Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/celticscotlandhi01sken CELTIC SCOTLAND Printed by TJioraas and Archibald Constable, FOR DAVID DOUGLAS, EDINBURGH LONDON HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. CAMBRIDGE MACMILLi:VN AND BOWES. GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS. CELTIC SCOTLAND: A HISTOEY OF ancient aiban WILLIAM F; SKENE, D.C.L., LL.D. Volume I HISTOEY AND ETHNOLOGY. SECOND EDITION. EDINBUEGH: DAYID DOUGLAS 1886 HISTORIOGRAPHER-ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND. All Rights reserved ^■J II PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 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. Edinburgh, 27 Inverleith Row, Uh September 1886. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Each volume of this work may be regarded as com- plete 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, PREFACE. however lively and graphic they may be, might furnish very pleasant reading, but would be worth- less as a work of authority. The first thing to be done is to lay a sound foun- dation 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 rehable authorities do really tell us of the early annals of the country, divested of the spurious matter of sup- posititious 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 acknowledo'ino; 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. Edinburgh, 20 Inverleith Row, 1st May 1876. TABLE OF CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. PAGE Name of Scotia, or Scotland ..... 1 Ancient extent of the kingdom . . . . .2 Physical features of the country ..... 7 Mountain chains ....... 9 The Cheviots ....... 9 The Mounth ... . . . . .10 Drumalban ....... 10 The Grampians . . . . . .11 The Debateable lands . . . . . .14 Periods of its history . . . . .16 Celtic Scotland . . . . . . .17 Critical examination of authorities necessary . . .17 Spurious authorities . . . . . .21 Plan of the work ....... 26 BOOK 1. HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. CHAPTER I. ADVANCE OF THE EOMANS TO THE FIETHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. Early notices of the British Isles . . . . .29 B.C. 55. Invasion of Julius Ctesar . . . . .31 A.D. 43. Formation of province in reign of Claudius . . 33 A.D. 50. War with the Brigantes . . . . .36 A.D. 69. War with the Brigantes renewed . . - .39 X TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE A.D. 78. Arrival of Julius Agricola as governor . . .41 A.D. 79. Second Campaign of Agricola ; overruns districts on the Solway ....... 43 A.D. 80. Third summer ; ravages to the Tay . . .45 A.D. 81. Fourth summer ; fortifies the isthmus between Forth and Clyde 46 A.D. 82. Fifth summer ; visits Argyll and Kintyre . . 47 A.D. 83-86. Three years' war north of the Forth . . .48 A.D. 86. Battle of ' Mons Granpius ' , . . .52 A.D. 120. Arrival of the Emperor Hadrian, and first Roman wall between the Tyne and the Solway . . . .60 CHAPTEE II. THE EOMAX PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. Ptolemy's description of North Britain The coast ...... TheEbudae ...... The tribes and their towns • . . . A.D. 139. First Eoman wall between the Forth and Clyde Establishment of the Roman province in Scotland A.D. 162. Attempt on the province by the natives A.D. 182. Formidable irruption of tribes north of wall repelled by Marcellus Ulpius ..... A.D. 201. Revolt of Caledonii and Mseatge . A.D. 204. Division of Eoman Britain into two Provinces . A.D. 208. Campaign of the Emperor Sever us in Britain. Situation of the hostile tribes ..... Roman roads in Scotland ..... Severus's wall ...... A.D. 287. Revolt of Carausius ; Britain for ten years independent A.D. 289. Carausius admitted Emperor A.D. 294. Carausius slain by AUectus A.D. 296. Constantius Chlorus recovers Britain A.D. 306. War of Constantius Chlorus against Caledonians and other Picts ...... Division of Roman Britain into four provinces A.D. 360. Province invaded by Picts and Scots A.D. 364. Ravaged by Picts, Scots, Saxons, and Attacotts TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi PAGE A.D. 369. Province restored by Theodosius . . . 100 A.D. 383. Eevolt by Maximus ..... 