town of Caeredin, while in the Forth itself opposite this district was the insular town of Giudi. The western part of this territory was known to the Welsh by the name of Manau Guotodin, and to the Gael as the plain or district of Manann, a name still preserved in Sliabhmanann, now Slamanan, and this seems to have been the headquarters of these Picts.

Between them and the kingdom of the Picts proper lay a central district, extending from the wall to the river Forth, and on the bank of the latter was the strong position afterwards occupied by Stirling Castle; and while the Angles of Bernicia exercised an influence and a kind of authority over the first district, this central part seems to have been more closely connected with the British kingdom of Alclyde. The northern part, extending from the Forth to the Tay, belonged to the Pictish kingdom, with whom its population, originally British, appears to have been incorporated, and was the district afterwards known as Fortrenn and Magh Fortrenn.

Finally, on the north shore of the Solway Firth, and separated from the Britons by the lower part of the river Nith, and by the mountain range which separates the counties 239of Kirkcudbright and Wigtown from those of Dumfries and Ayr, were a body of Picts, termed by Bede, Niduari; and this district, consisting of the two former counties, was known to the Welsh as Galwydel, and to the Irish as Gallgaidel, from which was formed the name Gallweithia, now Galloway.

Three years after the great battle in which Aidan was defeated at Dawstone in Liddesdale, he died, leaving his throne to his son Eocha Buidhe, or the yellow-haired, whom Saint Columba had named as his successor;^[297] and in the same year Aedilfrid, king of Bernicia, attacked Aeduin, who had succeeded his father Aella in Deira when a child, and had barely attained majority, and drove him from his throne, thus uniting Deira to Bernicia, over which he reigned twelve years. A change likewise soon took place among the Pictish kings, and in the year 612 Nectan appears to have been displaced by Cinioch or Cinadon, son of Luchtren, who from the Gaelic form of his name probably belonged to the northern Picts.^[298] Five years afterwards Aeduin, who, after wandering as a fugitive in different parts of Britain, had finally taken refuge with Redwald, king of the East Angles, succeeded in persuading him to assist him to recover his throne.

A large army was accordingly raised, and meeting Aedilfrid, who was advancing against him with inferior force, he attacked him and slew him on the borders of the kingdom of Mercia, on the east side of the river called Idlae or Idle, a small river which falls into the Trent. Aeduin thus not only regained his kingdom in the year 617, but obtained possession of both provinces of Deira and Bernicia, which had been under the rule of Aedilfrid, and in his turn drove out his sons, who, with many of the young nobles of their 240party, took refuge with the Scots of Dalriada or with the Picts. The eldest of the sons, Eanfrid, appears to have fled for protection to the king of the Picts; and the second, Osuald, who was then of the same age that Aeduin had been when he was expelled, went to the island of Iona, where Bede tells us he was instructed in the Christian faith and baptized by the seniors of the Scots. Aeduin, too, with his whole nation was converted to Christianity by Paulinus in the eleventh year of his reign. Bede classes Aeduin among the kings of the Anglic natives who possessed imperial authority, and he is the first of the Northumbrian kings to whom such power is attributed: he says that he ruled over all the people both of the Angles and the Britons who inhabit the island, and in another place, that none of the Angles before him had brought under subjection all the borders of Britain that were provinces either of themselves or the Britons.^[299] These expressions must not be taken literally, and are not altogether consistent with the similar statement with regard to his predecessor Aedilfrid, but they undoubtedly imply that he was one of the most powerful of the Northumbrian monarchs, and at least retained all the acquisitions of his predecessors, while he has left his name in one district, which shows that he had extended the limits of the Northumbrian kingdom in one direction at least. The oldest form of the name of Edinburgh is Edwinesburg,^[300] which leads us to infer that he had added the district from the Esk to the Avon at least, of which it was the chief stronghold, to his kingdom. The country extending from the river Avon to the range of the Lammermoor hills was called by the Saxons ‘Lothene,’ and by the Gael ‘Lethead,’ and appears also under 241the name of the province of Loidis, a name which was afterwards extended as far south as the Tweed.^[301]

The Irish annalists record in the year 627 the battle of Ardcorann, in which the Dalriads were victorious, and Fiachna, son of Deman, was slain by Conadh Cerr, king of Dalriada.^[302] Fiachna mac Deman was the king of the Cruithnigh of Dalaradia in Ireland, and the battle was probably fought in Ireland, Conadh Cerr, king of Dalriada, coming to the assistance of the Irish Dalriads; but Conadh Cerr was the son of Eochadh Buidhe, who was still alive, and he would appear to have transferred the throne of Dalriada to his son. The explanation will probably be found in the record of another battle fought two years afterwards, also in Ireland, called the battle of Fedhaeoin or Fedhaeuin. This battle was also fought between the Cruithnigh and the Dalriads, and the latter were defeated. On the side of the victors were Maelcaith mac Scandail, king of the Cruithnigh of Ulster, Dicuill mac Eachach, king of a tribe of Cruithnigh, and Eochadh Buidhe; and, on the other, Conad Cerr, king of Dalriada, and two grandsons of Aidan, who were slain.^[303] 242Eochadh Buidhe is here on the side of the Cruithnigh and opposed to two of his own sons, one of them leading the Dalriads; but the Annals of Ulster, quoting an old book called the Book of Cuanac, record the death of Eochadh Buidhe, king of the Picts, in the same year, and this corresponds with the length of his reign as given in the Albanic Duan, where a king of the Picts is mentioned who does not appear in the list of Pictish monarchs. The inference is that he was king of the Picts of Galloway, and it would appear that in the course of his reign Eochadh had either obtained authority over them or acquired a right to that province, and placed his son Conadh Cerr on the throne of Dalriada proper; and thus, when a war broke out between the Cruithnigh and the Dalriads of Ireland, the anomaly occurred of the father fighting on the one side with his Picts, and the sons with the Dalriads on the other.

On the death of Conadh Cerr in 629, his brother Domnall Breac succeeded him as king of Dalriada, while the rule over the Picts, which gave to Eochaidh Buidhe his title of king of the Picts, probably passed by the Pictish law of female succession to another family.

The death of Cinaeth mac Luchtren, king of the Picts, is recorded by Tighernac in 631,^[304] and he was succeeded by a family of three brothers, Garnaid, Bredei, and Talore, sons of Wid or Foith, who followed each other on the Pictish throne during the next twenty-two years. In the meantime a storm was gathering on the borders of Northumbria, which was soon 243to burst upon Aeduin and bring his powerful kingdom with his own life to an end. Among those British kings who had been subjected to the authority of the Northumbrian king was a king of the Britons termed by Bede ‘Caedwalla.’ He is described by Bede as a man who, though he bore the name and professed himself a Christian, was yet so barbarous in his disposition and behaviour that he spared neither women nor children in his wars.^[305] This British king resolved not only to throw off all subjection to Northumbria, but to cut off the whole nation of the Angles within the borders of Britain. He was enabled to attempt this enterprise by having secured the support of Penda, whom Bede calls a most warlike man, of the royal race of the Mercians,^[306] who had just ascended the throne of that nation. Penda and his whole nation were still pagans and idolaters, and probably viewed the establishment of Christianity as the religion of Northumbria with much hostility; and Caedwalla, though nominally a Christian, had all the hatred of the Welsh Church towards the Anglic Christians and their church, with whom they held no communication.

A great battle was fought between these leaders and Aeduin in a plain called by Bede Haethfeld, now Hatfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the 12th of October in the year 633, in which Aeduin was himself killed, and all his army either slain or dispersed. His son Osfrid also fell in the same war, and another son Eadfrid was obliged to go over to Penda.^[307] In the genealogies and chronicle attached to Nennius this battle is called the battle of Meicen, and 244both Osfrid and Eadfrid are said to have been slain in it; and it is added that none of Aeduin’s race escaped, and the victor is termed Catguollaun, king of Guenedotia or North Wales. Bede tells us that a great slaughter was made at this time of the church and nation of the Northumbrians, and the more so because one of the commanders by whom it was done was a pagan, and the other a barbarian more cruel than a pagan, and that the province of Deira fell on Aeduin’s death to Osric, son of his uncle Aelric, who was a Christian, being one of those whom Paulinus had converted; while Eanfrid, the eldest son of Aedilfrid, who had taken refuge on the accession of Aeduin with the Picts, and had there been instructed in the Christian religion by the Scottish monks, returned on Aeduin’s death to Bernicia and took possession of his father’s kingdom. We are told, however, by Bede that both kings, as soon as they obtained possession of their kingdoms, renounced their Christianity and returned to their former paganism, but were soon after slain by Caedwalla, who first surprised and killed Osric, who had besieged him in the city of York, and after having reigned for a year over the provinces of the Northumbrians, also killed Eanfrid, who came to him with only twelve soldiers to sue for peace, when he was probably advancing upon Bamborough. That year, adds Bede, is to this day looked upon as unhappy and hateful to all good men, as well on account of the apostasy of the Anglic kings who had renounced the sacraments of their faith, as of the outrageous tyranny of the British king.^[308]

After the death of Eanfrid, his brother Osuald advanced from the north with an army small indeed in number, as Bede tells us, but strengthened with the faith of Christ, and north of the Tweed, and encountered the army of the Britons, which was greatly more numerous, at a place near the 245Roman wall called in the Anglic tongue Devisesburn, where a complete victory was gained, and the impious commander of the Britons was slain. The field of battle, Bede tells us, was also called Hefenfelth, or the heavenly field, and was not far from Hexham, in the vale of the Tyne. It has been identified with a place called St. Osualds, close to the wall, and about seven or eight miles north of Hexham; and the British commander must have been driven across the wild moor on the south side of the wall through the Tyne, until he was overtaken at a distance of eight or nine miles from the battlefield, and slain at a little stream called Devisesburn, a tributary of the Rowley water. This battle is termed in the additions to Nennius the battle of Catscaul, and it has been well suggested that this name may be intended for Cad-ys-gual, the battle at the wall. It is somewhat remarkable that while Bede names Caedwalla whenever he has occasion to mention him, he does not name him as the commander who was slain at this battle. Adamnan, who was born in 624, and was therefore ten years old when the battle was fought, tells us that the day before the Saxon ruler Osuald went forth to fight Catlon, a very valiant king of the Britons, he saw Saint Columba in a vision, who told him to march out from his camp to battle the following night, when his foes would be put to flight and his enemy Catlon delivered into his hands; and that the next night King Osuald went forth from his camp to battle, and had a much smaller army than the numerous hosts opposed to him, yet he obtained an easy and decisive victory, for King Catlon was slain, and the conqueror on his return after the battle was ever after ordained by God emperor of all Britain. Adamnan adds that he had this narrative from the lips of his predecessor, the abbot Failbe, who solemnly declared that he had himself heard King Osuald relate it to the Abbot Segine.^[309] We can hardly have better evidence than this as 246to the events of the battle, whatever may be said as to the vision, and Tighernac likewise names Catlon, king of the Britons, as King Osuald’s opponent,^[310] but the name given to Caedwalla in recording the battle in which he slew King Aeduin was not Cathlon but Chon. In the Genealogies annexed to Nennius, Caedwalla is termed Catguollaun, king of Guenedotia, while King Osuald’s opponent is named Catgublaun, king of Guenedotia. It is therefore not impossible that the impious commander of Bede may not have been Caedwalla himself, and that there may be some truth in the account given in the Welsh Bruts that the Caedwalla, who slew Aeduin, survived for many years after; but this is not a matter which much affects our narrative so far as it concerns the history before us.

About the same time the family of that Nectan, king of the Picts, who had been dispossessed in 612 seem to have made an effort to recover the throne, for the Annals of Inisfallen have in 634 the death of Aengus, son of Nechtan, and Tighernac records in 635 the battle of Seguise, in which Lochene, son of Nechtan Cennfota, and Cumuscach, son of Aengus, fell. These names are purely Gaelic forms, and ‘Cennfota’ is a Gaelic epithet, meaning long-headed. The Annals of Ulster have the death of Gartnait, son of Foith, in the same year, and say he fell in this battle, which seems to leave little doubt that it was a contest for the throne.^[311] The battle was probably fought on the west bank of the Tay, a few miles above Dunkeld, at a place now called Dalguise; and on the east side of the river, immediately opposite that place, a cairn once stood about thirty feet in diameter, which contained a single stone coffin, and near it two high upright 247stones, while at a small distance from the cairn were found a few rude stone coffins. These may have been memorials of the battle. Gartnaidh was succeeded by his brother Bredei, son of Uid or Foith.

In the same year in which the battle was fought which placed Osuald on the throne of Bernicia, Domnall Breac, king of the Scots of Dalriada, appears to have made an attempt to wrest the district between the Avon and the Pentland Hills from the Angles,—whether as having some claim to it through his grandfather Aidan, or, what is more probable, as a leader of the Britons, but was defeated at Calathros,^[312] or Calatria, now Callander—a name applied to a small district between the Roman wall and the Avon; and Bede, who ranks Osuald after Aeduin among those who held imperial authority in Britain, tells us that he held the kingdom within the same boundaries.^[313]

Cummen the Fair, who was abbot of Iona from 657 to 669, tells us in his Life of Saint Columba, which is still preserved, that, when the saint inaugurated Aidan as king of Dalriada, and placed his hands upon his head, and blessed him, he prophesied of his sons, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, thus addressing him:—‘Believe unhesitatingly, O Aidan, that none of thy enemies shall be able to resist thee, unless thou first act unjustly towards me and my kin. Wherefore exhort thy sons with these words, lest they lose the kingdom,’ which, he adds, took place, for they transgressed the injunction of the man of God, and lost the kingdom. Adamnan, who is also a contemporary authority for the events of this period, quotes this passage, somewhat amplifying it, and adds—‘Now this prophecy hath been fulfilled 248in our own times in the battle of Roth, in which Domnall Breac, the grandson of Aidan, ravaged without the slightest provocation the territory of Domnall, the grandson of Ainmuireg; and from that day to this (between 690 and 700) they have been trodden down by strangers.’^[314] The battle termed by Adamnan, Roth, was the battle of Magh Rath, fought in 637 between Domnall, son of Aed, king of Ireland, and Congal Claen, king of Uladh, that is of the Cruithnigh of Dalaradia, and appears to have been a great struggle between the Cruithnigh and kindred tribes with the dominant Scots of the race of Hy Neill. Congal Claen applied for assistance both to the Britons and to the king of Scottish Dalriada, and was supported by a large auxiliary force. His claim upon Domnall Breac arose probably from the connection of his father, Eochadh Buidhe, with the Picts, and the gravamen of the charge against the Dalriadic king was that, by the settlement at the convention of Drumceatt, the hostings and expeditions of Scotch Dalriada were to belong to the king of Ireland, and by ranging himself on the side of the Cruithnigh against him, he not only violated that condition, but assailed the head of the family to which Saint Columba belonged.^[315]

In the following year Domnall Breac seems to have made 249another attempt to wrest the territory between the Avon and the Pentlands from the Angles; and Tighernac records in 638 the battle of Glenmairison, or Glenmureson, which is probably the small stream now called the Mureston Water which flows from the Pentlands into the Linhouse Water near Midcalder, in which his people were put to flight, and the siege of Edinburgh.^[316] During these wars there appears to have been hitherto a combination of the Britons of Alclyde and the Scots of Dalriada against the Angles and the Pictish population subject to them. It was, in fact, a conflict of the western tribes against the eastern, and of the Christian party against the pagan and semi-pagan, their common Christianity forming a strong bond of union between the two former nations, and after the death of Rhydderch Hael in 603 the Dalriadic kings seem to have taken the lead in the command of the combined forces. Rhydderch, we are told, but on no better authority than that of Jocelyn of Furness in the twelfth century, was succeeded by his son Constantine; but the throne of Alclyde had by this time passed to another branch of the same family, and from whatever cause it arose, a breach now took place between the Britons and the Scots, and we find the British king and the king of Dalriada in a hostile position to one another, and brought into violent conflict, which ended in the fate which Saint Columba predicted for any descendant of King Aidan who should attack 250|A.D. 642. Domnall Brecc slain in Strathcarron.| the head of the house of Hy Neill overtaking Domnall Breac, who, in December in the year 642, was slain in the upper valley of the river Carron, which was known afterwards as the forest of Strathcawin, by Oan, king of the Britons, in the fifteenth year of his reign.^[317] Dalriada seems to have fallen into a state of anarchy on the death of Domnall Breac. During the remainder of this century we find no descendant of Aidan recorded bearing the title of king of Dalriada; and it is probable, from Adamnan’s remark that from that day to this they have been trodden down by strangers, that the Britons now exercised a rule over them.^[318]

The same year which saw Domnall Breac slain in Strathcarron 251likewise brought Osuald’s reign over Northumbria to a disastrous end. His first effort, on finding himself firmly seated on the throne, had been to re-establish the Christian Church in his dominions, and to drive back the flow of paganism and apostasy which had overspread the country. He naturally turned to the form of Christianity in which he had been educated, and sent to the elders of the Scots, desiring them to send him a prelate who might instruct the nation of the Angles once more in the Christian faith, and ere long received Bishop Aidan from them for this purpose. The account of this mission belongs more to the History of the Early Christian Church in Scotland, and will be there more fully noticed. It is sufficient for our present purpose to say that his episcopal seat was fixed in the island of Lindisfarne, which the king gave him for the purpose. ‘From that time,’ says Bede, ‘many came from the region of the Scots into Britain, and preached the Word to those provinces of the Angles over which King Osuald ruled, and they among them who had received priests’ orders administered the sacrament of baptism. Churches were built. The people joyfully flocked to hear the Word. Possessions and lands were given of the king’s bounty to build monasteries. The Anglic youth were instructed by their Scottish masters, and there were greater care and attention bestowed upon the rules and observance of regular discipline. Most of those that came to preach,’ adds Bede, ‘were monks, and Bishop Aidan himself was a monk of the island called Hii,’ and now, corruptly, Iona.^[319]

252Bede sums up his account of his reign by saying, ‘In short, he brought under his dominion all the nations and provinces of Britain, which are divided into four languages—namely, the Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the Angles;’^[320] but this general expression must be taken as qualified by the statement Bede had previously made in contrasting him with the other Northumbrian kings in his enumeration of those who held imperial authority, that he had the same extent under his rule as his predecessor Aeduin, and it implies no more than that he had brought all the people within the then limits of the Northumbrian kingdom under his subjection, to whatever race they belonged. Bede, however, is stating a more definite result of his reign when he adds that, through his management, the provinces of the Deiri and the Bernicians, which till then had been at variance, were peacefully united and moulded into one people.