104 A.D. 387. Withdrawal of Roman troops from Britain ; first devas- tation of province by Picts and Scots .... 105 A.D. 396. Repelled by Stilicho, who sends a legion to guard the northern wall ....... 105 A.D. 402. Roman legion withdrawn ; second devastation of province 106 A.D. 406. Again repelled by Stilicho, and army restored . . 107 A.D. 407. Constantino proclaimed Emperor. Withdraws the army from Britain ; third devastation by Picts and Scots . . 108 A.D. 409. Gerontius invites Barbarians to invade empire. Termi- nation of Roman Empire in Britain . . . .111 CHAPTEE III. BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. Obscurity of history of Britain after the departure of the Romans 114 Settlement of barbaric tribes in Britain . . . .114 Ignorance of Britain by writers of the sixth century . .115 Position of Britain at this time as viewed from Rome . .117 The four races in Britain . . . . . .119 The Britons . . . . . . .120 The Picts . . . . . . .123 The Scots . . . . . . .137 The Saxons ....... 144 War with Octa and Ebissa's colony . . . .152 Kingdom of Bernicia . . . . . .155 A.D. 573. Battle of Ardderyd . . . . .157 A.D. 603. Battle of Degsastane or Dawstane . . .162 CHAPTEE IV. ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. Inquiry into Ethnology of Britain proper at this stage . . 164 An Iberian or Basque people preceded the Celtic race in Britain and Ireland ....... 164 xii TABLE OF COXTEXTS. PAGE Ethnologic traditions . . . . . .170 British traditions . . . . . .171 Irish traditions . . . . . .172 DaLriadic legend . . . . . .184 Pictish legends . . . . . .185 Saxon legends . . . . . . .189 Languages of Britain ...... 192 Anglic language . . . . . .193 British language . . . . . .193 Language of the Scots . . . . . .193 The Pictish language . . . . . .194 Evidence derived from topography . . . . .212 CHAPTEE V. THE FOUR KIXGDOMS. Eesult of ethnological inquiiy ..... 226 The four kingdoms . . . . . . .227 Scottish kingdom of Dalriada ..... 229 Kingdom of the Picts . . . . . .230 Kingdom of the Britons of Alclyde . . ... 235 Kingdom of Bernicia ...... 236 The Debateable lands . . . . . .237 Galloway 238 A.D. 606. Death of Aidan, king of Dalriada ; Aedilfrid conquers Deira, and expels Aeduin ..... 239 A.D. 617. Battle between Aeduin and Aedilfrid . . . 239 A.D. 627. Battle of Ardcorann between Dalriads and Cruithnigh . 241 A.D. 629. DomnaU Breac becomes king of Dalriada . . 242 A.D. 631. Garnaid, son of Wid, succeeds Cinaeth mac Luchtren as king of the Picts ...... 242 A.D. 633. Battle of Haethfeld. Aeduin slain by Caedwalla and Penda ........ 243 A.D. 634. Battle of Hefenfeld. Osuald becomes king of North- umbria ........ 244 A.D. 635. Battle of Segiiise, between Garnait, son of Foith, and the family of Xectan ...... 246 A.D. 634. Battle of Calathros, in which Domnall Breac was defeated . . . . . .247 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii PAGE A.D. 638. Battle of Glenmairison, and. siege of Edinburgh . . 249 A.D. 642. Domnall Breac slain in Strathcarron . . . 250 A.D. 642. Osuald slain in battle by Penda .... 252 A.D. 642-670. Osuiu, his brother, reigns twenty-eight years . 253 Dominion of Angles over Britons, Scots, and Picts . . 256 A.D. 670. Death of Osuiu, and accession of Ecgfrid his son 260 A.D. 672. Eevolt of the Picts . . . . .260 A.D. 678. Wilfrid expelled from his diocese . . . 262 Expulsion of Drost, king of the Picts, and accession of Brude, son of Bile . . . . . . .262 A.D. 684. Ireland ravaged by Ecgfrid .... 264 A.D. 685. Invasion of kingdom of Picts by Ecgfrid ; defeat and death at Dunnichen ...... 265 Effect of defeat and death of Ecgfrid . . .267 Position of Angles and Picts ..... 267 Position of Scots and Britons . . . . .271 Contest between Cinel Loam and Cinel Gabhran . . . 271 Conflict between Dalriads and Britons .... 273 CHAPTER VL THE KINGDOM OF SCONE. State of the four kingdoms in 731 . . . . . 275 Alteration in their relative position .... 276 Legend of St. Bonifacius ...... 277 A.D. 710. Nectan, son of Derili, conforms to Eome . . 278 Establishment of Scone as capital ..... 280 The Seven provinces ...... 280 The Coronation Stone ...... 281 A.D. 717. Expulsion of Columban clergy .... 