These fair prospects, however, were soon to be overcast, for his old enemy Penda, the pagan king of the Mercians, having resolved to renew the struggle and make a second attempt to crush the Christian kingdom of the Northumbrians, Osuald appears to have anticipated the attack, and was killed in a great battle with the Mercians, which was fought at a place called by Bede Maserfelth, but to which the continuator of Nennius gives the name of Cocboy, on the 8th day of August in the year 642. It is believed to have taken place at Oswestry, formerly Oswaldstree, in Shropshire. Thus perished a king who was looked upon as the greatest and most Christian ruler of the Northumbrians, in the ninth year of his reign and the thirty-eighth of his age.^[321]

Osuald was succeeded by his brother Osuiu, then only 253about thirty years old, and during the first twelve years of his reign he had to maintain a struggle for very existence with the victorious king of the Mercians, who appears, as on the former occasion, to have combined with the Britons, as Tighernac records a battle between Osuiu and the Britons early in his reign.^[322] Bede tells us that he was also exposed to much trouble by his own son, Alchfrid, and also by Oidiluald, the son of his brother Osuald, who may have thought he had a better right to the throne. Osuiu placed governors over the province of Deira, the first being Osuini, son of that Osric who had reigned a few months over Deira after the death of Aeduin, and restricted his own immediate rule to his hereditary province of Bernicia, where he had trouble enough to maintain himself; for we find during the episcopate of Aidan, who died in 651, the army of the Mercians, under Penda, ravaging the country of the Northumbrians far and near, and attacking the royal city of Bamborough, and not being able to take it either by assault or by siege, Penda encompassed it on the land side with the materials of the wooden houses in the neighbourhood, which he had broken up and set on fire with a view to burn the town; and Bede tells us that Aidan, who was in one of the Farne Islands, perceived the flames and smoke blown by the wind above the city walls, and by his prayers produced a change of wind, which blew them back on the besiegers, and obliged them to raise the siege.^[323] On another occasion, some years after Aidan’s death, we find Penda again coming into this part of Bernicia with his hostile army, destroying all he could with fire and sword, and burning the village and church in which Aidan died, and which was a royal residence not far from Bamborough.^[324] It is plain from these incidental notices that Penda and his army had Bernicia very much at their mercy, and were continually in the occupation of the country; and 254their irruptions became so intolerable at last, that Osuiu offered him a very large gift of royal ornaments and money to purchase peace if he would cease to ravage and destroy the provinces of his kingdom, but Penda refused to grant his request, and resolved to destroy and extirpate all his nation;^[325] and so desperate became his position, that he appears to have taken refuge in the insular city of Giudi in the Firth of Forth. Penda followed him with his army, composed both of Mercians and of Britons, and Osuiu was compelled to ransom the city by giving Penda all the riches which were in it and in the neighbouring region as far as Manau, which he distributed among the kings of the Britons who were with him; but having raised a small army, and the enemy, who enormously outnumbered them, probably not anticipating an attack, and being in a false security, Osuiu fell upon them unexpectedly in the night and entirely defeated them; Penda himself and the thirty royal commanders who were with him being slain, and Catgabail, king of Guenedotia or North Wales, alone escaping. Bede tells us that this battle took place on the 15th of November in the thirteenth year of King Oswiu’s reign, that is in the year 654, and that it was fought near the river Winuaed, which overflowed its banks so that many more were drowned in the flight than were destroyed by the sword, and that the war was thus brought to a conclusion in the region of Loidis; on the other hand, the continuator of Nennius says that Penda was slain in the plain of Gai, and that it was called the slaughter of the plain of Gai, and places it evidently between the city Judeu, by which Bede’s insular city of Giudi on the Firth of Forth can alone be meant, and Manau, which lay between the Pentlands and the Roman wall. There is no doubt that on the only other occasion on which Bede mentions the region of Loidis^[326] 255he means Leeds, but it is equally certain that Lothian was likewise called the province of Loidis; and if we suppose that Bede here means the northern province of Lothian and not the district of Leeds, it at once reconciles the two accounts. That this is the probable view we may gather from this, that Leeds was in Deira, and a battle fought there is inconsistent with the extent to which it is evident Penda had invaded the kingdom. On the other hand, Florence of Worcester tells us that Penda’s attack was upon Bernicia. It was here that we find Penda from time to time ravaging the country, and it was this kingdom which was more immediately under the rule of Osuiu.^[327] The word Winuaed 256means Battleford, and the river meant by it is probably the Avon, which divides the province of ‘Loidis’ from the district of ‘Calatria,’ called in the Irish Annals ‘Calathros,’ and by the Britons ‘Catraeth’—a district comprehending the parishes of Falkirk, Muiravonside, and Polmont; and traces of the name may still be found in the Fechtin’ Ford about a mile above Manuel, and the Red Ford half a mile farther up.

The result of this great and unexpected victory was, Bede tells us, that Osuiu both delivered his own people from the hostile depredations of the pagans, and, having cut off their wicked head, converted the nation of the Mercians and the adjacent provinces to the Christian faith.

Bede ranks Osuiu as the seventh king of the nations of the Angles who possessed imperial power, and sums up the result of his reign by saying that ‘he held nearly the same dominions for some time as his predecessors, and subdued and made tributary the greater part of the nations of the Picts and Scots which possess the northern part of Britain.’^[328] He thus not only freed his own kingdom from the incursions of the Mercians, and found himself at last in the full and quiet possession of it, but he materially added to his dominions. In the south he obtained possession of Mercia for three years, and in the north extended his sway not only over the Britons but over the Picts and Scots; and thus commenced the dominion of the Angles over the Britons of Alclyde, the Scots of Dalriada, and the southern Picts, which was destined to last for thirty years. By the fall of Penda and the defeat and slaughter of his British allies, the Britons of Alclyde naturally fell under his sway. Tighernac records the death 257of no king of Alclyde during this period till the year 694, and the Ulster Annals, after recording in 658 the death of Gureit or Gwriad, king of Alclyde,^[329] have also a blank during the same time. The Scots of Dalriada naturally fell under his dominion along with the Britons, and we have the testimony of Adamnan that they were trodden down by strangers during the same period. But while these nations became tributary to the Angles during this period of thirty years, the mode in which the king of Northumbria dealt with the Picts shows that their dominion over them was of a different kind, and that they viewed that part of the nation which was subject to them as now forming part of the Northumbrian kingdom. The way for this was prepared by the accession of Talorcan, son of Ainfrit, to the throne of the Picts on the death of Talore, son of Wid, or Ectolairg mac Foith, as Tighernac calls him, in 653.^[330] Talorcan was obviously the son of that Ainfrait, the son of Aedilfrid, and elder brother of Osuald, who on his father’s death had taken refuge with the Picts, and his son Talorcan must have succeeded to the throne through a Pictish mother. At the time, then, when Osuiu thus extended his sway over the Britons and Scots there was a king of the Anglic race by paternal descent actually reigning over the Picts. Tighernac records his death in 657,^[331] and Bede tells us that within three years after he had slain King Penda, Osuiu subjected the greater part of the Picts to the dominion of the Angles.^[332] It is probable, therefore, that he claimed their submission to himself as the cousin and heir on the paternal side of their king Talorcan, and enforced his claim by force of arms. How far his dominion extended it is difficult to say, but it 258certainly embraced, as we shall see, what Bede calls the province of the Picts on the north side of the Firth of Forth, and, nominally at least, may have included the whole territory of the southern Picts; while Gartnaid, the son of Donnell or Domhnaill, who appears in the Pictish Chronicle as his successor, and who from the form of his father’s name must have been of pure Gaelic race, ruled over those who remained independent.

But while Osuiu’s dominion now remained on the whole free from all disturbance from hostile invasion or internal revolt, it was not destined to continue long without being shaken by dissensions from another quarter, and one of those great ecclesiastical questions soon arose, which, in its results, materially affected the current of our history. The Church which Osuald had established in Northumbria, and which had now existed as the national form of religion for thirty years, was an offshoot from the Scottish Church which owned the monastery of Hii or Iona as its head, and followed the customs and rules of that Church; but the great extension of Christianity from Northumbria over the southern states of the Angles which followed the death of Penda, brought it more directly in contact with the southern Church, which owned Saint Augustine as its founder, and conformed in its customs to the Roman Church from which he had derived his mission.

Colman, who had succeeded Finan in 660 as bishop of Lindisfarne, at this time presided over the Scottish Church of Northumbria. Wilfrid was at the head of the Roman party. The points on which the churches differed were the proper time for keeping Easter, the form of the tonsure, and other questions concerning the rules of ecclesiastical life—questions then thought, and especially the first, as of vital importance. Osuiu, Bede tells us, having been instructed and baptized by the Scots, thought nothing better than what they taught, but his son Alchfrid, who then governed Deira, 259having been instructed in Christianity by Wilfrid, a most learned man, who had first gone to Rome to learn the ecclesiastical doctrine, and spent much time at Lyons with Dalfin, archbishop of Gaul, and receiving from him also the coronal tonsure,^[333] had given him a monastery which had been founded at Ripon for the Scots, who quitted it rather than alter their customs.

In order to settle this dispute, a great council was held in 664 at Strenaeshhalc, now Whitby, the details of which belong more to the history of the Church. Suffice it to say that it led to Osuiu submitting with his nation to Wilfrid, and conforming to the Roman customs, while Colman withdrew with his Scots and those who adhered to him, and went back to Scotia to consult with his people what was to be done in this case.^[334] He went first to Hii or Iona on leaving Lindisfarne in 664, taking with him part of the relics of Saint Aidan, and having the rest interred in the sacristy of the church at Lindisfarne, and in 668 passed over to Ireland accompanied by the sons of Gartnaith, who took with them the people of Skye, that is the Columban clergy there, and returned two years afterwards.^[335]

260On the departure of the Scots, the episcopal see was removed from Lindisfarne to York, where it had been originally placed by Paulinus, and Wilfrid was made bishop of York, but did not obtain possession of the diocese till 669, when we find him administering the bishopric of York, and of all the Northumbrians, and likewise of the Picts, as far as the dominions of King Osuiu extended,^[336] an expression which undoubtedly implies that the Picts were not merely tributary to the Angles, but that their territory formed at this time a constituent part of Osuiu’s dominions.

In the following year, Osuiu the king of the Northumbrians, died, and was succeeded in both Bernicia and Deira by his son Ecgfrid, whose accession was soon followed by an attempt on the part of the Picts to throw off the Anglic yoke. The account of this insurrection is preserved to us alone by Eddi, in his Life of St. Wilfrid, who wrote a few years before Bede compiled his history. |A.D. 672. Revolt of the Picts.| He tells us that ‘in the first years of his reign the bestial people of the Picts, despising their subjection to the Saxons, and threatening to throw off the yoke of servitude, collected together innumerable tribes from the north, on hearing which Ecgfrid assembled an army, and at the head of a smaller body of troops advanced against this great and not easily discovered enemy, who were assembled under a formidable ruler called Bernaeth, and attacking them made so great a slaughter that two rivers were almost filled with their bodies. Those 261who fled were pursued and cut to pieces, and the people were again reduced to servitude, and remained under subjection during the rest of Ecgfrid’s reign.’^[337] Such is Eddi’s account, from which it appears to have been an insurrection of the southern Picts who were under the Anglic yoke, in which they were aided by the northern part of the nation who remained independent. The two rivers may have been either the Forth and the Teith, which join their streams a little above Stirling, or the Tay and the Earn, which unite in the Firth of Tay at Abernethy, having a low-lying plain forming the parish of Rhynd between, and the battle probably took place in the second year of Ecgfrid’s reign, as Tighernac records in that year the expulsion from the kingdom of Drost, who had succeeded his brother Gartnaith as king of the Picts.^[338] Eddi then tells us that Ecgfrid attacked and defeated Wlfar, king of the Mercians, and drove him from his kingdom, an event not narrated by Bede, but which must have happened before Wlfar’s death in 675, and adds that ‘Ecgfrid’s kingdom was thus enlarged both in 262the north and the south, and that, under Bishop Wilfrid, the churches were multiplied both in the south among the Saxons, and in the north among the Britons, Scots, and Picts, Wilfrid having ordained everywhere presbyters and deacons, and governed new churches.’^[339] It was probably at this time that the monastery of Aebbercurnig or Abercorn was founded in that part of Lothian which extends from the Esk to the Avon as a central point for the administration of the northern part of his diocese, which included the province of the Picts held by the Angles of Northumbria in subjection.

In 678 Bede tells us that a dissension broke out between King Ecgfrid and Bishop Wilfrid, who was driven from his see. His diocese was divided into two; Bosa was appointed bishop of the province of Deira, having his episcopal seat at York; and Eata over that of the Bernicians, and his seat either in the church of Hagustald or Hexham, or in that of Lindisfarne. Three years afterwards Wilfrid’s diocese was still further divided and two additional bishops added—Tunberct for the church of Hagustald, Eata remaining at Lindisfarne, and Trumuin over the province of the Picts which was subject to the Angles.^[340]

On the failure of these great attempts to recover their independence in 672, that part of the Pictish nation which had not been brought under subjection to the Angles appears 263to have expelled their unsuccessful monarch, Drost, the brother and successor of Gartnaith, son of Domnall, from the kingdom, and to have elected Bredei, son of Bile, to fill the vacant throne.^[341] Bredei was paternally a scion of the royal house of Alclyde, his father Bile appearing in the Welsh genealogies annexed to Nennius as the son of Neithon and father of that Eugein who slew Domnall Breac in 642. His mother was the daughter of Talorcan mac Ainfrait, the last independent king of the Picts before they were subjected by Osuiu.^[342] The object in placing him on the throne may have been to put the true successor of Talorcan, according to the law of Pictish succession, in competition with any claim the Anglic monarch may have had as representing him in the male line. Bredei began his reign in the extreme north, as eight years after we find the siege of Dunbaitte or Dunbeath, in Caithness, recorded in 680. In the following year he advanced beyond the range of the Mounth toward the south, as we have in 681 the siege of Dunfoither or Dunnotter, near Stonehaven; and in 682 we are told by Tighernac that the Orkney Islands were laid waste by Bruidhe.^[343]

In the meantime the little kingdom of Dalriada was in a state of complete disorganisation. We find no record of any real king over the whole nation of the Scots, but each separate tribe seems to have remained isolated from the rest under its own chief, while the Britons exercised a kind of 264sway over them, and, along with the Britons, they were under subjection to the Angles. The most northerly part of Dalriada was the small state called Cinel Baedan, or Kinelvadon, which was a part of the larger tribe of the Cinel Eochagh, one of the three subdivisions of the Cinel Loarn, but separated from the rest by the great arm of the sea called Linnhe Loch. The head of this little tribe was at this time Fearchar Fada, or the Tall, the lineal descendant of Baedan, from whom the tribe took its name, who was son of Eochaidh, grandson of Loarn.^[344] He appears to have commenced an attempt to throw off the authority of the Britons, and with it that of the Angles, but at first unsuccessfully. The first encounter with the Britons was in 678, when the Dalriads were defeated. At the same time the battles of Dunlocho, Liaccmaelain and Doirad Eilinn were fought, the latter of which can alone be placed with any certainty, Doirad Eilinn being obviously the island of Jura.^[345]

Bede tells us that in the year 684 Ecgfrid sent Berct, his general, with an army into Ireland, and laid waste a part of the country, not even sparing the churches or monasteries, in 265spite of the advice of the most reverend father Ecgberct, an Anglic priest, who had been trained in Ireland, and lived much among the Scots and Picts; and we learn from the Irish Annals that the scene of this devastation was the plain of Breg, or the districts along the eastern shore from Dublin to Drogheda.^[347] It seems difficult to suppose that Ecgfrid should have made so wanton an attack upon the Irish without some motive, and it seems probable that he either suspected that the Scots of Dalriada were obtaining help from their countrymen in Ireland, or wishing, by striking this blow, to prevent the Irish from supporting them in their attempt to recover their independence.

Be this as it may, Bede tells us that in the following year King Ecgfrid led an army to ravage the province of the Picts, and that, the enemy feigning a retreat, he was led into the straits of inaccessible mountains and slain with the greatest part of the forces which he had taken with him, on the 20th day of May, in the fortieth year of his age,^[348] that is, in the year 685. The continuator of Nennius tells us that Ecgfrid made war against the descendants of his father’s brother, who was king of the Picts, and called Bridei, and fell there with the whole strength of his army, the Picts with their king being victorious, and that from the time of this war it was called the battle of Lingaran. Tighernac places the devastation in Ireland in the year 685, and this battle, which he calls the battle of Duin Nechtain, in the year 686. He agrees with Bede in stating that it took place on the 20th of June, and adds that it was fought on a 266Saturday, but as the 20th of June fell on a Saturday in the year 685, it is evident that Bede’s date is the correct one. Simeon of Durham says that the battle was fought at a place called Nechtan’s Mere, and the Annals of Ulster add the further fact that Ecgfrid had burnt Tula Aman and Duin Ollaig.^[349] Ecgfrid appears therefore to have crossed the Forth at Stirling, and advanced through Perthshire to the Tay, where he burnt the place called Tula Aman at the mouth of the river Almond where it falls into the Tay. He seems at the same time to have sent a detachment from his army into Dalriada, where he burnt Duinollaig, now Dunolly, the chief stronghold of the Cinel Loarn. He then followed the retreating army of the Picts along the level country bounded on the north-west by the range of the Sidlaw hills, and in attempting incautiously to penetrate through the mountain range at Dunnichen was surrounded and defeated, his army being almost entirely cut off and himself slain. There was a lake, now drained, called the Mire of Dunnichen, where the battle was fought, and has left its record in the numerous stone coffins which have been found in the neighbourhood.^[350]

An Irish annalist has preserved to us the following lines, attributed to Riagal of Bangor:—

The effect of this crushing defeat of the Anglic army, accompanied by the death of their king, was to enable those who had been under subjection to them at once to recover their independence; and Bede thus sums it up:—‘From that time the hopes and strength of the Anglic kingdom began to fluctuate and to retrograde, for the Picts recovered the territory belonging to them which the Angles had held, and the Scots who were in Britain and a certain part of the Britons regained their liberty, which they have now enjoyed for about forty-six years.’^[352]

The difference in the expressions used with regard to the Picts and those employed towards the Scots and Britons shows that while the latter were merely tributary to the Angles, the former had actually been incorporated with their kingdom; but the result secured the full independence of both, which they had retained during the forty-six years which elapsed from the death of Ecgfrid to the termination of Bede’s history; and thus terminated the thirty years’ subjection of the Picts, the Scots of Dalriada, and the Britons of Alclyde, to the Angles; and as, after the defeat of Aedan with his army of Scots and Britons at Dawstane, it was said that no Scot durst after that attack the kingdom of the Angles, so now we are told that the Angles never afterwards were in a position to exact a tribute from the Picts.^[353]

Some portion of this period of forty-six years elapsed before the mutual relations of the Angles and Picts on the one hand, and the Scots and Britons on the other, became 268fixed within definite limits, and their internal government completely reorganised. The Angles by this defeat lost the Pictish territory Osuiu had added to their kingdom thirty years before; but the previous boundaries of the Northumbrian kingdom seem to have been retained, and we are told by Bede that Aldfrid, the successor of Ecgfrid, ‘nobly retrieved the ruined state of the kingdom though within narrower bounds.’^[354] The whole Pictish nation north of the Firth of Forth, which Bede terms the Province of the Picts, was now once more independent, but the kingdom of the Angles still extended, nominally at least, to the Avon; and though we are told that ‘among the many Angles who there either fell by the sword or were made slaves, or escaped by flight out of the country of the Picts, the most reverend man of God, Trumuini, who had received the bishopric over them, withdrew with his people that were in the monastery of Aebbercurnig’ or Abercorn, Bede adds that it was ‘seated in the country of the Angles, but close by the arm of the sea which divides the territories of the Angles and the Picts.’^[355]

Seven years after the battle of Dunnichen, Bruide, son of Bile, the king of the Picts, died.^[356] He is termed by Tighernac king of Fortrenn, from which it would appear that after the re-establishment of the Pictish kingdom in its independence he had made the district of Fortrenn his principal seat, to which he was no doubt led by his paternal connection with 269the Britons, and this term of Fortrenn now came to be used as synonymous with the kingdom of the Picts.

Adamnan held the abbacy of Hii or Iona at the time that Bruide died, and the Irish Life of Adamnan contains the following strange legend:—‘The body of Bruide, son of Bile, king of the Cruithnigh, was brought to Ia (Iona), and his death was sorrowful and grievous to Adamnan, and he desired that the body of Bruide should be brought to him into the house that night. Adamnan watched by the body till morning. Next day, when the body began to move and open its eyes, a certain devout man came to the door of his house and said, “If Adamnan’s object be to raise the dead, I say he should not do so, for it will be a degradation to every cleric who shall succeed to his place, if he too cannot raise the dead.” “There is somewhat of right in that,” said Adamnan, “therefore, as it is more proper, let us give our blessing to the body and to the soul of Bruide.” Thus Bruide resigned his spirit to heaven again, with the blessing of Adamnan and the congregation of Ia. Then Adamnan said—

He was succeeded by Taran, son of Entefidich, who seems to have belonged to a different section of the Picts, and not to have been generally accepted by the nation, as in the year following his accession we have again a siege of Dun Foither or Dunnotter, and after a short reign of four years he is driven from the throne.^[358] Taran was succeeded by Bridei, son 270of Dereli. In the year following Tighernac records a battle between the Saxons and the Picts, in which Brechtraig, son of Bernith, is slain. Bede in his Chronicle also records that Brerctred, a royal commander of the Northumbrians, was slain by the Picts,^[359] and we are told in the Ulster Annals that, a year after, Taran took refuge in Ireland. Brechtraig appears to have been the son of that Bernaeth who headed the insurrection of the Picts in 672, and seems to have made an effort to recover the influence of the Angles over the Picts, which was successfully resisted. Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, died in 705, and was succeeded by his son Osred, a boy of eight years old; and in the following year Tighernac records the death of Brude, son of Dereli,^[360] who was succeeded by his brother Nectan, son of Dereli, according to the Pictish law of succession. Five years after his accession, the Picts of the plain of Manann, probably encouraged by the success of the neighbouring kingdom of the Picts in maintaining their independence against the Angles, rose against their Saxon rulers. They were opposed by Berctfrid, the prefect or Alderman of the Northumbrians, whose king was still only in his fourteenth year. The Picts, however, were defeated with great slaughter, and their youthful leader Finguine, son of Deleroith, slain. The Saxon Chronicle tells us that this battle was fought between Hæfe and Cære, by which the rivers Avon and Carron are probably meant, the plain of Manann being situated between these two rivers.^[361] These Picts appear to have been so effectually crushed that they did not renew the attempt, and we do not learn of any 271further collision between the Picts and the Angles during this period.

The Scots of Dalriada and a party of the British nation, we are told, recovered their freedom, the Angles still maintaining the rule over the rest of the Britons. The portion of their kingdom which became independent consisted of those districts extending from the Firth of Clyde to the Solway, embracing the counties of Dumbarton, Renfrew, Lanark, Ayr, and Dumfries, with the stronghold of Alclyde for its capital: but the Angles still retained possession of the district of Galloway with its Pictish population, and Whitehern as their principal seat, as well as of that part of the territory of the Britons which lay between the Solway Firth and the river Derwent, having as its principal seat the town of Carlisle, which Ecgfrid had, in the same year in which he assailed the Picts, given to Saint Cuthbert, who had been made bishop of Lindisfarne in the previous year, that is, in 684.^[362]

Eight years after the death of Ecgfrid, Tighernac records the death of Domnal mac Avin, king of Alclyde. He was probably the son of that Oan or Eugein who slew Domnall Breac in 642,^[363] and had, on the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, recovered his father’s throne. He was succeeded by Bile, son of Alpin, and grandson of the same Eugein.

Although the Scots of Dalriada had thus obtained entire independence, they did not immediately become united under 272one king. Their freedom from the yoke of the Britons and Angles was followed by a contest between the chiefs of their two principal tribes, the Cinel Loarn and the Cinel Gabhran, for the throne of Dalriada. On the death of Domnall Breac, when the Britons obtained a kind of supremacy over the Dalriads, his brother Conall Crandamna, and his sons Mailduin and Domnal Donn, appear to have been at the head of the Cinel Gabhran, but Fearchar Fata, the chief of the principal branch of the Cinel Loarn, had, as we have seen, taken the lead in the attempt to free Dalriada from the rule of strangers. The death of Domnall Donn, the son of Conall Crandamna, is recorded in 696, and that of Fearchar Fata in 697. The former was succeeded by Eocha, the grandson of Domnall Breac, who was slain in the same year, and the latter by his son Ainbhcellaig, who in the following year was expelled from the kingdom, after Duinonlaig or Dunolly had been burnt, and was sent bound to Ireland;^[364] but none of these leaders of the Cinel Loarn or the Cinel Gabhran bore the title of king of Dalriada.^[365] On the expulsion of Ainbhcellaig we find his brother Sealbach at the head of the Cinel Loarn, and in 701 he destroys Dun Onlaigh, and cuts off the Cinel Cathbath, a rival branch of the tribe of Loarn.^[366] Three years after, the slaughter of the Dalriads in Glenlemnae, or the valley of the Leven, is recorded, but whether it was in the valley of the river Leven, which divides Lorn from Lochaber, and flows into Loch Leven there, or 273whether it was the Leven in Dumbartonshire, cannot be fixed with any certainty. In 707, Becc, grandson of Dunchada, was slain. He was the head of a branch of the Cinel Gabhran, who possessed the south half of Kintyre, and were descended from Conaing, one of the sons of Aidan, to whom it was given as his patrimony.^[367]

The Dalriads appear soon after to have carried the war into the British territory, for we have, in 711, a conflict of the Dalriads and Britons at Loirgeclat, by which Loch Arklet, on the east side of Loch Lomond, is probably meant, in which the Britons are defeated. In 712 Sealbach besieges Aberte or Dunaverty, the main stronghold of the south half of Kintyre, the patrimony of the branch of the Cinel Gabhran of which the descendants of Conaing, son of Aidan, were the head. In 714 Dunolly is rebuilt by Sealbach, and three years afterwards there is again a conflict between the Britons and Dalriads, at the stone which is called Minvircc, and the Britons are again defeated.^[368] In the valley at the head of Loch Lomond which is called Glenfalloch there is a place called Clach na Breatan, or the stone of the Britons, which is now at the separation of Dumbartonshire from Perthshire, but originally marked the 274northern boundary of the territory of the Britons, and was probably the scene of this conflict.

During the rest of the period of forty-six years which succeeded the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, no further collision between the Britons and the Dalriads is recorded, and each nation remained within the limits of its own proper kingdom.

When Bede closes his history, forty-six years after the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, and we lose his invaluable guidance through the annals of this obscure period, he leaves us with this important record of the position of the four kingdoms at that time:—‘In the province of the Northumbrians, where king Ceoluulf reigns, four bishops now preside; Wilfrid in the church of York, Ediluald in that of Lindisfarne, Acca in that of Hagustald, Pecthelm in that which is called ‘Candida Casa,’ which, from the increased number of believers, has lately become an additional episcopal see, and has him for its first prelate. The Picts also at this time have a treaty of peace with the nation of the Angles, and rejoice in being united in catholic peace and truth with the universal church. The Scots that inhabit Britain, satisfied with their own territories, meditate no plots or conspiracies against the nation of the Angles. The Britons, though they, for the most part, through domestic hatred, are adverse to the nation of the Angles, and wrongfully, and from wicked custom, oppose the appointed Easter of the whole Catholic Church; yet, from both the Divine and human power firmly withstanding them, they can in no way prevail as they desire; for though in part they are their own masters, yet partly they are also brought under subjection to the Angles.’^[369]

276Causes, however, had already been in operation during the latter part of this period, which were destined soon after its termination to alter very materially the relative position of these kingdoms. During the entire period of a century and a half which had now elapsed since the northern Picts were converted to Christianity by the preaching of Saint Columba, there is hardly to be found the record of a single battle between them and the Scots of Dalriada. Had they viewed each other as hostile races, it is difficult to account for the more powerful nation of the Picts permitting a small colony like the Scots of Dalriada to remain in undisturbed possession of the western district where they had settled. Prior, indeed, to the mission of Saint Columba we find the king of the northern Picts endeavouring to expel them, but after that date there existed a powerful element of peace and bond of union in the Columban Church. It was in every respect a Scottish Church, with a Scottish clergy supplied from Ireland. The Columban foundations had spread over the whole nation of the Picts. They owed their civilisation to its influence, and intrusted the education of their children to its monastic schools; and the Columban church of the Picts was, along with the Columban monasteries in the north of Ireland, under the jurisdiction of the abbot of Hii or Iona. As long, therefore, as this powerful influence lasted, the Picts were content to remain at peace with the Scots of Dalriada, and to view them as forming, as it were, 277one state along with the Pictish provinces in a Christian confederacy; but the king who now reigned over the Picts, Nectan, son of Derili, was led to adopt a course which worked an entire revolution in the ecclesiastical relations of the Picts and Scots, and led, as its inevitable result, to a change in their friendly relations.

In the reign of this Nectan it is reported that a missionary named Bonifacius, who came from Rome, landed in the Firth of Forth, and made his way through Pictavia till he came to a place called Restinoth. Here he met Nectan, king of the Picts, with his army, who, with his nobles and servants, received from Bonifacius the sacrament of baptism. The king gave the place of his baptism, which he dedicated to the Holy Trinity, to Bonifacius. Many people were indoctrinated there into the Christian faith, and he employed himself in the erection of churches there and in other places. The legend tells us that Bonifacius was an Israelite descended from the sister of St. Peter and St. Andrew, and a native of Bethlehem; that he was accompanied by six other bishops—Benedictus, Servandus, Pensandus, Benevolus, Madianus, and Principuus; two virgins, abbesses, Crescentia and Triduana; seven presbyters, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, seven acolytes, seven exorcists, seven lectors, and seven door-keepers; that he founded one hundred and fifty temples of God, consecrated as many bishops, and ordained a thousand presbyters; that he converted and baptized thirty-six thousand people of both sexes, and died on the 16th of March.^[370] This is of course mere legend, and when reduced to its probable meaning amounts to no more than this, that he brought over the king of the Picts and many of his people from the Columban Church to conformity with the Church of Rome. He is termed in the calendars Kiritinus; his day is the same with that in the Irish calendars of Curitan, bishop and abbot of Rossmeinn, and he is said to have been 278one of the saints who became security for the Cain Adomnan,^[371] which places him at this time. Bonifacius was therefore in reality probably a missionary from that part of the Irish Church which had conformed to Rome, and the church of Restinoth or Restennet being dedicated to St. Peter is an indication of the character of his mission.

This legend is clearly connected with the statement Bede makes towards the close of his narrative—and here he is narrating events which happened during his own life—‘that at this time,’ that is, in the year 710, ‘Naitan, king of the Picts who inhabit the northern parts of Britain, taught by frequent study of the ecclesiastical writings, renounced the error by which he and his nation had till then held in relation to the observance of Easter, and submitted together with his people to celebrate the Catholic time of our Lord’s resurrection. In order that he might perform this with the greater ease and authority, he sought assistance from the nation of the Angles, whom he knew to have long since formed their religion after the example of the holy Roman and Apostolic Church. Accordingly he sent messengers to the venerable man Ceolfrid, abbot of the monastery of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, which stands at the mouth of the river Tyne at the place called Jarrow, desiring that he would write him a letter containing arguments, by the help of which he might the more powerfully confute those that presumed to keep Easter out of the due time; as also concerning the form and manner of the tonsure for distinguishing the clergy; not to mention that he himself possessed much information in these particulars. He also prayed to have architects sent him to build a church in his nation after the Roman manner, promising to dedicate the same in honour of the blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and that he and all his people would always follow the custom of the holy Roman Apostolic Church, as far as they could ascertain 279the same in consequence of their remoteness from the Roman language and nation.’ Bede then gives us the letter addressed by Abbot Ceolfrid to ‘the most excellent lord and most glorious king Naitan,’ of which there is strong reason to think he was himself the author, being at the time a monk at Jarrow, and thus concludes the narrative:—‘This letter having been read in the presence of king Naitan and many others of the most learned men, and carefully interpreted into his own language by those who could understand it, he is said to have much rejoiced at the exhortation, insomuch that, rising from among his great men who sat about him, he knelt on the ground giving thanks to God that he had been found worthy to receive such a present from the land of the Angles; and, said he, I knew indeed before that this was the true celebration of Easter, but now I so fully know the reason for the observance of this time, that I seem convinced that I knew very little of it before. Therefore I publicly declare and protest to you who are here present, that I will for ever continually observe this time of Easter, together with all my nation; and I do decree that this tonsure which we have heard is most reasonable shall be received by all the clergy in my kingdom. Accordingly he immediately performed by his regal authority what he had said. For the cycles of nineteen years were forthwith, by public command, sent throughout all the provinces of the Picts to be transcribed, learnt, and observed, the erroneous revolutions of eighty-four years being everywhere obliterated. All the ministers of the altar and the monks adopted the coronal tonsure; and the nation being thus reformed, rejoiced, as being newly placed under the direction of Peter, the most blessed prince of the apostles, and made secure under his protection.’^[372]

There is strong reason for concluding that the scene of this assembly, where we see the king of the Picts surrounded 280by his nobles and his learned men, was no other than Scone, which had then become, as it was afterwards, the principal seat of the kingdom, and that from the Mote Hill of Scone issued now, as similar decrees issued afterwards, that public decree which regulated the form of the Christian Church among the Picts; that it was here too that Nectan dedicated his church to the Holy Trinity; and that it was from these events and the scene enacted there that the Mote Hill came to be known as the ‘Hill of Belief.’^[373]

The reference too to the provinces of the Picts, combined with the statement in the legend that the Roman mission, as it may be called, had seven bishops at its head, leads us to conclude that the division of the kingdom of the Picts into seven provinces existed at this time. A tract of the twelfth century tells us that the territory anciently called ‘Albania,’ from the Picts, ‘Pictavia,’ and now corruptly ‘Scotia,’ was in ancient times divided by seven brethren into seven parts. ‘The principal part was Enegus and Moerne (now Angus and the Mearns or Kincardineshire), so called from Enegus, the eldest of the brothers. The second part was Adtheodle 281and Gouerin (now Atholl and Gowry). The third, Sradeern and Meneted (now Stratherne and Menteith). The fourth, Fif and Fothreve (now Fife and Kinross). The fifth, Marr and Buchen (now Mar and Buchan). The sixth, Muref and Ros (now Moray and Ross). The seventh, Cathanesia citra montem and ultramontem (now Sutherland and Caithness). That each province had a sub-province within it, and that these seven brothers were seven kings having seven sub-kings under them.’ These seven brothers are different from the seven sons of Cruithne of the Pictish legend, as the eldest is here called Angus, but they are obviously merely the ‘eponymi’ of the people of seven provinces. That this division can belong to no later period is apparent from the omission of that part of the western districts which formed the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada; and of the sub-kings we find one noticed at this very time,—Talorgan, son of Drostan, who is mentioned by Tighernac as flourishing from 713 to 739, when his death is recorded as ‘Rex Athfhotla’ or king of Atholl.^[374] Four of these provinces composed the territory of the southern Picts, and the district of Gowrie forms the central region in which they all meet, and here on the east bank of the Tay was Scone, the principal seat at this time of the kingdom of the Picts.

It was at Scone too that the Coronation Stone was ‘reverently kept for the consecration of the kings of Alban,’ and of this stone it was believed that ‘no king was ever wont to reign in Scotland unless he had first, on receiving the royal 282name, sat upon this stone at Scone, which by the kings of old had been appointed the capital of Alban.’^[375] Of its identity with the stone now preserved in the coronation chair at Westminster there can be no doubt. It is an oblong block of red sandstone, some 26 inches long by 16 inches broad, and 10½ inches deep, and the top is flat and bears the marks of chiselling. Its mythic origin identifies it with the stone which Jacob used as a pillow at Bethel, and then set up there for a pillar and anointed with oil, which, according to Jewish tradition, was afterwards removed to the second temple, and served as the pedestal for the ark. Legend has much to tell of how it was brought from thence to Scotland, but history knows of it only at Scone.^[376] It too may have been connected with the legend of Bonifacius. We find that the principal Irish missionaries frequently carried about with them a slab or block of stone, which they used as an altar for the celebration of the Eucharist, and which was usually termed a stone altar. In places where it had been used for this purpose by any celebrated saint, and remained there, it was the object of much veneration among the people, and is the subject of many of the miracles recorded in the acts of the saint. Saint Patrick’s stone altar is frequently mentioned in his acts, and, in the only strictly analogous case to the coronation stone of the Scotch kings—that of the kings of Munster, who were crowned on the rock of Cashel, sitting upon a similar stone—the belief was that this coronation stone had been the stone altar of Saint Patrick on which he had first celebrated the Eucharist after the conversion and 283baptism of the king of Cashel. It is therefore not impossible that the coronation stone of Scone may have had the same origin, and been the stone altar upon which Bonifacius first celebrated the Eucharist after he had brought over the king of the Picts and his people from the usages of the Columban Church to conformity with those of the Roman Church, and possibly re-baptized him. The legend that it had been the stone at Bethel, which became the pedestal of the ark in the temple, and brought from thence, may have also a connection with the statement in the legend of Bonifacius that he was an Israelite and a native of Bethlehem, and had come from thence to Rome.^[377]

Be this as it may, the fact that Nectan and his people had at this time conformed to the Anglican Roman Church as contradistinguished from the Columban, and had issued a decree requiring the adoption of the Roman usages by the 284clergy of his kingdom, based as it is upon the personal knowledge of Bede, who lived at the time and records it, is undoubtedly historical. Nectan appears to have failed to obtain the submission of the Columban clergy to his decree, and some years after, in 717, he took the strong step of expelling them from the kingdom, and driving them across Drumalban, which then formed the boundary between the southern Picts and the Scots of Dalriada.^[378] This opened the Columban foundations in the territory of the Picts to Scottish clergy who belonged to that part of the Irish Church which had conformed to Rome, and were not under the jurisdiction of Hii or Iona, as well as to such clergy from the kingdom of Northumbria as were disposed to adventure themselves once more into the Pictish country; and seven years afterwards, in the year 724, Nectan himself became a cleric, and was succeeded on the Pictish throne by Druxst.^[379] The step thus taken by Nectan of dispossessing the Columban Church of the foundations it had possessed for a century and a half, and of driving its clergy out of the kingdom, naturally placed the kingdom of the Scots of Dalriada and that of the Picts in direct antagonism to each other, and arrayed the clergy under the jurisdiction of Iona against the latter, while the contest between the Dalriads and the Britons had for the time ceased. That, however, between the two great tribes of the Dalriads themselves—the Cinel Loarn and the Cinel Gabhran—still continued. In 719 Ainbhceallach, the son of Fearchar Fata, who had reigned one year after his father, and been expelled by his brother Sealbach, and sent bound to Ireland, appears to have made an effort to recover his position at the head of the Cinel Loarn, and a battle took place at Finglen on the Braes of Loarn, near Lochavich, between the brothers, in which 285Ainbhceallach was slain.^[380] Tradition has preserved a record of this battle in the name Blar nam braithrean, or the battle-field of the brothers. In the same year a naval battle took place between the Cinel Gabhran under Dunchadh, son of Becc, the chief of that branch of the tribe which possessed the south half of Kintyre, and were descended from Conaing, son of Aidan, and the Cinel Loarn under Sealbach, at a place called Arddanesbi, probably the Point of Ardminish on the island of Gigha, in which the latter was defeated and several of the chiefs of his vassal tribes were slain. Dunchadh did not long enjoy his victory, for his death is recorded two years after, in which he is designated king of Kintyre.^[381] In 722 the death of Beli, son of Alpin, king of Alclyde, is also recorded, and in the following year Sealbach becomes a cleric, and resigns his throne to his son Dungal.^[382] Sealbach is the first of those chiefs, subsequent to the death of Domnall Brecc in 642, who bears the title of king of Dalriada, which shows that the kingdom of Dalriada had now been reconstituted, and that the chiefs of the Cinel Loarn had made good their right to occupy the throne along with the head of the Cinel Gabhran. Of the events of the reign of Drust two only are recorded, which seem to show an opposition between the party of Nectan, the previous king, and that of Drust. In 725, Simal, the son of Drust, is taken and bound, and in 726 Drust 286retaliates by subjecting the cleric Nectan to a similar fate.

There now follows a revolution in the two kingdoms of the Dalriads and the Picts, which takes place simultaneously. In the one Dungal of the Cinel Loarn is driven from the throne, and Eochaidh, who now appears as the head of the Cinel Gabhran, succeeds him. In the other Drust is driven from the throne and succeeded by Alpin.^[383] These were brothers. Eochadh was the son of that Eochaidh, the grandson of Domnall Brecc, who died in 697, and Alpin was another son of the same Eochaidh, but his name shows that he had a Pictish mother, through whom he derived his claim to the Pictish throne.^[384] The expulsion of Dungal from the throne of Dalriada seems to have called forth his father Sealbach from his monastery to endeavour to regain it. In 727 there is recorded a conflict at Ross-Foichen, or the promontory of Feochan, at the mouth of Loch Feochan, between him and the family of Eachdach, the grandson of Domnall, in which several of the two Airgiallas were slain.^[385] Sealbach was unsuccessful, as 287Eochaidh remained in possession of the throne till his death is recorded as king of Dalriada in 733.^[386] If, however, the revolution in Dalriada in 726 led to a renewed contest between the Cinel Gabhran under Eochaidh and the Cinel Loarn under Sealbach, that which took place in the kingdom of the Picts was followed by a still more determined struggle for supremacy which broke out, apparently, between several of the Pictish tribes, and led to the final establishment of a new family on the Pictish throne, the head of which was destined to terminate the Dalriadic kingdom. The parties to this struggle were Alpin, the reigning king, and Drust, 288his predecessor, who seem to have had their main interest in the central region about Scone; Nectan, the son of Derili, who, once more entering into secular life, endeavoured to regain his crown; and seems to have been connected with the more northern districts; and Aengus, son of Fergus, who is identified with the province of Fortrenn, and appears to have been the founder of a new family. The first collision was at ‘Monaigh Craebi’ or Moncrieffe, a name which belongs to a hill separating the valley of the Earn from that of the Tay, not far from the junction of the two rivers, between Aengus and Alpin, in which battle Aengus was victorious, and wrested the country west of the Tay from Alpin, whose son was slain in the conflict. The second collision was between Alpin and Nectan at ‘Caislen Credi’—the Castle of Belief, or Scone, the capital of the kingdom—when Alpin was again defeated, his territories and all his men were taken, and Nectan obtained the kingdom of the Picts while Alpin fled.^[387] The sympathies of the Irish chronicler were with Alpin, as he terms this battle Cath truadh, an unfortunate battle. In the following year Angus attacked Nectan, who now bore the title of king of the Picts, and seems to have fled before him, as the final conflict took place on the bank of a lake formed by the river Spey, then termed Loogdeae, but now Loch Inch, between Nectan and an army Angus had sent in pursuit of him, in which Aengus’s family were victorious, and the officers of Nectan were slain,—Biceot son of Moneit, and his son, and Finguine son of 289Drostan, and Ferot son of Finguine, and many others.^[388] Angus himself, who now called himself king of the Picts, encountered Drust at a place called Dromaderg Blathmig, which has been identified as the Redhead of Angus, near Kinblethmont, where Drust was slain on the 12th day of August.^[389] The last battle fought in this struggle was in 731, between Brude, son of Aengus, and Talorcan, son of Congus, in which the latter was defeated and fled across Drumalban into Lorn,^[390] and in the following year Tighernac records the death of Nectan, son of Derili.