283 Simultaneous revolution in Dalriada and kingdom of the Picts ........ 286 A.D. 731-761. Aengus mac Fergus, king of the Picts . . 289 Suppressed century of Dalriadic history .... 292 Foundation of St. Andrews ..... 296 A.D. 761-763. Bruide mac Fergusa, king of the Picts . . 299 A.D. 763-775. Ciniod, son of Wredech, king of the Picts . . 300 A.D. 775-780. Alpin, son of Wroid, king of the Picts . . 301 xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE A.D. 789-820. Constantin, son of Fergus, king of the Picts . 302 Norwegian and Danish pirates ..... 302 A.D. 820-832. Aengus, son of Fergus, king of Fortrenn . . 305 A.D. 832. Alpin the Scot attacks the Picts, and is slain . . 306 A.D. 836-839. Eoganan, son of Aengus .... 307 A.D. 839. Kenneth mac Alpin invades Pictavia . . . 308 A.D. 844. Kenneth mac Alpin becomes king of the Picts . . 309 The Gallgaidhel . . . . . . .311 Obscurity of this period of the history . . . .314 Causes and nature of revolution which placed Kenneth on the throne of the Picts . . . . . .314 Where did the Scots come from ? ..... 316 What was Kenneth mac Alpin's paternal descent ? . .321 A.D. 860-864. Donald, son of Alpin, king of the Picts . . 322 A.D. 863. Constantin, son of Kenneth, king of the Picts . . 323 A.D. 877-878. Aedh, son of Kenneth, king of the Picts . . 328 A.D. 878-889. Girig mac Dungaile and Eochodius, son of Kun . 329 CHAPTEE VII. THE KINGDOM OF ALBAN. A.D. 889-900. Donald, son of Constantin, king of Alban A.D. 900-942. Constantin, son of Aedh, king of Alban A.D. 937. Battle of Brunanburg A.D. 942-954. Malcolm, son of Donald, king of Alban A.D. 945. Cumbria ceded to the Scots A.D. 954-962. Indulph, son of Constantin, king of Alban A.D. 962-967. Dubh, son of Malcolm, king of Alban A.D. 967-971. Cuilean, son of Indulph, king of Alban A.D. 971-995. Kenneth, son of Malcolm, king of Alban A.D. 995-997. Constantin, son of Cuilean, king of Alban A.D. 997-1004. Kenneth, son of Dubh, king of Alban CHAPTEE VIII. THE KINGDOM OF SCOTIA. A.D. 1005-1034. Malcolm, son of Kenneth, king of Scotia . 384 A.D. 1018. Battle of Carham, and cession of Lothian to the Scots 393 335 339 352 360 362 365 366 367 368 381 382 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV PAGE A.D. 1034-1040. Duncan, son of Crinan, and grandson of Malcolm, king of Scotia . . . . . . .399 A.D. 1040-1057. Macbeth, son of Finnlaec, king of Scotia . 405 A.D. 1054. Siward, Earl of Northumbria, invades Scotland, and puts Malcolm, son of King Duncan, in possession of Cumbria 408 A.D. 1057-8. Lulach, son of Gilcomgan, king of Scotia . . 411 A.D. 1057-8-1093. Malcolm, eldest son of King Duncan, king of Scotia . . . . . . . .411 Malcolm invades Northumbria five times . . . .417 A.D. 1092. Cumbria south of the Solway Firth wrested from the Scots . . . . . . . .429 State of Scotland at King Malcolm's death . . . 432 CHAPTER IX. THE KINGDOM OF SCOTIA PASSES INTO FEUDAL SCOTLAND. Effects of King Malcolm's death ..... 433 A.D. 1093. Donald Ban, Malcolm's brother, reigns six months . 436 A.D. 1093-1094. Duncan, son of Malcolm, by his first wife Ingi- biorg, reigns six months ..... 437 A.D. 1094-1097. Donald Ban again, with Eadmund, son of Malcolm, reigned three years ...... 439 A.D. 1097-1107. Eadgar, son of Malcolm Ceannmor by Queen Margaret, reigns nine years ..... 440 A.D. 1107-1124. Alexander, son of Malcolm Ceannmor by Queen Margaret, reigns over Scotland north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde as king for seventeen years . . . 447 A.D. 1107-1124. David, youngest son of Malcolm Ceannmor by Queen Margaret, rules over Scotland south of the Forth and Clyde as earl ....... 454 A.D. 1124-1153. David reigns over all Scotland as first feudal monarch . . . . . . .457 A.D. 1130. Insurrection of Angus, Earl of Moray, and Malcolm, bastard son of Alexander i. . . . . . 460 A.D. 1134. Insurrection by Malcolm mac Eth . . . 462 A.D. 1138. David invades England ; position of Norman barons . 465 Composition of King David's army .... 466 A.D. 1153-1165. IMalcolm, grandson of David, reigns twelve years . 469 XVi TABLK OF CONTEXTS. PAGE A.D. 1154. Somerled invades the kingdom with the sons of Malcolm mac Eth . . . . . . .469 A.D. 1160. Eevolt of six earls . . . .471 A.D. 1160. Subjection of Gallo^yay . .... 