Aengus was now firmly established on the Pictish throne, and his reign of thirty years is variously dated from 729 or from 731, according as the battles in the one or the other year are held to have finally confirmed his rule over the kingdom of the Picts. The death of Eachach, king of Dalriada, two years after, again opened the throne to the race of Loarn, and Muredach, the son of Ainbhceallach, assumed the chiefship of the Cinel Loarn, while Dungal, son of Selbaig, took possession of the throne of Dalriada; and in the same year the fleet of Dalriada was summoned to Ireland to assist Flaithbertach, king of Ireland, who had been defeated in battle by Aeda Allan, head of the Cinel Eoghan, and afterwards his successor on the throne of Ireland, and many of the Dalriads were slain and others drowned in the river 290Bann. Dungal, who appears to have accompanied them on his way to invade Culrenrigi, an island of the Cinel Eoghan, found Brude, the son of Aengus, in Toragh, a church founded by Saint Columba, in Tory island off the coast of Donegal, and violated the sanctuary by dragging him from it, which drew down upon him the wrath of Aengus, who in the following year invaded Dalriada and destroyed a fort called Dun Leithfinn, but which cannot now be identified, after having wounded Dungal, who fled to Ireland from his power. At the same time Tolarg, the son of Congus, was delivered into his hands by his own brother and drowned by his orders, and Talorgan, the son of Drostan, was taken near Dunolly and bound.^[391]

A still more formidable attack was made by Aengus, the Pictish king, upon Dalriada, two years after, when in 736 he is recorded to have laid waste the entire country, taken possession of its capital Dunad, burnt Creic, a fort, the remains of which are still to be seen on the promontory of Craignish, and thrown the two sons of Sealbach, Dungal and Feradach, into chains; and shortly after his son Brude, who had been taken prisoner by Dungal, the king of Dalriada, died.^[392] On this occasion Aengus appears to have obtained entire possession 291of Dalriada, and to have driven the two branches of its people, the Cinel Loarn under Muredach and the Cinel Gabhran under Alpin, the brother of Eochaidh, to extremity, for the former appears to have burst from Dalriada upon the Picts who inhabited the plain of Manann between the Carron and the Avon, in a desperate attempt to take possession of their country or to draw Aengus from Dalriada, and was met on the banks of the Avon at Cnuicc Coirpri in Calatros, now Carriber, where the Avon separates Lothian from Calatria, by Talorgan, the brother of Aengus, and defeated and pursued by him with his army, and many of his chief men slain.^[393]

At this time the Northumbrians were at enmity with the Picts. Ceoluulf, the king of Northumbria, had followed the fashion of the time, and become a monk in Lindisfarne in the year 737. He was succeeded by his cousin Eadberct, the son of his father’s brother; and we are told, in the short chronicle annexed to Bede, that in 740 Aedilbald, king of Mercia, unfairly laid waste part of Northumbria, its king, Eadberct, being occupied with his army against the Picts.^[394] It is probable that Aengus had excited the hostility of the king of Northumbria by stirring up the Picts of Lothian and Galloway to revolt, and that Eadberct may have encouraged if not invited the Scots of Dalriada to occupy their country. Alpin is said by all authorities to have reigned four years after Dungal, which brings us to the year 740, when he invaded Galloway with the part of the Dalriadic nation which followed him, and was slain there, after having laid waste and almost destroyed the country of the Picts. The Ulster Annals thus record it in 741:—Battle of Drum Cathmail between the Cruithnigh and the Dalriads against Innrechtach.^[395] The 292locality of this battle appears to have been in Galloway, not far from Kirkcudbright, and Innrechtach was probably the leader of the Galloway Picts. One of the Chronicles appears to have preserved the traditionary account of his death when it tells us that he was slain in Galloway, after he had destroyed it, by a single person who lay in wait for him in a thick wood overhanging the entrance of the ford of a river as he rode among his people.^[396] The scene of his death must have been on the east side of Loch Ryan, where a stream falls into the loch, on the north side of which is the farm of Laight, and on this farm is a large upright pillar stone, to which the name of Laight Alpin, or the grave of Alpin, is given.^[397] In the same year we have the short but significant record of the crushing of the Dalriads by Aengus, son of Fergus.^[398]

By all the Chronicles compiled subsequent to the eleventh century, Alpin, son of Eochaidh, is made the last of the kings of Dalriada; but the century of Dalriadic history which follows his death in 741 is suppressed, and his reign is 293brought down to the end of the century by the insertion of spurious kings. The true era of the genuine kings who reigned over Dalriada can be ascertained by the earlier lists given us by Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan in the eleventh century, and the Annals of Tighernac and of Ulster, which are in entire harmony with each other. These earlier lists place nine kings during this century which followed the death of Alpin, whose united reigns amount to ninety-eight years. There is unfortunately a hiatus in the Annals of Tighernac from the year 765 to the year 973; but during the thirty years from 736 to 765 Tighernac records no king of Dalriada. In the remaining seventy-six years of the suppressed century, the Annals of Ulster mention only three kings of Dalriada, the first of whom corresponds with the second name in the list of nine kings given by the earlier Chroniclers, and he may have been a Scot;^[399] but the seven who follow him bear the most unequivocal marks of having been Picts, and this shows us that the effect of Aengus’s repeated invasions and final conquest of Dalriada was to make it a Pictish province: his entire possession of the country having led the remains of both the Cinel Loarn and the Cinel Gabhran to seek settlements elsewhere; while during the reign of his successor one attempt only appears to have been made to restore the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada.^[400]

294The list of Pictish kings in the later Chronicles bears also marks of having been manipulated for a purpose, but here fortunately we have the trustworthy guide of the Pictish Chronicle, which belongs to the tenth century, and is evidently untainted. For the Anglic history our invaluable guide Bede leaves us in 731, and the short chronicle annexed to his work in 765, as does also the continuator of Nennius in 738; and we have now to resort to the works of Simeon of Durham, as the best source remaining to look to for Northumbrian events. For the Britons of Alclyde we have merely the short notices contained in the chronicle annexed to Nennius, usually termed the Annales Cambriæ, and the Welsh Chronicle called the Brut y Tywysogyon.

These nations had now resumed their normal relation to each other—east against west—the Picts and Angles again in alliance, and opposed to them the Britons and the Scots. Simeon of Durham tells us that in 744 a battle was fought between the Picts and the Britons, but, by the Picts, Simeon usually understands the Picts of Galloway, and this battle seems to have followed the attack upon them by Alpin and his Scots. It was followed by a combined attack upon the Britons of Alclyde by Eadberct of Northumbria, and Aengus, king of the Picts. The chronicle annexed to Bede tells us that in 750 Eadberct added the plain of Cyil with other regions to his kingdom.^[401] This is evidently Kyle in Ayrshire, 295and the other regions were probably Carrick and Cuninghame, so that the king of Northumbria added to his possessions of Galloway on the north side of the Solway the whole of Ayrshire. In the same year the Picts of the plain of Manann and the Britons encountered each other at Mocetauc or Magedauc, now Mugdoch in Dumbartonshire, where a great battle was fought between them, in which Talorgan, the brother of Aengus, who had been made king of the outlying Picts, was slain by the Britons.^[402] Two years after, Teudubr, the son of Bile, king of Alclyde, died, and a battle is fought between the Picts themselves at a place called by Tighernac ‘Sreith,’ in the land of Circin, that is, in the Strath in the Mearns, in which Bruide, the son of Maelchu, fell. As his name is the same as the Bruide, son of Maelchu, who was king of the northern Picts in the sixth century, this was probably an attack upon Aengus’s kingdom by the northern Picts.^[403]

Eadberct, king of Northumbria, and Aengus, king of the Picts, now united for the purpose of subjecting the Britons of Alclyde entirely to their power, and in 756 they led an army to Alclyde, and there received the submission of the Britons on the first day of August in that year. Ten days afterwards, however, Simeon of Durham records that almost the whole army perished as Eadberct was leading it from Ovania, probably Avendale or Strathaven in the vale of the Clyde, through the hill country to Niwanbyrig or Newburgh.^[404] The 296Britons of Alclyde thus passed a second time under subjection to the Angles, which continued some time, as in 760 the death of Dunnagual, the son of Teudubr is recorded, but he is not termed king of Alclyde.^[405] In the year 761 Tighernac records the death of Aengus mac Fergus, king of the Picts, after a reign of thirty years; and the chronicle annexed to Bede, which places his death in the same year, adds that ‘from the beginning of his reign to the end of it he showed himself a sanguinary tyrant of the most cruel actions.’^[406]

Nevertheless, it is to the reign of this Angus, son of Fergus, that the foundation of the monastery of Kilrimont or St. Andrews properly belongs. According to the earliest form of the legend, the king of the Picts, Ungus son of Uirguist by name, with a large army, attacks the Britannic nations inhabiting the south of the island, and cruelly wasting them arrives at the plain of Merc (Merse). There he winters, and being surrounded by the people of almost the whole island with a view to destroy him with his army, he is, while walking with his seven ‘comites,’ surrounded by a divine light, and a voice, purporting to proceed from St. Andrew, promises him victory if he will dedicate the tenth part of his inheritance to God and St. Andrew. On the third day he divides his army into twelve bodies, and proving victorious returns thanks to God and St. Andrew for the victory, and wishing to fulfil his vow, he is uncertain what part of his territory he is especially to dedicate as the principal city to 297St. Andrew, when one of those who had come from Constantinople with the relics of St. Andrew arrives at the summit of the King’s Mount, which is called Rigmund. The king comes with his army at a place called Kartenan, is met by Regulus the monk, a pilgrim from Constantinople, who arrives with the relics of St. Andrew, at the harbour called Matha. They fix their tents where the royal hall now is, and King Aengus gives the place and city to God and St. Andrew to be the head and mother of all the churches in the kingdom of the Picts.^[407] The later and more elaborate legend contained in the Register of St. Andrews tells substantially the same tale, but adds that Hungus, the great king of the Picts, fought against Adhelstan, king of the Saxons, and was encamped at the mouth of the river Tyne, and that St. Andrew appeared to him in a dream; that the king of the Picts divided his army into seven bodies, and defeated the Saxons, slaying their king Adhelstan, whose head he cut off. King Hungus returns with his army to his own country, taking Adhelstan’s head with him, and affixed it on a wooden pillar at the harbour called Ardchinnechun, now the Queen’s Harbour, after which the Saxons never ventured to attack the Picts. In the meantime Regulus the bishop, with the relics of St. Andrew, arrives in the land of the Picts, at a place formerly called Muckros, and now Kilrimont. From thence they go to Fortevieth, where they find the three sons of Hungus, Howonam and Nectan and Phinguineghert, and because their father was then engaged in an expedition into the regions of Argathelia and they were anxious for his life, they dedicate to God and St. Andrew the tenth part of the city of Fortevieth. They then go to Moneclatu, now called Monichi, and here they find Queen Finche, who bears a child to King Hungus called Mouren, and Queen Finche gives the house and whole royal palace to God and St. Andrew. They then cross the Mounth, and come to a lake called Doldencha, 298now Chondrochedalvan. Here they meet King Hungus returning from his expedition, who does honour to the relics of St. Andrew, and gives that place to God and St. Andrew, and builds a church there. The king then crosses the Mounth and comes to Monichi, where he builds a church, and then to Fortevieth, where he also builds a church, and after that to ‘Chilrymont,’ where he dedicates a large part of that place to God and St. Andrew for the purpose of building churches and oratories.^[408] It is unnecessary to follow this legend further. The places here mentioned can be identified without difficulty, and are simply those where churches dedicated to St. Andrew existed. Chilrymont is the modern St. Andrews, the principal church dedicated to the apostle St. Andrew in honour of his relics. Monichi is Eglis Monichti in the county of Forfar, also dedicated to St. Andrew, and Chondrochedalvan is Kindrochet in Braemar, which is also dedicated to him. The war with the Saxons refers to that period in the reign of Aengus when he was at war with Eadberct, king of Northumberland; the expedition into Argathelia, to his invasion of Dalriada in 736. His sons living at Fortevieth, and giving a tenth part of the city, shows his connection with the province called Fortrenn, in which it was situated; and the appearance for the first time during Aengus’s reign of an abbot of Ceannrigmonaidh, whose death Tighernac records in 747, fixes the foundation to his reign.^[409]

299These legends must, of course, be taken only for what they are worth, and in analysing them it is necessary to distinguish between that portion which belongs to the history of the relics of St. Andrew and what is obviously connected with the foundation of St. Andrews. The events in this portion of the legend are thus not inconsistent with those of the reign of Aengus, son of Fergus, and we may accept them so far as to conclude that, as in the reign of Nectan, son of Derili, the Columban monks had been superseded by a clergy from that portion of the Irish Church which had conformed to the Roman usages, and from the Anglic Church established by Wilfrid, and the veneration of Saint Peter, the prince of the apostles, had replaced the dedication of the churches to their local founders, according to the custom of the Columban Church; so in the reign of Aengus, son of Fergus, another clerical immigration from the same quarter had brought in the veneration of St. Andrew, and founded a church in honour of his relics at the place first called ‘Ceannrighmonaigh,’ and afterwards from the church ‘Cellrighmonaidh,’ corrupted to Kilrymont, which commended itself so much to the Pictish nation that it, in its turn, superseded the veneration of St. Peter. St. Andrew was adopted as their patron saint, and the church of St. Andrews became their national church; and these legends emerged from this church in the form we have them, as they felt the importance of claiming for its foundation an antiquity superior to that of Iona.

Aengus was succeeded, in accordance with the Pictish law, by his brother Bruide, who reigned only two years, and died in 763. He is termed by Tighernac king of Fortrenn.^[410] 300|A.D. 763-775.
Ciniod, son of Wredech, king of the Picts.| His successor was Ciniod, son of Wredech, who reigned twelve years. Eadberct, the king of Northumbria, abdicated his throne in 758, and was succeeded by his son Osulf, who had reigned only one year when he was slain, and by his own people; and in 759, Ethelwald, called Moll, became king; and in the third year Simeon tells us a battle was fought between him and Oswine, one of his generals, at Eldun near Melrose,^[411] in which Oswine was slain, which shows that Ethelwald’s kingdom still extended at least as far as East Lothian. After a six years’ reign, Ethelwald was succeeded in 765 by Alcred, a descendant of Ida through a concubine. Ciniod had reigned only five years over the Picts, when a battle is recorded in Fortrenn between him and Aedh.^[412] This is the first appearance of that Aed called by Flann Mainistrech the plunderer, and by the Albanic Duan the high lord,^[413] and is the first of those kings of Dalriada who appear in the Annals of Ulster, where he is termed Aed Finn, son of Ecdach. He was probably a Scot who attempted to restore the Dalriadic kingdom after the strong grasp of Angus mac Fergus over it was withdrawn. Aedh’s death is recorded in 778, and in 781 that of his brother Fergus, but the latter does not appear among the list of kings in Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan, and therefore was either only nominally king or reigned in Irish Dalriada, and three years after the last tie which bound the Scots to Dalriada was severed. The founders of the colony, the three sons of Erc, 301are stated in all the chronicles to have been buried in Iona, and in 784 their remains were exhumed and carried to the city of Taillten, in Meath, in Ireland, the ancient cemetery of the kings of Ulster.^[414]

Ciniod, the king of the Picts, appears at this time to have been in close connection with the Angles, for Simeon of Durham tells us that in 774 King Alcred, by the design and consent of all his connections, being deprived of the society of the royal family and princes, changed the dignity of empire for exile. He went with a few of the companions of his flight first to the city of Bamborough, and afterwards to the king of the Picts, Cynoth by name; and Ethelred, the son of his predecessor, occupied the throne of Northumbria for six years; and in the following year he tells us that ‘Cynoth, king of the Picts, was taken from the whirl of this polluted life.’^[415] His death in the same year is more quietly recorded in the Ulster Annals.

Ciniod was succeeded by Alpin, son of Wroid, who appears to have obtained possession of part of the Northumbrian territory north of the Tweed, as after a reign of three or four years his death is recorded in 780 as that of Elpin, king of the Saxons.^[416] This is the more probable as he is followed by Drest, son of Talorgen, who reigns four or five years, and Talorgen, son of Aengus, who reigns two and a half. The accession of the latter, however, was contrary to the Pictish law, being the son of a previous king; and we find that this was a case of disputed succession, the northern Picts supporting the one, and the other being accepted by the southern Picts, as king during the first half of the reign 302of Drest, till he was slain in 782; for the Ulster Annals in that year record the death of Dubhtolargg, king of the Cismontane Picts.^[417] This was the first break in upon the Pictish law of succession, and the intercourse with the Saxons, and the influence exercised by them, probably led the southern Picts to view with more favour a male succession.

Drest, whose death is not recorded, appears to have been succeeded by Canaul, son of Tarla, or Conall, son of Taidg, who reigned five years, till in 789 or 790 he is attacked by Constantin, son of Fergus, and the result of a battle between them was that Conall, son of Taidg, was defeated and fled, and the victor Constantin became king of the Picts.^[418] Conall, son of Taidg, appears to have taken refuge in Dalriada, where at this time Domnall, son of Constantin, was ruler under the Picts, and to have eventually governed there himself for four years, as Domnall is followed in the list by two Conalls who are said to be brothers, the first ruling two and the second four years, and the end of the government of the latter corresponds with the year 807, when the Ulster Annals record the assassination of Conall, son of Taidg, by Conall, son of Aedain, in Kintyre.^[419] Constantin, son of Fergus, the king of the Picts, appears now to have assumed the rule in Dalriada himself, as his name follows that of the second Conall in the lists, and retained it for nine years.

In the meantime, a new race appeared on the scene, who were destined to cut off for several centuries, to a great extent, the intercourse which had hitherto prevailed between Scotland and Ireland, and materially to influence the history 303of both countries. They make their first appearance in the year 793 in an attack upon the island of Lindisfarne. Simeon of Durham tells us that their approach was heralded by ‘fearful prodigies which terrified the wretched nation of the Angles; inasmuch as horrible lightnings and dragons in the air and flashes of fire were often seen glancing and flying to and fro; which signs indicated the great famine and the terrible and unutterable slaughter of multitudes which ensued,’ and he gives the following graphic account of their attack upon Lindisfarne. ‘In the same year, of a truth, the Pagans from the northern region came with a naval armament to Britain like stinging hornets, and over-ran the country in all directions like fierce wolves, plundering, tearing, and killing not only sheep and oxen, but priests and levites, and choirs of monks and nuns. They came, as we before said, to the church of Lindisfarne, and laid all waste with dreadful havoc, trod with unhallowed feet the holy places, dug up the altars, and carried off all the treasures of the holy church. Some of the brethren they killed, some they carried off in chains, many they cast out naked and loaded with insults, some they drowned in the sea.’^[420] They seem to have been mainly attracted to those islands where monastic establishments were to be found as affording richest plunder; and the scene above depicted by Simeon was no doubt repeated at the sack of each monastery.