472 A.D. 1160. Plantation of Moray . . . .472 A.D. 1164. Invasion by Somerled. His defeat and death at Eenfrew ....... 473 A.D. 1166-1214. William the Lyon, brother of Malcolm, reigns forty-eight years ...... 474 A.D. 1174. Eevolt in Galloway ..... 475 A.D. 1179. King William subdues the district of Eoss . . 475 A.D. 1181. Insurrection in favour of Donald Ban Macwilliam . 476 A.D. 1196. Subjection of Caithness .... 479 A.D. 1211. Insurrection in favour of Guthred Macwilliam . . 482 A.D. 1214-1249. Alexander the Second, son of King William the Lyon, reigned thirty-five years. Crowned by the seven earls 483 A.D. 1215. Insurrection in favour of Donald Macwilliam and Kenneth Maceth . . . . . .483 A.D. 1222. Subjection of Arregaithel or Argyll . . . 484 A D. 1235. Eevolt in Galloway ..... 487 A.D. 1249. Attempt to reduce the Sudreys, and death of the king ' at Kerrera ....... 488 A.D. 1249-1285. Alexander the Third, his son, reigned thirty-six years. Ceremony at his coronation .... 490 A.D. 1250. Eelics of Queen Margaret enshrined before the seven earls and the seven bishops . . . . .491 A.D. 1263. War between the kings of Norway and Scotland for the possession of the Sudreys ..... 492 A.D. 1266. Annexation of the Western Isles to the Crown of Scotland ....... 495 A.D. 1283. Assembly of the baronage of the whole kingdom at Scone, on 5th February, to regulate the succession . . 496 A.D. 1285-6. Death of Alexander the Third , .496 Conclusion ....... 497 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xvii APPENDIX. PAGE Kemains of the Pictish Language ..... 501 ILLUSTEATIVE MAPS. Map showing mountain chains . . .to face ijage 8 The five Ebudse of Ptolemy compared with the islands south of Ardnamurchan Point ... „ 68 The four Kingdoms ..... ,,228 The Kingdom of Alban . . . . ,, 340 The Kingdom of Scotia . . . . ,,396 Feudal Scotland ..... ,,496 INTRODUCTION. The name of Scotia, or Scotland, whether in its Latin or its Name of Saxon form, was not applied to any part of the territory ^^^Jj^^ ocotlancL forming the modern kingdom of Scotland till towards the end of the tenth century. Prior to that period it was comprised in the general ap- pellation 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 Eomans as early as the first century by the distinctive name of Caledonia,^ and it also appears to have borne from an early period another appella- tion, the Celtic form of which was Albu, Alba, or Alban,^ and its Latin form Albania. ^ See Book i, chap. i. infra. - It will be seen from the title of this work that the author does not adopt what he ventures to call the pedantic affectation of using the form of Alba instead of Alban. The oldest form of the word is Albu, as that of the name for Ire- land was Eriu. Thus, in the oldest Irish Glossary — that of Cormac — we have, suh voce Trifod, ' Eriu agus Manann agus Albu.' The in- flections are Eriu, G. Erenn, D. Eirinn, A. Erinn. Albu, G. Alban, D. Albain, A. Albain or Albu. In the later Irish documents the forms VOL. I. of Eire and Alba usually occur in the nominative. A nominativ^e form derived from the genitive is, however, also found ; and the names of places ending in a vowel seem to have a tendency to fall into this form in current speech. Thus we have Erin for Eiriu or Eire, Alban for Albu or Alba, Arann for Ara, Rathlin for Rechra, etc. In his Irish Glosses, Mr. Whitley Stokes has 'Eirinnach (gl. Hibernigena), from the old name of this island, which is declined in the Book of Leinster and Lib. Hymn. Nom. her- inn (Maelmura Othna's poem), Dat. 2 INTRODUCTION. extent of tlie The name of Scotia, however, was exclusively appro- priated to the island of Ireland, which was emphatically Scotia, the ' patria,' or mother country, of the Scots f 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 w^as 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. Ancient From the tenth to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries the name of Scotia, gradually superseding the older name of kingdom. Alban, or Albania, was confined to a district nearly corre- sponding 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, Strath- clyde, and