In the following year they ravaged the harbours of King Ecgfrid, and plundered the monastery at the mouth of the river Wear; but, says Simeon, ‘St. Cuthbert did not allow them to depart unpunished, for their chief was there put to a cruel death by the Angles, and a short time afterwards a violent storm shattered, destroyed, and broke up their vessels, and the sea swallowed up very many of them; some, however, were cast ashore and speedily slain without 304mercy; and these things befel them justly, since they heavily injured those who had not injured them.’^[421]

Another body of these pirates directed their attacks against the Western Isles in 794, when the Ulster Annals record that these islands were utterly laid waste by a people to whom they apply the general term of Gentiles, and the church of Iona is plundered by them. In 796 Osuald the Patrician, who had been appointed to the kingdom of Northumbria by some of the chiefs of that nation on the death of King Ethelred, who was slain in that year on the 18th of April, was twenty-seven days after expelled from the kingdom, and with a few followers retired to the island of Lindisfarne, and thence went by ship with some of the brethren to the king of the Picts, Constantin. In 798 the northern pirates took spoils of the sea between Erin and Alban, which no doubt implies that the Western Isles were again laid waste by them. In 802 I-Columchill, or Iona, is burnt by them, and in 806 the community of Iona, amounting to sixty-eight persons, are slain by them.^[422] Besides the general term of Gentiles, that of Gall, the Irish word for stranger, was likewise applied to them, and two nations were distinguished as Finngaill, white or fair-haired Galls, and Dubhgaill, black or dark-haired Galls—the former being Norwegians, to whom also the term of Lochlannach, or people of Lochlann, was applied, and the latter, Danes.^[423] Iona, when thus ravaged by these pirates, and its community almost entirely cut off by them, was still the head of all the 305Columban churches, and this catastrophe seems to have led to a resolution to remove the seat of the supremacy to a safer locality. This was not to be found in any of the Western Isles, and the respective claims of Scotland and Ireland were solved by the foundation in each country of a church which should be supreme over the Columban monasteries in that country. In Ireland, accordingly, a new church was commenced in the year following the slaughter of the Iona monks, at a place called Cennanus, in Meath, now Kells, which had been given to the Columban Church three years before, and the church was finished in the year 814. In Scotland the position selected was at the pass where the Tay makes its way through the barrier of the Grampians; and here, while Constantin ruled over both Dalriada and the Picts, he founded the Church of Dunkeld,^[424] in which he may possibly have put the brethren from Lindisfarne who took refuge with him in 796.

On his death, which took place in 820,^[425] his brother Aengus, who had ruled over Dalriada during the last four years of Constantin’s reign, succeeded him as king of the Picts, and ruled over both kingdoms for the first five years of his reign, in the last year of which we find recorded the martyrdom of Blathmhaic, son of Flann, by the Gentiles in Hi Coluimcille. During the remainder of his reign we find Dalriada governed successively by Aed, son of Boanta, and 306by his own son Eoganan. It is to this Aengus, son of Fergus, that the later chronicles have erroneously attributed the foundation of St. Andrews; but as the kings of this family are termed kings of Fortrenn, and are found bearing the same names, it is probable that they belonged to the royal family of which the first Aengus, son of Fergus, was the founder, and which appears to have been peculiarly connected with the province of Fortrenn. The death of Aengus, son of Fergus, is recorded by the Ulster Annals in 834,^[426] and again we find a conflict between the old Pictish law of succession and the custom more recently introduced of permitting the sons of previous kings to occupy the throne, for the Pictish Chronicle tells us that Drest, son of Constantin, and Talorgan, son of Wthoil, reigned jointly for three years. The former, who was the son of Constantin mac Fergus, was probably accepted by the southern Picts, while those of the northern provinces were more tenacious of the old law, and supported a king the name of whose father was not borne by any of the previous kings.

We find, however, at this time a third competitor, who appears to have asserted his right to rule over the southern Picts. This was Alpin, of Scottish race by paternal descent, but whose Pictish name shows that his maternal descent was from that race. We are told in the Chronicle of Huntingdon that ‘in the year 834 there was a conflict between the Scots and Picts at Easter, and many of the more noble of the Picts were slain, and Alpin, king of the Scots, remained victorious, but being elated with his success, he was, in another battle fought on the 20th of July in the same year, defeated and decapitated.’^[427]

307Alpin seems to have made this attempt at the head of those Scots who were still to be found in the country, and was probably supported by a part of the Pictish nation who were favourable to his cause. Tradition points to the Carse of Gowrie as the scene of his attempt, and Pitalpin, now Pitelpie, near Dundee, as the locality of the battle in which he was defeated and slain; and the occurrence of a place near St. Andrews called Rathalpin or the Fort of Alpin, now Rathelpie, seems to indicate that it was in the province of ‘Fib’ or Fife that he found his support and established himself after his first success.

After the two kings Drest and Talorgan, who are said to have reigned jointly, the Pictish Chronicle has Uven, son of Unuist, who reigned three years. He is obviously the Eoganan, son of Aengus, who ruled over Dalriada for thirteen years, and probably succeeded Drest as king of the southern Picts. We find, therefore, the principle of male succession making a further step in advance, as the sons of both the previous kings, Constantin and Angus, thus reign after them over part at least of the Pictish nation; but in his reign the Picts were doomed to receive so crushing a blow from the Danish pirates that it seems to have almost exterminated the family connected with Fortrenn, and paved the way for the successful attempt of the son of Alpin the Scot to place himself on the throne of the Picts. In the ancient Tract on the wars of the Gaedheal with the Galls we are told that in the year 839 there came to Dublin threescore and five ships, and Leinster was plundered by them to the sea and the plain of Bregia, extending from Dublin to Drogheda. After the plundering of Leinster and Bregia they went northwards, when the people of Dalriada gave battle to this fleet, and Eoganan, son of Aengus, king of Dalriada, was slain in that battle. The Danes seem from this to have attempted to invade Scotland through Dalriada; but in recording the same event the Ulster Annals tell us 308that a battle was fought by the Gentiles against the men of Fortrenn, in which Eoganan son of Aengus, Bran son of Aengus, Aed son of Boanta, and others innumerable, were slain.^[428] These two notices taken in combination very clearly show us that at this time the people of Dalriada and the men of Fortrenn were the same, and that Eoganan, the son of Aengus, ruled over both.

The Chronicle of Huntingdon tells us that ‘Kynadius succeeded his father Alpin in his kingdom, and that in the seventh year of his reign, which corresponds with the year 839, while the Danish pirates, having occupied the Pictish shores, had crushed the Picts, who were defending themselves, with a great slaughter, Kynadius, passing into their remaining territories, turned his arms against them, and having slain many, compelled them to take flight, and was the first king of the Scots who acquired the monarchy of the whole of Alban, and ruled in it over the Scots.’^[429] The 309allusion here to the defeat of the men of Fortrenn by the Danes is obvious, and this account certainly conveys the impression that Kenneth acted in concert with them, if he did not merely take advantage of the great defeat of the Picts to renew the attempt his father had made.

Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan make Kenneth the immediate successor of Eoganan in Dalriada, but the Pictish Chronicle places two kings as reigning over the Picts—Wrad, son of Bargoit, who reigned three years, and Bred one year; so that, while the events of the year 839 appear to have placed him in possession of Dalriada, they did not, as the Chronicle of Huntingdon implies, establish him on the throne of the Picts. Bred is the last of the line of Pictish kings in the Pictish Chronicle, and the reigns of himself and his predecessor, amounting to four years, bring us to the year 844. This was the twelfth year of Kenneth’s reign, and the Chronicle of Huntingdon tells us that ‘in his twelfth year Kenneth encountered the Picts seven times in one day, and having destroyed many, confirmed the kingdom to himself.’^[430]

This is the true year of Kenneth’s possession of the Pictish kingdom, and it is with this year that the Pictish Chronicle commences his reign. Here we are told that ‘Kinadius, son of Alpin, the first of the Scots, governed Pictavia happily for sixteen years. Two years, however, before he came to Pictavia, he acquired the kingdom of Dalriada.’^[431] The name of the father of Bred, the last king of the Picts, is not given in the Pictish Chronicle, but in the later chronicles he is called Brude, son of Ferat, and his reign 310limited to one month. He is followed in these chronicles by three kings whose reigns amount to six years. These are Kinat, son of Ferat, one year; Brude, son of Fotel, two years; and Drest, son of Ferat, three years; and the latter is said to have been slain by the Scots ‘at Forteviot according to some, and at Scone according to others,’^[432] and he is followed by Kenneth mac Alpin, who reigns sixteen years. This would bring his accession to the Pictish throne down to the year 850, and this is in fact the era upon which all the late calculations as to the duration of the kingdom of the Scots are based. It is possible that these kings may have existed and maintained a six years’ struggle with Kenneth before the last of them was slain; but they rest upon authority which cannot be considered trustworthy. The length of the reign assigned to Kenneth of sixteen years by the same chronicler is quite inconsistent with the introduction of these supposed kings; and the year 844 remains as undoubtedly the true era of the accession of the Scottish race to the Pictish throne. In the seventh year of Kenneth’s reign over the Picts, or 851, he is said in the Pictish Chronicle to have transferred the relics of Saint Columba to a church which he had built.^[433] This was no doubt the final carrying out of the arrangement by which the supremacy of Iona was to be transferred in Ireland to Kells, and in Scotland to Dunkeld. It is there that Kenneth had either completed a church begun by Constantin, or founded a new church, and a portion of Saint Columba’s relics was now transferred to each place. The subsequent events of Kenneth’s reign are given in the Pictish Chronicle in very general terms. He is said to have invaded Saxonia or Lothian six times, and to have burnt Dunbar and Melrose, usurped presumably by the 311Angles, while the Britons are said to have burnt Dunblane, and the Danes to have laid waste Pictavia as far as ‘Cluanan’ or Cluny and Dunkeld.^[434] There is, however, no record of these events to be found elsewhere.

During the latter years of Kenneth’s reign, a people appear in close association with the Norwegian pirates, and joining in their plundering expeditions, who are termed Gallgaidhel. This name is formed by the combination of the two words ‘Gall,’ a stranger, a foreigner, and ‘Gaidhel,’ the national name of the Gaelic race. It was certainly first applied to the people of Galloway, and the proper name of this province, Galwethia, is formed from Galwyddel, the Welsh equivalent of Gallgaidhel. It seems to have been applied to them as a Gaelic race under the rule of Galls or foreigners; Galloway being for centuries a province of the Anglic kingdom of Northumbria, and the term ‘Gall’ having been applied to the Saxons before it was almost exclusively appropriated to the Norwegian and Danish pirates. Towards the end of the eighth century the power of the Angles in Galloway seems to have become weakened, and the native races began to assert their independent action. The bishopric, which had been founded by the Angles in 727, ceases with Beadulf, the last Bishop, about the year 796; and William of Malmesbury tells us that he could find no record of any subsequent bishop, because the bishopric soon ceased being situated in the remote corner of the Angles, and having become exposed to the attacks of the Scots or Picts.^[435]

In the Islands Landnamabok we are told that ‘Harold the Fairhaired, king of Norway, subdued all the Sudreys or 312Western Isles, so far west that no Norwegian king has since conquered farther except King Magnus Barefoot; but he had no sooner returned than vikings, both Scottish and Irish, cast themselves into the islands, and made war, and plundered far and wide. When King Harold heard this he sent westward Ketill Flatnose, the son of Bjarnan Bunu, to reconquer the islands.’ Ketill departed for the west, and subdued all the Sudreys. He made himself king over them.^[436] The Laxdaela Saga, however, makes Ketill a petty king in Norway, who left it on the extension of Harold’s kingdom, and on arriving in Scotland with his vessel, was well received there by men of rank, as he was both a celebrated man and of high descent. They offered him any possessions he pleased, so that Ketill settled there with all his kindred. Ketill, however, must have settled in the Sudreys before Harold’s time, as his daughter Audur married Olaf the White, who became king of Dublin in 852; and in 856 we find a notice in the Ulster Annals of a great war between the Gentiles and Maelsechnaill along with the Gallgaidhel who were with them, and in 857 a victory by Imair and Amlaiph, against Caittil Finn with the Gallgaidhel in Munster.^[437] Caittil Finn is no doubt the same person as Ketill Flatnose, and the Gallgaidhel those Scotch and Irish vikings whom he had brought under his authority. There is no doubt that the name of Gallgaidhel was applied to the Gaelic population of the Western Isles called Innse Gall or the islands of the Galls, and the name, which originally belonged exclusively to the Gallwegians when under Anglic dominion, was extended to the islanders when under that of the Norwegians. In the fragments of Irish Annals published by the Irish 313Archæological Society, we are told that in 852 ‘a battle was given by Aedh, king of Ailech, the most valiant king of his time, to the fleet of the Gallgaidhel. They were Scots and foster-children of the Northmen, and at one time used to be called Northmen. They were defeated and slain by Aedh, and many of their heads carried off by Niall with him; and the Irish were justified in committing this havoc, for these men were wont to act like Lochlans;’ and again, in 858, that ‘the Gallgaidhel were a people who had renounced their baptism, and were usually called Northmen, for they had the customs of the Northmen, and had been fostered by them, and though the original Northmen were bad to the churches, these were by far worse in whatever part of Erin they used to be.’be.’^[438]

The name, however, as applied to a territory, continued to be exclusively appropriated to Galloway.

The Pictish Chronicle adds that Kenneth died ‘tumore ani,’ on the Ides of February on the third of the week, in his palace of Forteviot, on the river Earn, and this fixes 860 as the year of his death. St. Berchan says of him—

Flann Mainistrech says of him that he was the first king who possessed the kingdom of Scone, of the Gaidhel; and by the Ulster Annals, the Annales Cambriæ, and others, in recording his death, he is invariably called king of the Picts.^[440] He appears to have had two sons, Constantin and Aed, and three daughters, one married to Run, king of the Britons of Strathclyde, another married to Amlaimh or Olaf the White, the Norwegian king of Dublin, and a third, Maelmaire, 314married to Aedh Finnliath, king of Ireland, who died in 879.^[441]

There is no more obscure period in the annals of the northern kingdoms than the latter part of the eighth and the first half of the ninth centuries, and no more difficult question than to ascertain the nature and true character of that revolution which placed a Scottish race in possession of the kingdom of Scone. For this period we lose the guidance of the great Anglic historian Bede, and of the Irish annalist Tighernac. When we refer to trustworthy sources of information, we can find no record of any revolution at this time. They exhibit to us only the great confusion into which these kingdoms were thrown by the incessant depredations of the Norwegian and Danish piratical hordes. In the oldest and most authentic lists of kings we find Kenneth mac Alpin and his descendants following the Pictish kings as belonging to the same series. By the annalists who record the events of this period Kenneth is simply termed king of the Picts. The historical documents which make any direct statement on the subject, with one exception, belong to an artificial system of history, constructed after the eleventh century to serve the purposes of a political and ecclesiastical controversy, and cannot be trusted to afford us anything but distorted fragments of true history, and we are left with the solitary statement of Flann Mainistrech, that Kenneth was the first king who gave the kingdom of Scone to the Gaidheal.

That Kenneth mac Alpin was a Scot by paternal descent, and that the succession to the throne of the Pictish kingdom of Scone was eventually perpetuated in his race, may be held to be as certain as any event of that period can be ascertained; 315but the slender record we possess of the events of his reign does not exhibit them to us as implying the conquest of one nation by another, still less of the Picts by the Scots of Dalriada, as is usually assumed. The name of Kenneth’s father, Alpin, shows that he was of the Pictish race by maternal descent, and that he may have had a claim to the throne, but these events exhibit themselves to us more as a war of succession—in which Alpin and his son Kenneth were supported in their claim to the throne not only by a party among the Picts, but by the remains of the Scots of Dalriada who were still to be found in the country,—than as a foreign invasion. During the reigns of Kenneth and his three successors, they were simply kings of Scottish paternal descent, ruling over the same kingdom and the same people who had previously been governed by those of Pictish race. The country of which Scone was the capital was still Cruithintuath, or Pictavia its Latin equivalent. The people were still the men of Fortrenn or the Picts, and the deaths of these kings of Scottish race were still recorded as those of kings of the Picts. The period was one very favourable to such a change being easily and quietly made. The Picts had no repugnance to any of their kings being paternally of foreign descent, so that they represented a Pictish royal family, and were held to belong to a Pictish tribe through their mothers. The old Pictish law of succession too, had broken down, among the southern Picts at least, under Anglic influence, and the right of the sons of Pictish kings to ascend the throne had been more than once recognised. Shortly after Alpin had put forward his claim, the Picts of Fortrenn had sustained a most crushing blow from the Danes, and were as completely prostrated by them as the Scots of Dalriada had been a century before by the powerful Pictish king Aengus mac Fergus. That it was followed by a rising everywhere of the remains of the Scots of Dalriada we may well believe, but an additional and very potent element existed among his means of support. The ban against the 316Columban clergy who had been so long dispossessed of their foundations in the territories of the southern Picts had been partially removed by the foundation of Dunkeld, which probably gave them some footing again in the country, and they may have now gladly seized upon such an opportunity as the combination of a king of Scottish race claiming the throne with the temporary prostration of the most powerful tribe among the Picts to make an effort to recover them. The Pictish Chronicle clearly indicates this as one of the great causes of the fall of the Pictish monarchy. It says, ‘For God thought them worthy to be made aliens from and stript of their hereditary possessions as their perverseness deserved, because they not only spurned the rites and the precepts of the Lord, but also refused to allow themselves to be placed on an equal footing with others.’^[442] This appears to refer very plainly to the original expulsion of those of the Columban clergy who would not conform to the decree issued by Nectan, king of the Picts, and to the Roman usages it enforced, as well as to the ban which had been kept up against them till it was partially relaxed by Constantin when he founded Dunkeld; and when Kenneth transferred the relics of Saint Columba to Dunkeld, they seem to have regained their footing as far as he could effect it, as we find that the abbot of Dunkeld was placed at the head of the Pictish Church.^[443]

Two questions still remain to be solved. The first is, Where was the kingdom of his father Alpin, and where did Kenneth rule during the first six years after his father’s death in 832? Not in the kingdom of the Picts, for he only obtained the Pictish throne in the twelfth year of his reign, in the year 844. Not in Dalriada, for he did not obtain that 317kingdom till after the year 839, and two years before he became king of the Picts. If, then, he did not commence his reign either in Dalriada or in Pictavia, it must have been in some part of Scotland south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, or else he must have been in Irish Dalriada or elsewhere in Ireland. The later chronicles tell us that ‘with wonderful eagerness he led the Scots from Ergadia into the land of the Picts,’^[444] but this is part of that artificial system by which the later kingdom of the Scots was, by the suppression of a century, connected immediately with the earlier Scottish kingdom of Dalriada. The earliest tradition which indicates this appears to have at one time formed a part of the Pictish Chronicle. In narrating the events of Kenneth’s reign over the Picts, there are in this chronicle some expressions which show that this part of it had once been preceded by an account of the mode in which he obtained the Pictish throne.^[445] The compiler, however, of one of the later chronicles obviously had a copy of the Pictish Chronicle before him. It was also known to Ranulph Higden, who used it in his Polychronicon, and in both the events of Kenneth’s reign are preceded by what is obviously a traditionary account of how the Scots obtained possession of the Pictish kingdom.^[446] The same tale appears also in the chronicle contained in the Scalachronica, where it also precedes the account of the reign of Kenneth, and it was likewise known to Giraldus Cambrensis, who narrates part of it.^[447] Comparing 318the four editions of this narrative with each other and with the expressions in the Pictish Chronicle referring to it, we can make a fair approximation to what this lost passage of the chronicle contained. It seems to have commenced with Bede’s statement that in the course of time the Scots came from Ireland under their leader Reuda, and obtained a settlement either by permission or by force among the Picts. We are then told that the Scots inhabited Galloway, to which Giraldus adds that they afterwards effected an extension of their territories, and the Scalachronica ‘as also Argyll and others of the Isles.’ The Scots thus living in conjunction with the Picts, and having obtained from them a district to inhabit, contrive a plot against them. They invite the magnates of the Picts, according to Scalachronica, to a great council, and coming privately armed they slew the great lords of the Picts, and afterwards sent for others and slew them; according to the other editions, to a banquet where they had undermined the seats, and having withdrawn the supports the sitters fell into the hollow places prepared for them, and were slain without difficulty; and profiting by this treachery the Scots took their land reaching from sea to sea, which is now called Scotia; and thus Kenneth, son of Alpin, invaded Pictavia and destroyed the Picts.^[448] This, of course, can only be viewed as a traditionary account, but it seems to contain a reference to the subsequent history of the Scots of Dalriada, after they were driven out by the Picts. It narrates Alpin’s invasion of Galloway with his Scots, and then repeats from Bede the first settlement of the Scottish colony, stating that they inhabited Galloway along with the Picts. His son Kenneth acquires the kingdom of Dalriada, and the Scots again emerge and extend themselves into Argyll and the 319Isles. Kenneth then invades the kingdom of the Picts, but does not finally subdue it till five years after; and in place of this we have the story of the plot by which he treacherously slays the principal nobles of the Picts. St. Berchan in his so-called prophecy alludes to this tale, but adds it to a reference to a war, and removes the scene of it to Scone. He says—

Now the Scalachronica places it in the time of Drust, son of Feradach, the last king of the Picts, who was slain at Scone by treason. This would bring the event to the year 850, after Kenneth had been already six years in possession of the Pictish throne.