Galloway, on the south ; the great province of Moravia, or Moray, and that of Cathanesia, or Caithness, on dond erinn, Gen. and Acc. herenn dently translated from a Gaelic (see Fiacc's hymn. vv. 7, 8, 10, and original, has Albania, which must the Orthain at the end, and the have been formed from Alban. quatrain from Marianus Scotus, Z. The affectation of using the form 944).' — {Irish Glosses, p. 66.) Alba in the English rendering of The name of Alban occurs in the name was first introduced by this form in the nominative also the late Dr. 0 'Donovan, and has in the Prophecy of St. Berchan been adopted without much con- throughout, as ' Dia mo Ian Alban sideration by some Scottish writers ; is Eire ' [Chron. Picts and Scots, but the late Professor O'Curry, an p. 79) ; Ba ard Albain chathair equally accurate Irish scholar, in- bhinn {lb. p. 87) ; Mescfaidh Albain variably used the form Alban, and ima chenn {ib. p. 89) ; Ba lomlan the author prefers retaining this Albain o a la {ib. p. 91, etc.). conventional form. So also the form of Alban ap- pears as the name of Scotland in ^ Haec autem (Hibemia) proprie all the Welsh documents, and the patria Scotorum est. — Bede, Hist. Pictish Chronicle, which is evi- Ec. B. i. c. i. INTRODUCTION. 3 the 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 ex- hibited. 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 Al- bania ; 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.^ The first proposition is clearly established by the following catena of authorities : — Sixth Century. IsiDORUS HisPALEXSis. Ovlgines. Scotia eadem et Ibernia, proxima Britanniae insula . . . Unde et Ibernia dicta. Scotia autem quod ab Scotorum gentibus colitur appellata. — Lib. xiv. c. vi. Theodoric. Vita S. Rumoldi, 1st July. — Surius, torn. vii. p. 563. Movit hoc ab ortu ^gyptus et India ad occasum alter pene orbis Britannia cum adjacente Scotia. Tota insula Scotiae mirabatur. Seventh Century. Ravennatis Axonymi Cosmogra- phia, Finitur autem ipsa Britannia a facie septentrionalis (habet) in- sulam Scotiam. Iterum in eodem oceano occi- dentali post ipsam magnam Britanniam . . . est insula maxima quae dicitur Ibernia, quae, ut dictum est, et Scotia appellatur. Adamnaxus in vita S. Columbae. De Scotia ad Britanniam . . . enavigavit. — Pref. sec. In Scotia et in Britannia. — Lib. i. cap. i. De Scotia ad Britanniam . . . adduxit. — Lib. i. cap. xxix. Per totam nostram Scotiam et omnium totius orbis insularum maximam Britanniam. — Lib. iii. cap. xxiv. Eighth Century. B^DA, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. Haec autem (Hibernia) proprie patria Scottorum est. — Lib. i. cap. i. Dominis carissimis fratribus epi- scopis, vel abbatibus per uni- versam Scottiam, Laurentius, Mellitus, et Justus episcopi. — (Letter addressed to ' Scotti qui Hibemiam insulam Britan- niae proximam incolunt. ') — Lib. ii. cap. iv. 4 INTRODUCTION. The liistory of the name of a country is generally found to afford a very important clue to the leading features in the Columba presbyter de Scottia venit Brittaniam. — Lib. v. cap, xxiv. Martyrolorjium. De Scotia insula venientes. 13th November. Ninth Centuky. HucBALDUS, in vita S. Lehuini, Britannia oceani insula, interfuse marl a toto orbe divisa . . . cui adjacet Scotia sive Hyber- nia. — Surius, torn. iii. p. 27. Vita S. Wiroxis. Scotia fertilis Sanctorum virorum insula, — Surius, torn. iii. p. 114. Vita S. Kiliani. Scotia quae et Hibernia dicitur, insula est maris oceani. foecunda quidem glebis, sed viris Sanc- tissimis clarior. — Surius, tom. iii. p. 132. Tenth Century. Hegesippus. De excidio Hierosoly- mitano. Qaiid attexam Britannias inter - fuso mari toto orbe divisas, a Romanis in orb em terrarum redactas ? Tremuit bos Scotia, quae terris nihil debet. Secunda Vita S. Patricii, ap. Colgan. Causa haec erat primae peregri- nationis atque adventus ejus in Scotiam. — Tr. Th. p. 12. QuiNTA Vita S. Patricii, ap. Col- gan. Scotiam atque Britanniam, Angli- am et Normanniam caeterasque gentes insulanorum baptizabis. —Tr. Th. p. 51. NoTKERiJS Balbulus, in Martyro- logio. V. Id. Junias. In Scotia insula Hibernia depositio S. Colum- bae, cognomento apud suos Columbkilli. To which it may be added that King Alfred, in his translation of Orosius, translates the passage, ' Hibernia, quae a gentibus Scotorum colitur,' by ' Ighernia, which we call Scot- land. ' For the second proposition we have the following : — In the Pictish Chronicle the name of Scotia is still applied to Ireland. ' Scotti in quarta etate Scociam sive Hibernian! obtinuerunt, ' and the only names used for Scotland are Albania and Pictavia. ' xxx. Brude regnaverunt Hibemiam et Alban- iam.' 