We may gather from this tale that Kenneth emerged from Galloway where the last remnant of the Scots of Dalriada disappear from history nearly a century before; and if the appearance of the Norwegians on the scene had led the people of Galloway, as well as Scots from other quarters, to adopt the same piratical life under the name of Gallgaidhel, we can readily understand that Kenneth, taking advantage of the crushing blow inflicted on the Picts of Fortrenn by the Danes, would be readily joined by Scots from all quarters in regaining the kingdom of Dalriada, and prosecuting his father’s claim to the throne of the Picts.

But there is another legend which appears also to refer to this period. It is that contained in the life of St. Cadroë. 320We are there told, after that part of the legend which relates to the settlement of the Scots in Ireland, that many years passed when the Scots crossed the Irish Channel and took possession of Iona, and then continuing their voyage enter the region of Rossia, evidently the province of Ross, by the river Rosis, which is also evidently the river Rasay, the old name of the Blackwater, which flows from a small lake called Loch Droma,^[450] on the ridge separating the eastern and western watershed, and flows through the long valley leading from near the head of Loch Broom till it falls into the river Conan, some miles above Dingwall. From thence they proceed southward to Rigmoneth, the old name for St. Andrews, and to Bellathor, which must have been situated at or near Scone. There is no record of any Scots ever having reached St. Andrews or Scone till the reign of Kenneth mac Alpin, and this part of the legend seems to refer to this time; but the previous part of it is obviously ecclesiastical in its character, and it is probable that it rather belongs to the return of the Columban clergy, who may have gone from Ireland to Iona and thence by Ross-shire to Rosemarkie, an old Columban foundation, from which they had been dispossessed by Boniface, and finally to Rigmoneth in Fifeshire and Bellachoir in Perthshire; and in this view it is difficult to avoid connecting it with the legend of St. Adrian, who, like St. Boniface, is brought from the east and lands in the eastern parts of Scotland then occupied by the Picts, having 321with him six thousand and six hundred and six persons, composed of confessors, clerics, and lay people. These men with their bishop did many signs in the kingdom of the Picts, afterwards desired to have a residence in the Isle of May, where the Danes, who then devastated the whole of Britain, came and slew them.^[451] Their martyrdom is connected with a Danish invasion in 875. The east part of Scotland in which they had their first settlement was evidently Fife. Their arrival is almost coincident with the invasion of the kingdom of the Picts by the Scots under Kenneth, and the large number who are said to have come shows that the traditionary history was really one of the immigration of a people. Hector Boece, in referring to this legend, tells us that while some write that they were Hungarians, others say that they were a company collected from Scots and Angles.^[452] It is perhaps not an unreasonable conclusion that the Scots invaded the Pictish territories in two bands—one under Kenneth across Drumalban against the southern Picts, and the other from sea by Loch Broom against the northern Picts.

The second question we have to solve is, To what family of the Scots of Dalriada did Kenneth, by paternal descent, belong? The ordinary pedigree, which traces his descent through the kings of Dalriada of the Cinel Gabhran, and identifies his father Alpin with Alpin son of Eachach, the last of the Dalriadic kings, is not older than the twelfth century, and is unquestionably artificial; but we have indications that two other lines of descent were attributed to him. St. Berchan, in his so-called prophecy, after a few stanzas which refer to Conall, the son of Comgall, the king of Dalriada who received Saint Columba as narrated by Adamnan, passes at once to the reign of Kenneth mac Alpin, with these words:—

322Conall, according to the Tract on the Men of Alban, had seven sons,^[453] from any one of whom Kenneth may have descended, and this would attach him to that tribe of the Dalriads termed the Cinel Comgall, from whom the district of Cowall takes its name; but the same tract contains another statement, which seems to present to us a more authentic notice of his descent. According to this tradition, from Eachach Buidhe, son of Aedain, the king of Dalriada inaugurated by Saint Columba, there branched off two clans, ‘the clan Fergusa Gall, son of Eachach Buidhe, or the Gabhranaigh, and the clan Conall Cerr, son of Eochaid Buidhe, who are the men of Fife in the sovereignty; that is, the clan of Kenneth, son of Alpin, son of Aidan.’^[454] This has all the appearance of a genuine fragment which has been preserved from some older source. The reference to Fife, which appears to have been the province which mainly supported the claim of this family, and in which Rathelpin, or the Fort of Alpin, was situated, and the appearance of a Conall, son of Aidan, in Kintyre, in 807, by whom Conall, son of Tadg, the then Pictish governor of Dalriada was slain,^[455] and who was probably a son of the same Aidan here made father of Alpin, gives great probability to it. We may therefore conclude that Kenneth mac Alpin belonged to the Cinel Gabhran, but was descended from a different branch than that which had furnished the kings of that race to Dalriada.

Kenneth mac Alpin was succeeded by his brother Donald, who, according to the Pictish Chronicle, held the same kingdom for four years. His death is recorded by the Annals of Ulster four years after that of Kenneth, with the same title of king of the Picts. He died, according to the 323Pictish Chronicle, at his palace of Cinn Belachoir, on the ides, or 13th, of April. St. Berchan says of him—

The later chronicles differ as to the place of his death. By some he is said to have died at Rath Inveramon, and by others to have been slain at Scone. These names, however, can all be referred to localities in the immediate neighbourhood of Scone, and probably belonged to the defences and possessions of that central seat of the monarchy.^[456] The only event recorded in his reign is the curious notice in the Pictish Chronicle that in his time the Gaedhel established with their king in Forteviot the rights and laws of the kingdom of Edus, son of Echdach.^[457] The reference is here unquestionably to that Aedfin, son of Eachach, whose death as king of the Dalriads is recorded by the Annals of Ulster in 778, and who appears to have been the last of the Scots who attempted to make any stand against the rule of the Picts over Dalriada, and by his kingdom that of the Scots of Dalriada must be meant. Among the rights and laws now established was probably the law of succession among the Scots, which is usually termed the law of Tanistry, and which, in its preference of the male over the female succession, was opposed to that of the Picts. This law, as we have seen, had to some extent been partially introduced among the southern Picts before the accession of Kenneth, and would therefore now be established at Forteviot with less difficulty.

It was in accordance with this law that Donald was succeeded by Constantin, son of Kenneth mac Alpin, who reigned sixteen years. The Pictish Chronicle records that 324in his first year Maelsechnaill, king of Ireland, died, and his death took place on Tuesday the 30th November 863,^[458] which gives us the true commencement of this reign. After two years Amlaibh with his Gentiles laid waste Pictavia, and occupied it from the kalends of January to the feast of St. Patrick—that is, from the first of January to the 17th of March; and in the following year, while withdrawing with his booty, he was attacked and slain by Constantin.^[459]

The Ulster Annals record the same event when they tell us that in 866 Amlaiph and Aiusle went to Fortrenn with the Galls of Erin and Alban, and laid waste all Cruithintuaith, of which name Pictavia is here the Latin equivalent, and took hostages.^[460] This Amlaib, or Amlaiph, was Olaf the White, king of Dublin, who had married a daughter of Kenneth mac Alpin; and his occupation of the country and the hostages he took may have been in connection with some claim through his wife; but his death did not really take place till some years after,^[461] for we find from the Ulster Annals that in the year 870 Alclyde was besieged by the Northmen under the same Amlaiph, along with Imhair, another of their kings, and destroyed after a four months’ siege. Another annalist tells us that after having wasted the people who were in the citadel by hunger and thirst, and succeeded in drawing off the water from the well that 325was in it, the Northmen entered upon them and first carried off all the riches that were within it, and afterwards a great host of prisoners were brought into captivity.^[462] On this occasion they appear to have also attacked both the Picts of Galloway and the Angles of Bernicia, for in the following year we are told that Amlaiph and Imhair returned to Dublin from Alban with two hundred ships, and a great booty of men, Angles, Britons, and Picts, was brought with them to Ireland in captivity.^[463] After this we hear no more of Amlaiph or Olaf the White of Dublin. In 872 the Ulster Annals tell us that Artgha, king of the Britons of Strathclyde, was slain by the advice of Constantin.^[464] This was Arthgal, a lineal descendant of Dunnagual, whose death was recorded in 760, and the father of that Run who married the daughter of Kenneth mac Alpin.^[465] We thus see that after the death of the last of this line, who is called king of Alclyde, in 750, and the subjection of his kingdom to the Angles, it now again reappears as an independent kingdom with the new designation of that of the Britons of Strathclyde. It was probably in connection with this event that St. Berchan, in referring to the battles fought by Constantin, says—

Luaire is probably Carlowrie in West Lothian.

326Simeon of Durham tells us that in 875 the host of the Danes who had ravaged the east coast of Britain divided itself into two bands, one of which under Halfdan marching into the region of the Northumbrians laid it waste, and wintering near the river Tyne brought the whole country under their dominion, and destroyed the Picts and the people of Strathclyde. These were probably the Picts of Galloway, and in reference to this the Ulster Annals tell us of a conflict between the Picts and the Dubhgalls in 875, in which a great slaughter of the Picts was made.^[467] The people here called of Strathclyde are in the Saxon Chronicle, in recording the same event, termed Stræcled Wealas, and this name is rendered by Ethelwerd into the Latin Cumbri, which is the first appearance of the term of Cumbri or Cumbrians as applied to the Britons of Strathclyde.^[468] In the meantime Olaf the White, the Norwegian king of Dublin, had left a son by his wife Audur the Wealthy, daughter of Ketill Flatnose or Caittil Fin, who was called Thorstein the Red, and he appears on his father’s death to have commenced making piratical expeditions, infesting Scotland far and wide, and usually obtaining victory. His attacks were directed against the northern provinces, and he is said in the Islands Landnamabok to have conquered ‘Katanes and Sudrland,’ or Caithness and Sutherland, Ross and Moray, and more than half of Scotland, and to have reigned over these districts until he was betrayed by the Scotch and slain in battle. In the Laxdaela Saga, on the other hand, he is said to have at length become reconciled with the king of the Scots, and obtained possession of the half of Scotland, over which he 327became king.^[469] It is hardly to be supposed that Constantin could have had any real authority over these northern regions, or that the power of the kings of Kenneth mac Alpin’s race could have at this time extended beyond the provinces of the southern Picts. He therefore probably merely permitted what he could not prevent, and indeed may have viewed a Norwegian conquest of the provinces of the northern Picts as favourable to his cause as the Danish defeat of the men of Fortrenn had been to that of his father. Thorstein’s kingdom, however, lasted only one year. The Pictish Chronicle refers to it when it says that the Northmen passed an entire year in Pictavia, and the Ulster Annals record in 875 that Ostin or Thorstein, son of Amlaiph, king of the Northmen, was treacherously slain by the people of Alban.^[470]

Constantin, however, was doomed himself to fall in the following year under an unexpected onslaught by the Danes. Ever since the Danes, or Dubhgall, first came to Ireland there had been a contest between them and the Norwegians or Fingall for superiority, and in 877 a battle took place between them in which the Norwegians had the victory. The Danes, being for the time driven out of Ireland, went to Alban or Scotland. They appear to have entered the Firth of Clyde, and, penetrating through the country watered by the Teith and Forth, attacked the province of Fife. A battle took place between them and the Scots at Dollar, which must have been unfavourable to the latter, as the Danes are said to have driven and slaughtered them through Fife, as far as the north-east corner, where, at a place called Inverdufatha, now Inverdovet, in the parish of Forgan, they gained a battle over the men of Alban. Constantin was slain and a great multitude with him. The earth is said on this occasion to have burst open under the men of Alban.^[471]

328This is the first appearance in the Pictish Chronicle of the term ‘Scotti’ or Scots being applied to any portion of the inhabitants of Pictavia, and it seems to have been used with reference to those of the province of Fife in particular, but the Ulster Annals record the death of Constantin as king of the Picts.^[472]

He was succeeded by his brother Aedh, who reigned only one year. The Pictish Chronicle says of him that the shortness of his reign left nothing memorable to record, but that he was slain in the town of Nrurim. St. Berchan says of him—

And the Ulster Annals record in 878 that Aedh, son of Cinador, king of the Picts, was slain by his own people.^[473]

329With Aedh died the last of Kenneth’s sons, and thus far the succession of the kings of his race had not only followed the law of Tanistry, but did not vary from that modification of the Pictish law which had been already sanctioned among the southern Picts, and had admitted the sons of previous kings in a similar order to fill the Pictish throne; but now the two modes of royal succession were again in conflict. By the law of Tanistry the succession opened to Donald, son of Constantin and grandson of Kenneth; by the Pictish law, when strictly observed, to Eocha, son of Run, king of the Britons of Strathclyde, whose mother was Constantin’s sister. Both of these claimants to the throne appear to have been under age, and there had not yet been an instance of a lineal male descendant in the third generation being permitted to succeed to the Pictish throne. The great defeat and slaughter which befell the Scots under Constantin had probably, for the time, weakened the Scottish interest, while the heir, according to their law, had the additional disqualification of being too young to reign.

The Pictish party prevailed, and Eocha, the Briton, was placed on the throne, but as he appears also to have been too young to reign alone, another king was associated with him as his governor.^[474] The Pictish Chronicle calls him ‘Ciricius,’ but leaves a blank for his father’s name; but in the Irish version he is called Giric, son of Dungaile; and by Flann Mainistrech, Girg, son of Dungaile. In the Latin lists it is corrupted to Grig, but in the Chronicle of St. Andrews it appears as Carus. By the Albanic Duan he is omitted altogether, and the Ulster Annals do not mention 330him, which leads to the suspicion that he was an intruder in the Scottish line, and was not of that race. His name is evidently the British name Curig, and under this form St. Ciricus, a martyr of Tarsus, was introduced into the British calendar, and has several churches in Wales dedicated to him. It was no doubt from Girig, son of Dungaile, being named after him that the eclipse on his day in the calendar is recorded as taking place during this reign. As governor to Eocha, and as bearing a British name, the presumption is that he was also a Briton, and the name of Dungaile, borne by his father, was the same name as that of Dunnagual, who appears in the Welsh Genealogies annexed to Nennius as the father of Arthgal and grandfather of Run; Girig was therefore in all probability Eocha’s paternal granduncle.^[475]

The Pictish Chronicle places the death of Aed, son of Neil, king of Ireland, in his second year, and Aed died on 8th November 879, and we are told that in his ninth year an eclipse of the sun took place on St. Ciricus’s day. His day in the calendar is the 16th of June, and an eclipse of the sun actually took place on that day in the year 885. These notices give us sufficiently the true chronology of his reign, but the Pictish Chronicle records none of the events of it, and simply says that after a reign of eleven years Eochodius with his tutor is now expelled from the kingdom.^[476] 331The later chronicles supply this defect so far as to give us in general terms two events of his reign. The first is that he brought under subjection to himself the whole of Bernicia and part of Anglia;^[477] and there may possibly be some foundation for the statement, to a partial extent at least, when we consider the position in which the kingdom of Northumbria was placed during his reign, and the changes which apparently followed it.

During the reign of Eadberht, in the middle of the eighth century, the kingdom of Northumbria had apparently attained to a position of as great power as that to which it had been raised in the previous century by Ecgfrid. The two provinces of Deira and Bernicia were united under his rule; the territories of the Britons south of the Solway Firth and the province of Galloway on the north were parts of his kingdom; he had himself added to it Kyle and the adjacent districts, and in conjunction with Aengus, the equally powerful king of the Picts, had enforced the submission of the Britons of Alclyde, when after a reign of twenty-one years he, in the year 758, abdicated his throne in favour of his son Oswulf, and took the tonsure. His son was in the following year treacherously slain by his own people, and with him ended the direct descendants of Ida. The kingdom seems then to have fallen into a state of disorganisation, and has thus been well described:—‘One ealdorman after another seized on the government, and held it till his expelled predecessors returned with a superior force, or popular favour and successful treason had raised up a new competitor.’ And thus it continued till the 332end of the century, when the arrival of the Northmen added an additional element of confusion. In 867 the monarchy completely broke down. In the previous year a large fleet of Danish pirates, under the command of Halfdan, Inguar, and Hubba, the sons of Ragnar Lodbrog, had arrived on the coast of England, and had wintered in East Anglia, and this year they invaded Northumbria, and took possession of the city of York. The Northumbrians had just expelled their king Osbryht, and placed Alla on the throne, but the former was now recalled, and the two kings, uniting their forces, attempted to wrest the city of York from the Danes, and were both slain. The Danes then took possession of the whole of Northumbria as far as the river Tyne, and placed Ecgbert as king over the Northumbrians north of the Tyne. After a reign of six years Ecgbert died, and was succeeded by Ricsig. It was in his time that, 875, Halfdan, with his Danes, again entered Northumbria, and brought the whole country under his dominion. In the following year Ricsig died, and Halfdan is said by Simeon of Durham to have placed a second Egbert over the Northumbrians beyond the Tyne. He is said to have reigned only two years. But notwithstanding, in 883, or seven years after, when Halfdan dies, we are told by Simeon that by the advice of the abbot Eadred, Guthred, son of Hardicnut, was made king, and reigned at York; but Ecgbert ruled over the Northumbrians. There is no mention of this second Ecgbert either in his History of the Church of Durham or of the Archbishops of York, and he appears, with his inconsistent dates, to be a mere reproduction of the Ecgbert who was placed over the Northumbrians north of the Tyne in 867, introduced to fill up a period when the historian did not know or did not care to tell who really ruled over Bernicia at that time.

This is, however, the period of Girig’s reign, and he may, like his predecessor Kenneth, have overrun Lothian 333and obtained possession of Bamborough, the chief seat of the Bernician kings, which lies at no great distance from the south bank of the Tweed; and Simeon himself indicates this when he tells us in his History of the Church of Durham that during the reign of Guthred ‘the nation of the Scots had collected a numerous army, and among other deeds of cruelty had invaded and plundered the monastery of Lindisfarne.’^[478] His object too may have been to free the Britons, his own countrymen, from the Anglic yoke, and certainly, if he conquered Bernicia, and perhaps that part of Anglia which consisted of the British possessions extending from the Solway to the Derwent, their reunion with the kingdom of the Strathclyde Britons, as well as the freedom of Galloway from Anglic supremacy, would be the natural result. The second event attributed to him is that he first liberated the Scottish Church, which till that time had been in servitude according to the custom and usage of the Picts, and this has probably more foundation in fact. That Girig found it necessary to win over the Scottish clergy to his cause, or at least not to oppose him, is probable enough, and he seems to have freed the Church from those secular exactions and services to which the clergy of most churches were at this time subjected. The Anglic Church had not long before been freed from similar services by King Ethelwulf, and the later Pictish Church was closely connected with that of Northumbria.^[479] A curious memorial of Girig, and of his relation to the Scottish Church, remains in the church in the Mearns which bears the name of Eglisgirg, or Greg’s 334church, and was dedicated to St. Ciricus, from whom it came to be called St. Cyrus.^[480]

The gratitude of the Scottish Church for the boon they had obtained from Girig seems to have shown itself in this, that in the artificial history to which the interests of an ecclesiastical controversy had so large a share in giving birth, the usurper of foreign race, who had for a time intruded upon the line of Scottish kings descended from Kenneth mac Alpin, and been after a few years driven out, fills a prominent position, as Gregory the Great, solemnly crowned at Scone, and one of the most powerful of the early Scottish kings.

The Scots having now placed Donald, the son of Constantin, and the heir, according to the law of Tanistry, on the throne,^[481] the succession became firmly established in the male line of the Scottish descendants of Kenneth mac Alpin, and assumed the not unusual form of an alternate succession between the houses descended from his two sons. The kingdom ceased to be called that of Scone and its territory Cruithentuath, or Pictavia its Latin equivalent, and now became known as the kingdom of Alban or Albania, and we find its kings no longer called kings of the Picts but kings of Alban.