'Danari vastaverunt Pic- taviam ad Cluanan et Duncalden. ' • Normanni predaverunt Duncal- den, omnemque Albanian!. ' — Cliron. Picts and Scots, pp. 3, 5, 8, 9. In the following century we have ' Regnum Scotorum fuit, inter cetera regna Terrarum, quondam nobile, forte, potens. . . . Ex Albanacto, trinepote potentis Enee, Dicitur Albania : littera prisca probat. A Scota, nata Pharaonis regis Egypti, Ut veteres tradunt, Scotia nomen habet.' Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 117. Ilia regio, quae nunc corrupte vocatur Scotia, antiquitus appella- batur Albania. . . . Nunc vero cor- rupte vocatur Scotia. — Ih. p. 135. Albania est, quae modo Scotia vocatur. — lb. p. 153. Albania tota, quae modo Scotia vocatur. — lb. p. 15-1. Monarchia totius Albaniae quae nunc Scotia dicitur. — Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 209. That part of the Saxon Chronicle which precedes the death of King INTRODUCTION. 5 history of its population. This is remarkably the case with regard to the history of Scotland, and the facts just indicated Alfred in 901, and according to the best authorities was compiled in his reign, nowhere applies the name of Scotland to North Britain ; but in that part of the Chronicle which ex- tends from 925 to 975, and which, if not contemporary, was at least compiled in the latter year, has, in 933, ' In this year King yEthelstan went into Scotland;' and in 937, in the contemporary poem on the battle of Brunanburg, Constantine's people are called Sceotta, and the name applied to Ireland is Yraland. — Saxon Chron., ad an. The transference of the name of Scotia from Ireland to Scotland seems to have been completed in the eleventh century, for Marianus Scotus, who lived from 1028 to 1081, calls Malcolm the Second, who died 1034, 'rex Scotiae ' {Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 65), and Brian, King of Ireland, 'rex Hiberniae,' The author of the Life of St. Cadroe, in the same century, applies the name of Scotia to North Britain {ib. p. 113) ; while Adam of Bremen, who wrote in 1080, has ' Hibernia Scottorum patria, quae nunc Irland dicitur ' {De situ Daniae, c. 247). The third proposition is equally important, and it will be necessary to establish it once for all at the outset. This will appear — First, from the ancient descriptions of Scotland ; Secondly, from topo- graphical allusions in the Old Laws and in the Chronicles ; and Thirdly, from the names given to the in- habitants of the different provinces. Under the iSrst head, we find in the tract De situ Albaniae a refer- ence to the 'montes qui dividunt Scotiam ab Arregaithel, ' or Argyll, and to the Forth, ' quae regna Scottorum et Anglorum dividit ' {Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 135). In the description of Britain {ib. p. 153) the provinces within the limits of Scotland are thus enum- erated : — ' Ultra [Tede flumen (or Tweed)], usque ad flumen Forthi magni, scilicet, Loonia et Galweya (Lothian and Galloway) et Albania tota quae modo Scotia vocatur et Morovia (Moray) et omnes insulae occidentales occeani usque ad Nor- wegian! et usque Daciam, scilicet, Kathenessia Orkaneya Enchegal et Man et Ordas et Gurth et ceterae insulae occidentales occeani circa Norwegian! et Daciam. ' This points to the time when Caithi!ess, Orkney, and the Western Isles were pos- sessed by the Norwegians and Danes, and distinguishes Scotia from Moray, from which it is separated by the Spey, and from the Norwegian and Danish pos- sessions, which included Caithness, Sutherland, Argyll, and the Isles. In the ' Brevis Descriptio Scotiae ' {ib. p. 214), the provinces of Tyndale then belonging to Scotland, Lothian and Galloway, are mentioned, and Argyll is omitted. Under the second head the same provinces are clearly indicated in one of the Laws of King William, ' De lege que vocatur Claremathan.' It commences, ' De catallo furato et calumpuiato statuit dominus Rex apud Perth quod in quacunque pro- vincia sit inventum,' etc. It then refers to them thus, ' Si ille qui calumpniatus est de catallo furato vel rapto vocat warentum suum aliquem hominem manentem inter Spey et Forth vel inter Drum- alban et Forth that is, a district 6 INTRODUCTIOX. in 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 pre- dominated 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 king- doms now assumed the form of dependent provinces, and from which an influence and authority proceeded that bounded by the Spej', Dramalban, and the Forth. Then we have, ' Et si quis ultra illas divisas valet in Moravia vel in Ros vel in Katenes vel in Ergadia vel in Kintyre.' Then we have 'Ergadia quae per- tinet ad Moraviam. ' Then ' Si calumpniatus vocaverit warentum aliquem in Ergadia quae pertinet ad Scotiam tunc veniat ad comitem Atholie,' showing that the part of Ergadia next to Athole was said to belong to Scotia as distinguished from Moravia. Then we have, ' Omnes illi qui ultra Forth man- serint in Laudonia vel in Galwodia.' — Acts of Pari. v. i. p. 50. Ailred distinguishes Laudonia and Calatria (in Stirlingshire) from Scotia when he says, ' Cum Anglise victor Willelmus Laodoniam Cala- ti'iam Scotiam usque ad Abernith penetraret.'— ^i7m/ de hello apud Standardiim. Ordericus Vitalis equally distin- guishes Moravia from Scotia when he says of Angus Comes de Moravia, who rebelled against David i. , ' Scotiam intravit.' — Ord. Vit. p. 702. Thirdly, the same distinction is maintained in the early notices of the inhabitants of the different pro- \Tnces. Thus Ailred describes the Scottish army at the battle of the Standard under David i. as con- sisting of the following bodies of troops : — 1st, of Galwenses ; 2d, of Cumbrenses et Tevidalenses ; 3d, of Laodonenses cum Insulanis et Lavemanis ; 4th, of Scoti et Mura- venses. The accurate Hailes de- duces from this, — ' The Scots, pro- perly so called, were the inhabitants of the tract between the Firth of Forth and the country then called Moray.' — Hailes, An. vol. i. p. 78. INTRODUCTION. 7 gradually 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 Physical and intersected by so many arms of the sea as that of Scot- ^f^^^^^^^ land, seem at all times to have influenced its political divisions country, 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 king- doms 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 through- out 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 exist- ence. 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 Eomans, 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 8 INTKODUCTION. range, 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 bound- ary 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, separat- ing 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 Eoman 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.^ Proceeding farther north, the great series of the mountain ranges, stretching from the south-west to the north-east, pre- sent 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. The territory which forms the modern kingdom of Scot- land 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, ^ Nam Clota et Bodotria, diversi maris aestibus per immensum re- vectae, angiisto terrarum spatio dirimuntur : quod tum praesidiis firmabatur ; atque omnis propior sinus tenebatur, summotis velut in aliam insulam hostibus. — Tacit, in Vit. Ag., c. 23. INTRODUCTION. 9 to 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 High- land or mountainous region on the north-west. In each of these great districts natural boundaries are MouBtain again found exercising their influence on the subordinate political divisions. In the first of these great compartments, the lofty range of the Cheviots, which forms the southern The 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 Mth, take their rise. From thence it extends westward to Loch Eyan, 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 Lodo- neia 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 10 INTRODUCTION. clearly 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 Selgovse and Novantee 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 The first of these two great mountain chains was known Mounth. ^YiQ 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 Xevis. Drum- The second great chain, less elevated and massive in its alban. 