About the time of Donald’s accession the islands of the Orkneys had become colonised by the Norwegians, who fled before the power of Harald Harfagr, the king of Norway; and that king having, after his power was established, sailed to the Orkneys with his fleet, and taken possession, he gave them on his return to Rognwald, Earl of Maeri, as a compensation for the loss of his son killed in one of his battles. By him they were made over to his brother Sigurd, to whom 336the king gave the title of Jarl, and thus the Norwegian earldom of Orkney was founded. Soon after Sigurd’s establishment as earl he invaded Scotland, and, in one account, ‘obtained possession of Caithness and Sutherland and all as far as Ekkialsbakki;’ in another, ‘Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Moray;’ and in a third, ‘all Caithness and much more of Scotland—Maerhæfui (Moray) and Ross—and that he built a borg on the southern border of Maerhæfui.’ These were the same districts which had been overrun by Thorstein the Red, and these Sagas confound the two invasions, and join Sigurd with Thorstein in their acquisition; but the inexorable logic of dates shows that the two invasions were different, and that the one was subsequent to the other.^[482] The borg was no doubt built on the promontory called Torfnes by the Norse, and now Burghead, situated between the Findhorn and the Spey. We are then told that Melbrigda Tönn, or of the Tooth, a Scottish jarl, and Earl Sigurd made an arrangement to meet in a certain place with forty men each in order to come to an agreement regarding their differences. On the appointed day Sigurd, suspicious of treachery on the part of the Scots, caused eighty men to be mounted on forty horses. When Earl Melbrigda saw this, he said to his men, ‘Now we have been treacherously dealt 337with by Earl Sigurd, for I see two men’s legs on one side of each horse, and the men, I believe, are thus twice as many as the beasts. But let us be brave and kill each his man before we die.’ Then they made themselves ready. When Sigurd saw it, he also decided on his plan, and said to his men, ‘Now let one half of your number dismount and attack them from behind when the troops meet, while we shall ride at them with all our speed to break their battle-array.’ There was hard fighting immediately, and it was not long till Earl Melbrigda fell, and all his men with him. Earl Sigurd and his men fastened their heads to the saddle-straps in bravado, and so they rode home triumphing in their victory. As they were proceeding, Earl Sigurd, intending to kick at his horse with his foot, struck the calf of his leg against a tooth protruding from Earl Melbrigda’s head, which scratched him slightly; but it soon became swollen and painful, and he died of it. Sigurd the Powerful was buried in a mound at Ekkialsbakki.^[483]

338The power of the Scottish king of Alban, however, could hardly at this time have extended to these northern districts, and their invasion would not materially affect Domnall’s position. A Danish invasion, however, followed some years after, which had for its scene the more southern districts, and proved fatal to the king himself. Towards the end of this century a fleet of Danes under the sons of Imhair came to Dublin, and the greater part of Ireland was plundered by them. After four years these Danes left Ireland, and invaded Alban under Sitriuc, son of Imhair. A battle was fought between these Danes and the Scots at a place which cannot now be recognised under the corrupted name of Visibsolian, or Visibcolian, in which the Scots claimed to be victorious; but that they had overrun the southern districts is evident, as Domnall the king was himself cut off and slain at Dun Fother, or Dunotter.^[484]

339The Ulster Annals record his death after a reign of eleven years in the year 900, and he is the first of the kings of the line of Kenneth who is termed by them Ri or king of Alban.^[485]

He was succeeded, according to the Tanistic usage, by Constantin, son of Aedh, his father’s brother, who reigned forty years, and was, soon after his accession, exposed to a similar invasion, for in his third year the Northmen plundered Dunkeld and the whole of Alban, but in the following year were cut off in Stratherne, and their leader, Imhair Ua Imhair, slain by the men of Fortrenn, who are said to have invoked the aid of Saint Columba, and to have attacked them with the crozier of Saint Columba at their head as their standard, which was henceforth called the Cathbuaidh, or Battle-victory.^[486]

Constantin seems now to have turned his attention towards consolidating his kingdom, and obliterating the distinctions between its discordant elements by placing them on a footing of equality with each other. In his sixth year a solemn assembly was held on the Mote Hill, near the 340royal city of Scone, in which he as king, and Cellach, as bishop of Kilrymont, or St. Andrews, resolved ‘that the laws and discipline of the faith, and the rights of the churches and of the evangel, should be preserved entire and on a footing of equality with the Scots.’^[487] By this declaration the Pictish and Scottish churches were now united into one, with the bishop of Kilrymont as its head, the supremacy of Dunkeld ceased, and the bishops of St. Andrews became known as bishops of Alban.

It is to this period also that we may probably attach one of the accounts given of the division of Alban, or Albania, into seven provinces. This account is given on the authority of Andrew, Bishop of Caithness, a Scotsman by birth, and a monk of Dunfermline. He is mentioned as bishop in the year 1150, and died on 3d December 1184. He seems to have considered that these provinces were separated from each other by large rivers or mountain chains, which do not always form what were evidently their actual boundaries. The first province, he tells us, extended from the water of Forth, which divides the kingdoms of the Scots and the Angles, and flows past Stirling, to the river Tay. This province consists, therefore, of the districts of Menteith and Stratherne, and was certainly that known by the name of Fortrenn. The second province extended to the Hilef, and contains the districts encircled by the sea as far as the hill on the north of the plain of Stirling called Athran. If by Hilef he means the river Isla, he must have supposed that 341instead of falling into the Tay it flowed in a direct line towards the sea, but he may also have meant the place now called Lyff, on the present boundary between the counties of Perth and Forfar at the sea. By Athran, Aithrie, near Stirling, is meant, and this province evidently contained the whole peninsula of Fife, including Kinross and Clackmannan, along with the district of Gowrie. The third province extends from Hilef to the Dee, and contains the old districts of Angus and Mearns, now the counties of Forfar and Kincardine. The fourth province extended from the river Dee to the river Spey, and included the old districts of Mar and Buchan, now the counties of Aberdeen and Banff. The fifth province extended from the Spey to the mountains of Brumalban, or Breadalbane, and by it the district of Atholl seems meant. The sixth province was Muref or Moray in its extended sense, and Ross; and the seventh was Arregaithel.^[488]

THE
KINGDOM OF
ALBAN

W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London

A comparison of this description of the sevenfold division of Alban with the other account contained in the same tract, and which we relegated to the reign of Nectan, king of the Picts, in the early part of the eighth century, will show the change which the two intervening centuries had produced in the aspect of the kingdom.

The first five provinces, the boundaries of which are given by the natural features of rivers, mountains, and sea, instead of by the old names of the districts included in each, now constituted what was, strictly speaking, the kingdom of Alban or Albania, at this time extending from the Forth to the Spey. The changes which had taken place within its bounds consisted, in the main, of the district of Gowrie being detached from that of Atholl, with which it had formed one of the provinces in the earlier state of them, and being combined with Fife and Fothrif, which had formed another of the earlier provinces, into one central region, the occupiers of which now 342appear as Scotti or Scots. It was, no doubt, the nucleus of the settlement of Scots which had taken place in the Pictish territory, and Gowrie became the heart of the kingdom of Alban in which its capital, Scone, was situated. West of it, in the province extending from the Forth to the Tay, were the old districts of Stratherne and Menteith, the people of which were still called the Men of Fortrenn. They were probably remains of the Pictish inhabitants, and had for their chief stronghold Dundurn, at the east end of Loch Earn. Forteviot, which had also belonged to them, and which is but a few miles from the west bank of the Tay, now belonged to the Scots, and was one of the seats of their kings. North of this central region was Atholl, and east of it a province extending from Hilef to the Dee, the northern part of which was occupied by a people called the Men of Moerne, also probably remains of the Pictish population, whose chief stronghold was Dun Fother or Dunotter; and north of them, extending from the Dee to the Spey, was the most northerly province included in the kingdom, which must still have been to a great extent Pictish.

The territory overrun by Thorstein the Red, and by Sigurd, earl of Orkney, consisted of the two earlier provinces beyond the Spey, which formed the northern boundary of the kingdom of Alban strictly so called. One of them, consisting of Muref and Ross, is included in the list of later provinces, as being still under its native rulers, but the other, Cathanesia, disappears, as being attached to the Norwegian earldom of Orkney. In place of it we have Arregaithel, now connected with the kingdom. The new province thus introduced must not, however, be absolutely identified, as is usual, with the kingdom of Dalriada, which was omitted from the list of the earlier provinces, as being then a separate kingdom of the Scots. It no doubt included it, but had a much more extensive signification, embracing the western districts extending from the Firth of Clyde to Loch Broom, and derives its name from being the 343border or coast region of the Gaedhel or Gael, a name now applied to all the inhabitants of Scotland who belonged to the Gaelic branch of the Celtic race.^[489] The organisation of these seven provinces appears to have been quite analogous to that of Ireland. The unit was the Tuath or tribe; several Tuaths formed a Mortuath or great tribe; two or more Mortuaths a Coicidh or province; and at the head of each was the Ri or king; while each province contributed a portion of its territory, at their point of junction, to form a central district, in which the capital of the whole county was placed, and the Ri or king, who was elected to be its Ardri or sovereign, had his seat of government. In this account the provinces are termed ‘regna’ or kingdoms. Under each province was the ‘subregio’ or mortuath, with its ‘Regulus’ or Ri mortuath, and composed, no doubt, of a certain number of tuaths or tribes, with their chiefs or Ri tuaith; and where the four southern provinces met, was the central district in which the capital, Scone, the seat of the Ardri Albain, was placed. At the period to which the description of the provinces given us by Andrew, bishop of Caithness, belongs, this organisation had been so far modified, that the title of Ri, or king, is no longer borne by the heads of the tuath or tribe, and the mortuath or subregion, but at the head of the tuath is the Toisech, and of the mortuath, the Mormaor. The latter dignity, however, was still hereditary, and in the district of Angus, which was more immediately under Scottish influence and authority, we find it descending in the male line, while, in the most northern district of the kingdom of 344Alban proper, the Pictish law of succession through females was still observed.^[490]

Beyond these seven provinces on the north were the islands of Orkney and Shetland, which were now colonised by the Norwegians. On the death of Sigurd, the first earl, he was succeeded by his son Guthorm, who reigned only one winter, and died childless. When Earl Rognwald, who had transferred the islands to his brother Sigurd, heard of his death and that of his son, he sent his son Hallad as earl, but he soon grew tired of it and resigned the earldom, which was then bestowed upon another son called Einar, who was earl at this time, and ruled over the Orkneys a long time.^[491] On 345the west of these provinces lay the Western Islands, which were likewise colonised by the Norwegians, and were now called the Inchigall or islands of the Galls or strangers, and the Gaelic inhabitants of the islands and districts under their rule were now called the Gallgaidhel, a name originally borne by the Gallwegians, and still used in its territorial sense as synonymous with Galloway.^[492] These islands, with the island of Man, were even more completely subdued and subjected to the Norwegian rule than any part of Ireland itself. They were eminently fitted to serve as a stronghold for the Northern Vikings, whose strength consisted almost entirely in their large and well-constructed ships, and may be regarded as the centre of the Norwegian settlements in the west, completely cutting Scotland off from Ireland, and severing the connection and arresting the intercourse between them.^[493] The Western Isles were termed by them the Sudreys, to distinguish them from the Orkneys or Northern Islands;^[494] and as Cathannia or Caithness and Sutherland had passed under the influence of the latter, and become more Norwegian than Scotch, so Galloway appears to have borne very much the same relation to the former. South of these provinces was on the east coast what had been the most northern district of Northumbria, but was now continually overrun by the king of Alban, to which the name of Saxonia was given; and on 346the west were the districts occupied by the Britons of Strathclyde. In the previous century and a half these had been narrowed to the Vale of the Clyde, with Alclyde or Dumbarton as its stronghold, and the rest of the British districts had, along with Galloway, been under the dominion of the Angles of Northumbria; but their rule had been relaxed during the period of disorganisation into which the Northumbrian kingdom had fallen, and had by degrees become little more than nominal, when the invasion of Bernicia by the Briton Giric, who for a time occupied the Pictish throne, led to the severance of these districts from Northumbria, and the whole of the British territory from the Clyde to the river Derwent in Cumberland became once more united under the rule of an independent king of the Britons.

The king at this time was Donald, but he appears to have been the last of the family claiming Roman descent which had hitherto given its kings to Alclyde; and on his death, which took place in the eighth year of the reign of King Constantin, the Britons appear to have found no one of their own race fitted to preserve their new-won independence; and as they owed it to a king of their own race who occupied the throne of Alban, so now they accepted a king from Alban by electing Donald, son of Aedh and brother of Constantin, to fill the throne of Alclyde.^[495]

As in the earlier years of his reign Constantin had seen his kingdom overrun by a horde of Norwegians, who were finally cut off and their leader slain, so now but a few years elapsed ere he found himself engaged in a serious encounter with a powerful band of the Danish pirates, with a more doubtful result. Their leader was Regnwald, the son or 347grandson of Inguar or Imhair, son of Ragnar Lodbrog, and the brother of that Sitriuc who had invaded the kingdom in the latter years of his predecessor Donald. This Regnwald, in company with two other leaders, Ottir the Jarl and Oswl Gracaban, broke into the country and ravaged Dunblane. This took place in the year 912.^[496] We next hear of Regnwald in the following year at the Isle of Man fighting a battle with Barid, son of Ottir, who is slain;^[497] and he appears to have been making his way to effect a settlement in Ireland, as in 916 we hear of him arriving with innumerable hordes at Loch da Caech or Waterford, in Ireland, where they settle for the time and ravage the whole of Ireland. Here they remain for two years, when the Irish succeed in driving them out of Munster. They then proceed to Alban and invade the country. Their object appears to have been to make their way to Northumberland, and the irruption was so formidable that Constantin united with Eldred, the lord of Bamborough and ruler over Bernicia, to resist them. The encounter took place on a moor near the mouth of the river Tyne, which flows through East Lothian, called, by the Pictish Chronicle, Tynemoor. The Danes divided themselves into four bands—one under Gothbrith, a brother of Regnwald; the second under the two earls Ottir and Gracaban; the third under the young lords; and the fourth under Regnwald himself, which remained in ambuscade. The Scots invoked the aid of St. Columba, and advanced to meet them with his crozier, called the Cathbuaidh or Battle-victory, as their standard, and it did not belie its name, for the three battalions were routed by the men of Alban, and there was a great slaughter of the Danes, with the two earls Ottir and Gracaban. Regnwald then 348advanced from his ambuscade with the fourth battalion, and attacked the men of Alban from behind and slew many of them, but neither Constantin nor any of his maormors fell by him. Night put an end to the battle, but the Scots had evidently failed in their object, for Regnwald made his way to the south and took possession of the territories of the lord of Bamborough.^[498]

This was the last invasion of Alban by the Northmen, who had harassed the kingdom during the whole period of the reigns of Kenneth mac Alpin and his successors down to Constantin. It was now to obtain a respite from their incessant invasions for upwards of a century; but if Constantin had no longer to defend his kingdom against the Northmen, he had to encounter a new enemy, and the kings of Alban were for the first time brought into contact with the growing power of the kings of Wessex. Their 349relations with the Anglic kings had hitherto been confined to those of Northumbria alone; but while the power of the latter state had been waning, that of Wessex had been increasing, and early in the ninth century these kings had in the person of Ecgbert obtained a supremacy over the other kingdoms south of the Humber. Their advance to the north, however, was arrested by their wars with the Danes, which lasted till the reign of the great Aelfred, who, after a fierce struggle, finally made a permanent peace with them in 878-883, which was only interrupted by a renewed struggle of four years from 893 to 897.

Aelfred is said by Simeon of Durham, on the death of Guthred, the Danish king of Deira, to have had the entire disposal of the whole kingdom of the Northumbrians, and to have appended to his own kingdom the provinces south of the East Angles and the Northumbrians;^[499] but it was just at this moment that his renewed struggle with the Danes commenced, and the Saxon Chronicle, in recording his death, says, ‘he was king over all the Anglic race, except the part that was under the dominion of the Danes.’

His successor, Eadward the Elder, was supreme over all the states south of the Humber, but made no attempt to advance beyond it.

The Saxon Chronicle tells us in 924, ‘In this year king Eadward was chosen for father and for lord by the kings of the Scots, and by the Scots, and by king Regnall, and by all the Northumbrians, and also by the king of the Strathclyde Welsh, and by all the Strathclyde Welsh;’ but there is no record of any war beyond the Humber by which the submission of the northern kingdoms could 350have been obtained or enforced. What exactly took place, which could be interpreted by the Saxon Chronicle into the language of commendation, cannot now be discovered; but there was nothing in the relations of the northern kingdoms to the king of Wessex at that time that should naturally have led to a voluntary surrender of their independence, and the statement itself contains within it elements of suspicion which lead to doubt of its genuineness, while it is hard to believe that there was any reality in it. It was not till the reign of Aethelstan, the son and successor of the latter, that any serious attempt was made to extend the power of the Wessex kings beyond the Humber; and the great struggle to which it led on the part of the northern kingdoms to resist this advance and to maintain their independence, is sufficient to cast doubt upon mere nominal claims, unsupported by any events which would naturally have given rise to the supposed relation involved in them.^[500]

With the accession of Aethelstan in 925, and the extension of the power of the kings of Wessex beyond the Humber, we obtain the valuable guidance of the Saxon Chronicle in the northern events. Aethelstan no sooner found himself firmly seated on the throne than he set himself seriously to work to add Northumbria to his kingdom. His first proceeding was to form a treaty of alliance with the existing rulers of Northumbria and with the northern 351powers who would support him. There was at this time a close connection between the Danes of Northumbria and those of Dublin and Waterford. Their chiefs belonged to the same family, and were equally descended from Inguar or Imhair, as he was termed by the Irish, the son of Ragnar Lodbrog, who first invaded Northumbria in 867, and the same person was frequently king of Dublin at one time, and king of Northumbria at another. The Danish king who ruled over Deira at this time was Sitriuc. He was the same Sitriuc called son of Imhair who had invaded Dublin in the last year of the reign of Donald, the predecessor of Constantin. He had been king of Dublin, but had been driven from thence in the year 920, and became king of the Danes of Deira. The Saxon Chronicle tells us that in the year 925 a meeting took place between him and Aethelstan at Tamworth, on the thirtieth of January, and that Aethelstan gave him his sister as a wife. In the following year an opportunity unexpectedly offered itself to Aethelstan by the sudden death of Sitriuc, and he immediately seized the kingdom of Deira and added it to his own, driving out, according to Simeon of Durham, Guthferth, the son of Sitriuc, who had succeeded his father. The northern part of Northumbria, to Bernicia, was at this time under the rule of a family calling themselves lords of Bamborough, and with Ealdred, son of Ealdulf of Bamborough, he made peace, maintaining him in his possessions, and also with Constantin, king of Alban; and, adds the Saxon Chronicle, they confirmed the peace by pledge and by oaths, at the place which is called Eamot, on the fourth of the Ides, or the 12th of July; but the Chronicle stamps its own statement with doubt when it adds ‘and they renounced all idolatry, and after that submitted to him in peace.’

Anlaf, the eldest son of Sitriuc, had, on his father’s death, gone to Dublin, and his father’s brother, Guthferth, having attempted, with a party of Danes from Dublin, to recover the 352kingdom of Deira, and been driven out in the following year by Aethelstan, he appears to have gone to Alban, and there cemented an alliance with Constantin by marrying his daughter, and they were probably making preparations for an attempt to recover Anlaf’s kingdom, when Aethelstan anticipated them, and, on the plea that Constantin had broken the peace, invaded Alban in the year 933 both by sea and land. The Saxon Chronicle merely says that he ravaged a great part of it; but Simeon of Durham, who places the invasion in the year 934, tells us that having put Owin, king of the Cumbrians, and Constantin, king of the Scots, to flight, he ravaged Scotland with his land force, which consisted of cavalry, as far as Dunfoeder, or Dunfother, and Wertermore, probably the Saxon form of Kerrimor or Kirriemuir in Forfarshire, and with his navy as far as Caithness, and in a great measure depopulated it.^[501]

Three years after this the whole of the northern population beyond the Humber united in a great effort to wrest Northumbria from Aethelstan, and the result of this effort was to decide whether the power of the kings of Wessex was to be arrested at the Humber and their kingdom limited to the southern part of Britain, or whether it was to extend to the Firth of Forth, if not to sweep the kingdom of Alban itself within its grasp. It was resolved to concentrate the northern forces upon Deira. Constantin and his son-in-law, 353Anlaf Cuaran as he was called, were to proceed with a fleet which was to enter the Humber, and a land army was to advance into Northumbria. The Strathclyde Britons were to cross the hills which divided them from the Anglic kingdom, and another Anlaf was to come from Dublin, with a body of the Danes of Dublin to support them. The chroniclers merely tell us of this battle in general terms, but we have two detailed accounts of it preserved to us: one from a Norse source in the Egills Saga, and the other in the poem commemorating the battle which is preserved to us in the Saxon Chronicle. Florence of Worcester tells us that Anlaf the Pagan, king of the Irish and of many islands besides, at the instigation of his father-in-law Constantin, king of the Scots, entered the mouth of the river Humber with a powerful fleet. King Aethelstan and his brother Eadmund the Etheling, met him at a place called Brunnanburg, and after a battle which lasted from daybreak until evening, slew five reguli and seven earls, whom the enemy had brought with them as auxiliaries, shedding more blood than had ever before in England been shed in battle, and returned home in great triumph, having driven the kings, Anlaf and Constantin, back to their ships. The latter were terribly cast down by the destruction of their army, and returned to their country with very few followers.^[502]

The Egills Saga tells us that ‘when Adalsteinn had taken the kingdom there rose up to war those chiefs who had lost the dominion which their ancestors had possessed.’ They were ‘Britons, Scots, and Irish’ (Bretar oc Scotar oc Irar). Among them was ‘Olafr Skotakonungr,’ called the red; ‘he was Scotch by father’s kin, but Danish by mother’s kin; he came of the race of Ragnar Lodbrok.’^[503] He drew together 354a mighty host, and went south from Scotland to England, when he harried all Northimbraland, gained a victory over two earls, who governed it under Adalsteinn, and subdued all Northimbraland. When Adalsteinn heard this he summoned all his troops and advanced to meet him. The two armies meet at Vinheidi (the Vin-heath) by Vinnskoda (the Vin-wood). King Olaf occupied a ‘Borg’ that stood north of the heath, with the greater part of his army, which encamped on the heath between the wood and the river. South of the heath was another ‘Borg,’ which was occupied by King Adalsteinn’s army, the leader of which amuses King Olaf with negotiations for peace till King Adalsteinn comes to the southern borg with additional troops. After a preliminary skirmish in which two of King Olaf’s earls had fallen with many of the Britons and Scots, the main battle takes place between the two armies, which are about equal in numbers. The details are given very minutely, but mainly to show the exploits of Egill and his brother from whom the saga is named. The result was that the army of King Olaf gave way, and great slaughter was made of them. ‘King Olaf fell there, and the most part of the troops that Olaf had led, because those that turned to flee were slain by their pursuers. King Adalsteinn there made a wonderful victory.’^[504] This account, though inaccurate in its details, for King Olaf or Anlaf was not slain but fled in his ships from the Humber, 355is chiefly valuable from the description it gives of the scene of the battle. The Saxon Chronicle contains the following poem celebrating the victory, from which we may gather the following particulars:—

which gives us the oldest name of the field of battle. Then we have—

showing that they had arrived by sea. Again—

Again—

showing that Olaf too had arrived by sea. The slaughter too was great.

Then both Olaf and Constantin take refuge in their ships, and fly by sea.

356His son and friends are slain.

The Northmen who came from Dublin with another Olaf return.

And the poem concludes—

357The site of this great battle is one of the problems in English history which has not yet been solved. It has been generally placed at Brumby or Brough on the Humber, from the statement that Anlaf entered the Humber with his ships; but if a large part of his force came from the north by land, it is unlikely that they would be allowed to penetrate as far as the Humber before they were met by Aethelstan. Others have looked for it in Lancashire, from the statement that Anlaf fled in his ships to Dublin; but the Anlaf who returned to Dublin was Anlaf, son of Godfrey, king of the Danes of Dublin, who had come to support his brethren in Northumbria, and he probably landed in Cumberland and made his way with the Cumbrians from thence to Northumbria and returned as he came. Anlaf, the son-in-law of Constantin, was Anlaf, son of Sitriuc, and he appears to have escaped with his father-in-law in the ships from the Humber, and returned to Scotland.

The poem in the Saxon Chronicle terms the field of battle the trysting-place, and the Egills Saga likewise implies that the battle had been fought at the place fixed by Anlaf for the assembling of his forces. We must therefore look for it at some point suitable for bringing these forces together. They may be said, in the main, to have come from three directions. First, a part under Constantin and possibly his son-in-law Anlaf came in ships up the Humber. Another part, consisting of the Scotch army, came by land from Scotland; and a third, consisting of the Cumbrians and the Danes from Dublin, came from the west, while Aethelstan in his march from the south met them and gave them battle at a place called Brunanburh in the Saxon Chronicle, and Vinheidi by the Egills Saga. Simeon of Durham says, in his history of the kings, that ‘Aethelstan fought at Wendune, and put King Onlaf with six hundred and fifteen ships, Constantin king of the Scots, and the king of the Cumbrians, with all their forces, to flight.’ And in his history of the 358Church of Durham, he says ‘Aethelstan fought at Weondune, which is also called Ætbrunnanmere or Brunnanbyrig, against Onlaf, the son of Guthred, the late king, who had arrived with a fleet of six hundred and fifteen ships, supported by the auxiliaries of the kings recently spoken of, that is to say, of the Scots and Cumbrians.’

The Wendune of Simeon is evidently the Vinheidi of the Egills Saga, and Brunnanbyrig, the Duinbrunde of the Pictish Chronicle, and the Borg on the river at the northern extremity of the heath occupied by Anlaf and his army. Now the Humber, with the Ouse which falls into it, is navigable for vessels as far as Boroughbridge, anciently called Ponte Burgi, about sixteen miles from York. A little lower down the river was the important Roman station of Isurium, the ramparts of which still remain, and here four Roman roads met, two from the south and two from the north. The Roman road from York passed along the left bank of the Ouse, until it crossed at a ferry near Aldwark, not far above the present bridge. Another road from the south passed through Knaresborough, and joined the former road at this point. From it two ‘Itinera’ went, one direct to the north, and the other to Cataracton or Catterick on the Swale, whence it proceeded by Stanmore into Cumberland. The Roman station of Isurium was called by the Angles the ‘Ealdburg,’ or Old Burgh. It appears in the time of Edward the Confessor as the manor of Burc, and it is now Aldborough. About a quarter of a mile to the west of Boroughbridge are three large monoliths, varying from eighteen to twenty-three feet high. They are now called the Devil’s Arrows; and east of Aldborough, at a place called Dunsforth, was a tumulus called the Devil’s Cross; it was broken into many years ago for road materials, and in it were found human remains.

Aldborough unites almost all the conditions required for the site of Brunanburgh. The ships which entered the 359Humber could make their way thus far. This burg, called by the Angles the old Burg, may have been the Borg on the river occupied by Anlaf. The Borg, south of the heath, occupied by Aethelstan, could hardly have been York, as it was too well known not to be mentioned by name, but may have been the strong position of Knaresborough, from whence an ancient way led to Aldborough. The Scots would advance by one of the northern routes, and the Danes of Dublin and the Cumbrians by the great highway which led from Cumberland by Catterick. The only authority which gives any indication of its situation are the Annals of Clonmacnoise, which say that the battle was fought on the plains of Othlyn. Othlyn is probably Gethlyn, now Getling, which gives its name to two Wapentakes in the vale of the Swale, which unites with the Ure close to Aldborough, and forms the river Ouse, which flows past York into the Humber, and the monuments called the Devil’s Cross and the Devil’s Arrows may be memorials of the battle.

Soon after Aethelstan had gained this great victory, he was to receive an unexpected auxiliary in curbing the Danes of Northumberland. In one of the Norse sagas we are told that Eric, called Bloody Axe, the son of the Norwegian king Harald Harfagr, sailed with a fleet to the west. He went first to Orkney, where he recruited his force, and then sailed south to England, plundering the coasts of Scotland and Northumberland as he went. On which King Aethelstan offered him a settlement in Northumberland, if he would defend it against the Danes and other Vikings and be baptized. Eric accepted their offers, received lands in Northumberland, where he settled his followers, was baptized, and had his residence at York.^[506]

Aethelstan did not long survive the battle, but died in the year 940, and was succeeded by his brother Eadmund.

360Five years after this great defeat, Constantin, worn out with age and disappointment, resigned the throne for the pilgrim’s staff, and committed the kingdom to Malcolm, the son of his predecessor Donald, who was entitled under the Tanistic law to succeed him.^[507] The later chronicles say that he became abbot of the Culdees of St. Andrews, and served God in that capacity for five years; but that is importing later language and ideas into his time, though he appears to have retired to the monastery of St. Andrews. St. Berchan says—

He lived ten years after his retirement, and his death is recorded by the Ulster Annals in the year 952, and by the Pictish Chronicle in the tenth year of his successor.^[508]

Malcolm commenced his reign by making the first attempt to push the power of the kings of Alban beyond the Spey. So far as the northern boundary of the kingdom, their authority seems now to have been pretty well established; but he now invaded the province of Moreb or Moray beyond it with his army, and slew Cellach, probably its provincial king,^[509] but with what permanent result we are not told. He was soon, however, to receive a much more important addition to his dominions in another direction. In the year 941, we are told by the Saxon Chronicle, the Northumbrians belied their fealty oaths, and chose Olaf of Ireland for their king. It is difficult to 361distinguish between the acts of the two Anlafs,—the son of Guthfrith and the son of Sitriuc,—in their appearances in Northumberland, and the chroniclers themselves seem to share in the difficulty; but following in the main the Saxon Chronicle, we may hold that this was Anlaf, son of Guthfrith or Godfrey, king of the Danes of Dublin; but a year after that, having laid waste and burnt the church of St. Balthere at Tyningham, he suddenly perished. Anlaf, the son of Sitriuc and son-in-law of Constantin, at length became king of Northumberland. In the year 943 he took Tamworth by storm, and great slaughter was made on either side; and the Danes had the victory, and led away great booty with them. King Eadmund then beset him in Leicester, and would have captured him had he not escaped out of the town by night. After that King Anlaf gained King Eadmund’s friendship, and was received by him at baptism, and he royally gifted him. And in the same year, after a good long interval, he received King Regnald at the bishop’s hand. This sudden friendship, however, only subsisted one year, for in 944 King Eadmund subdued all Northumberland into his power and expelled the two kings, Anlaf son of Sitriuc, and Regnald son of Guthfrith. During the whole of these attempts by the Danish kings of Dublin to maintain possession of Northumberland, and the repeated invasions from Dublin which followed every effort to expel them, they seem to have made their way through the territories of the Cumbrian Britons, and to have received the support of their kings, who, as descended from the brother of King Constantin, whose daughter Amlaiph, or Anlaf Cuaran, had married, were nearly connected with him. Eadmund seems therefore to have resolved to deprive them of this ready means of access to Northumberland and the support they obtained from it, by overrunning the British territories and making the king of Alban a guarantee for their fidelity.

362The Saxon Chronicle tells us that in the year 945 ‘King Eadmund harried over all Cumberland, and gave it all up to Malcolm, king of the Scots, on the condition that he should be his co-operator both on sea and on land.’ It has usually been assumed that this refers to the district in England afterwards called Cumberland alone, but the people termed by the same chronicle the Strathclyde Welsh had now come to be known under the Latin appellation of ‘Cumbri,’ and their territory as the land of the Cumbrians, of which ‘Cumbraland’ is simply the Saxon equivalent. Their king at this time was Donald, the son of that Eugenius or Owin, who was at the battle of Brunanburh. He is called king of the Northern Britons, and his kingdom extended from the Derwent in Cumberland to the Clyde. Accordingly we find in the British annals that at this time Strathclyde was ravaged by the Saxons.^[510] There can be little question that the tenure by which the Cumbrian kingdom was held by Malcolm was one of fealty towards the king of England, and this seems to be the first occasion on which this relation was established with any reality between them, so far at least as this grant is concerned.

In the following year Eadmund died, and is succeeded by Eadred Aetheling, his brother, who, the Saxon Chronicle tells us, ‘reduced all Northumberland under his power; and the Scots gave him oaths that they would all that he would.’ The next year ‘Wulstan, the archbishop, and all 363the Northumbrian Witan swore fealty to the king; and within a little space belied it all, both pledges and also oaths;’ as did also the Scots, for in 948 ‘king Eadred harried over all Northumberland because they had taken Eric for their king. And when the king went homewards, the army within York overtook him, and there made great slaughter. Then was the king so indignant that he would again march in, and totally destroy the country. When the Northumbrian Witan understood that, they forsook Eric, and made compensation for the deed to King Eadred.’ Upon this the irrepressible Anlaf Cuaran again appeared on the scene, and came in the year 949 to Northumberland. This was the seventh year of the reign of Malcolm, the son of Donald; and we are told by the Pictish Chronicle that in that year he laid waste the Anglic territories as far as the river Tees, and carried off a multitude of men with their flocks, and that he did this at the instigation of Constantin, though some say that he made this plundering raid himself, having requested the king to surrender the kingdom to him for one week for the purpose; but he seems at all events to have retained in his penitential cell a sufficient interest in secular matters to incite Malcolm to support the attempt by his son-in-law Anlaf upon Northumberland by this expedition.^[511] Anlaf only possessed Northumberland 364three years when the Northumbrians expelled him in 952,^[512] and again received Eric Bloody Axe, and two years after expelled him, and submitted to Eadred, who in 954 ‘assumed the kingdom of the Northumbrians.’ This terminated the kingdom. Eadred committed the government to an earl, and Northumbria from a kingdom thus became an earldom, and remained so from henceforth. Anlaf Cuaran, on this his last expulsion, took refuge in Ireland, and spent the rest of a long life in incessant wars in that country as king of the Danes of Dublin, till at last, in the year 980, he was defeated in a great battle at Tara with the king of Ireland, in which his son Ragnall was slain, together with all the nobles of the Galls of Dublin, and Anlaf, son of Sitriuc, high king of the Galls, went on a pilgrimage to Hi-Choluimcille, where he died.

In the year 954 the Ulster Annals record that Maelcolam, son of Domnall, king of Alban, was slain. The Pictish Chronicle tells us that the men of Moerne slew him at Fodresach, now Fetteresso, in the parish of Fordun, Kincardineshire;^[513] but the later chronicles remove the scene of his death farther north, and state that he was slain at Ulurn by the Moravienses, or people of Moray. St. Berchan, however, places it with the Pictish Chronicle in the parish of Fordun, when he says—

The succession to the throne now fell, according to the system of alternate succession which prevailed in the line of the Scottish kings, to Indulph, the son of his predecessor Constantin, and during his reign of eight years only two events are recorded, the first of which is, however, one of great significance. We are told by the Pictish Chronicle that in his time Duneden, or Edinburgh, was evacuated by the Angles and surrendered to the Scots, who still possessed it when the chronicle was compiled.^[514] The surrender of Edinburgh implied that of the district between the Esk and the Avon, of which it was the principal stronghold, and the tenure of which by the Angles had always been very uncertain and precarious. From the Avon to the Forth the territory was still probably claimed by the Britons of Strathclyde. The other event recorded in the Pictish Chronicle is that a fleet of the Sumarlidi, or ‘Summer Wanderers’—a term applied to those Norwegian pirates who went out on plundering expeditions in summer, spending the winter at home or in a friendly port—had made a descent upon Buchan, and were there cut off.^[515] This Norwegian fleet in question was probably that of the sons of Eric Bloody Axe, who had gone on his death from Northumberland to Orkney.^[516] The later chronicles state that Indulph was 366slain by the Norwegians at Inverculen, but if this is the same event the Pictish Chronicle gives no countenance to the statement, and St. Berchan distinctly implies that he died at St. Andrews. In his metrical account of his reign he alludes to this unsuccessful attempt upon his territories, and to his acquisition of Duneden, when he says—

As his death is not recorded by the Pictish Chronicle or by the Ulster Annals, it is probable that he had followed his father’s example and retired to the monastery of Kilrymont, committing his kingdom to Dubh,^[517] the son of Malcolm, who would have been entitled to succeed him on his death, but his family do not appear to have acquiesced in this, and there is some appearance that the principle of lineal succession was now coming into conflict with the form of Tanistic succession which had hitherto prevailed. The acquisition first of the Cumbrian kingdom and afterwards of part of Lothian would, no doubt, aid this. The latter was the acquisition of Indulph himself, and his son would naturally claim it as his inheritance accordingly. Dubh had not been three years on the throne when we find a battle fought at Drumcrub, in Stratherne, between him and 367Cuilean, the son of Indulph, who appears to have been supported by the lay abbot of Dunkeld and the governor of Atholl. In this battle Cuilean was defeated and his two supporters slain.^[518]

Two years after Cuilean succeeds in expelling Dubh, and in the same year the Ulster Annals record his death.^[519] The later chronicles relate a strange story that Dubh was slain in Forres, that his body was hidden under the bridge of Kynlos, and that the sun did not shine till it was found. These chroniclers usually remove the scene of the battles in which these kings were slain from their southern localities to the northern districts of Scotland. It is, however, possible that in this case, when Dubh was expelled from the kingdom, he may have taken refuge in the country beyond the Spey, and had been slain at Kynlos, while the fact that an eclipse of the sun was visible there on the 10th of July 967 may have given rise to the tradition. Of Cuilean’s reign, which lasted four years and a half, we know nothing further than that he and his brother Eochodius or Eocha were slain by the Britons in the year 971.^[520] The later chronicles are here in accord with the older, for they state that he was slain in Laodonia or Lothian, that is probably the part of Lothian which his father had acquired from the Angles, by Andarch, son of Donvald, on account of his daughter. St. Berchan names these two kings Dubh or black and Fionn or white, and considers that during Dubh’s life they reigned jointly.

He terms the latter ‘Dubh of the three black divisions,’ which implies that he had the support of only three of the provinces. Of Fionn or Cuilean he says—

The succession to the throne of Alban now fell to Kenneth, the son of Malcolm and brother of Dubh, and his first act seems to have been to retaliate upon the Britons for the death of his predecessor, but this he did not effect without loss. He is said by the Pictish Chronicle to have immediately laid waste the territory of the Britons to a great extent, while a party of his foot-soldiers were cut off with great slaughter in the moss of the Cornag, the water which gives its name to Abercorn.^[521] His attention, however, was soon directed to the more important field of Northumbria. When the kingdom came to an end in 954, and the government of an earl substituted, the first earl appointed was Osulf, who ruled over both provinces, but he was succeeded in 966 by Oslac, and soon after Northumbria was divided into two earldoms, Oslac ruling at York and the southern parts, while Eadulf, called Yvelchild, was placed over the Northumbrians from the Tees to Myrcforth, 369or the Firth of Forth.^[522] Immediately after the unsatisfactory expedition against the Strathclyde Britons, the Scots are recorded in the Pictish Chronicle to have laid waste Saxonia or the northern part of Northumbria as far as Stanmore, Cleveland, and the pools of Deira, that is, the part of Northumbria which had been placed as a separate earldom under Eadulf; and in order to protect himself against the Britons, Kenneth fortified the fords of the river Forth, which at this time separated his kingdom from that of Strathclyde.^[523] In the following year Kenneth repeated his invasion of Northumbria, and is said to have carried off a son of the king of the Saxons, by whom Earl Eadulf is probably meant. We now lose the invaluable guidance of the Pictish Chronicle, which appears to have been compiled in Kenneth’s reign, at Brechin, as it breaks off with the intimation that this king gave the great city of Brechin to the Lord,^[524] and leaves the years of his reign unfilled up, while it contains no record of his death; but, on the other hand, we recover the Irish annalist, Tighernac, the hiatus in whose annals terminates with the year 973. In 975 he tells us that Domnall, son of Eoain, king of the Britons, went on a pilgrimage. The Welsh Chronicle, the Brut y 370Tywysogion, which records the same event, calls him Dunwallaun, king of Strathclyde, and states that he went to Rome.^[525] He is the same Domnaldus who was king of the Cumbrians when Eadmund ravaged the country in 945, and was the son of that Eugenius, king of the Cumbrians, who fought in the battle of Brunnanburg. Kenneth too appears to have had to contend against the claims of the sons of Indulph to succeed to their father in preference to that form of the law of Tanistry which had hitherto regulated the succession, by which it alternated between the two branches of the Scottish royal family; for Tighernac records that Amlaiph or Olaf, the son of Indulph, king of Alban, was slain in the year 977, by Kenneth, son of Malcolm.^[526] The English chroniclers, however, add some events to the reign of Kenneth, of a much more questionable character, the chief of which is that the district of Lothian was ceded to Kenneth by King Eadgar, to be held by him as a fief of the English crown. This statement first appears in the Tract on the arrival of the Saxons, attributed to Simeon of Durham. It is there said that when Eadgar set the two earls, Oslac and Eadulf, over Northumbria, giving the latter the territory from the Tees to the Firth of Forth, these earls, with the bishop, brought Kenneth, king of the Scots, to King Eadgar, and when he had done homage to him, Eadgar gave him Lothian and sent him home with honour.^[527] This Chronicle was made use of by John Wallingford, who wrote nearly a century later, and thus elaborates the story:—‘Kenneth, the king of Scotland, hearing from common 371report, and the praises of the two earls, Oslach and Eadulf, and Elfsi, bishop of Durham, of the greatness of King Eadgar, desiring greatly to see him, asked and obtained a safe-conduct to London, that he might converse with him. Thus conducted at the command of the king by the two earls and the bishop, Kenneth, the king of Scotland, came to London, and was honourably received by King Eadgar, and treated with high consideration. While they were conversing familiarly and pleasantly together, Kenneth suggested to Eadgar that “Louthion” was a hereditary possession of the kings of Scotland, and therefore ought to belong to him. King Eadgar being unwilling to do anything hurriedly, for fear of repenting of what he had done afterwards, referred the cause to his counsellors.