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 Scot- land — 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 Britannia, 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. INTRODUCTION. 11 These two mountain chains — the Mountli and Drum- alban, 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 dis- tricts, 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 The 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 High- land 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.^ ^ Hector Boece is the first of our prospectans incurvus asper atque historians who brings this Highland intractabilis (quod et nomen ejus barrier prominently forward as a vemaculum Granzebain significat) mountain range. He says, ' Situs per mediam Scotiam in alteram autem hie lacus (Loch Lomond) est mare tendens obvio hoc lacu excip- ad pedem Grampii montis Pictorum itur sistiturque, ' — Ed. 1520, F. vii. olim Scotoramque regni limitis, qua 45. ab ostiis Deae amnis latera Aber- His object was, by identifying doniae abluentis mare Germanicum this range with the boundary 12 INTRODUCTION. Within 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 w'arlike 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 ELincardine, Forfar, and Perth from those of Aberdeen and Inverness on the north, it was not less known to the between the Picts and Scots, to extend the territories of the latter, and by applying to it the name of Tacitus's Mons Grampius he has stamped upon it ever since the appellation of the Grampians. But the older authorities know nothing of the Grampians, and never mention this range of mountains. They only specify the mountain ranges of the Mounth and Drum- alban. Thus the Tract de Situ Albaniae {Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 135) mentions the ' mons qui Mound vocatur, qui a mari occiden- tali usque ad mare orientale ex- tenditur.' And another description {ib. p. 214) has, ' Et itaque est quoddam vastum quod vocatur le Mounth, ubi est pessimum passa- gium sine cibo, longitudinis Ix. leu- carum et latitudinis xvi. leucarum.' The other range is frequently mentioned by Adamnan in the seventh century as ' Dorsum Britanniae, ' and once as ' Dorsi montes Britannici, quos Pictos et Scotos utrosque disterminant.' The oldest of the Latin chronicles mention Fergus, the first king of Dalriada, as reigning ' a monte Drumalban usque ad mare Hiber- niae ' {ib. p. 130) ; and the Tract de Situ Albaniae mentions the 'mon- tes qui dividunt Scotiam ab Arre- gaithel.' As this chain was the great boun- dary which originally separated the Picts from the Scots of Dalriada, it is essential to a clear understanding of the early history that its real position should not be mistaken, and it is only necessary to examine the passages in which it occurs to see that it was used with precision, and to identify the mountain chain which was meant by it. Much con- fusion, however, has been thrown into early Scottish history by the loose and arbitrary way in which this name has been applied by modern writers to any great moun- tain chain which they fancied might represent it, arising merely from a want of accurate acquaintance with the true character of the mountain system of Scotland, and a careless use of authorities. Of modern INTEODUCTIOX. 13 Venerable - Bede, in the eighth centmy, as the steep and rugged mountains which separate the provinces of the southern from those of the northern PictsJ 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,^ and at an earlier period the boundary between the Picts and the Scots of Dalriada.^ 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 historians Pinkerton alone has rightly placed the name of Drum- alban on the ridge which separates Argyllshire from Perthshire. Mr. Cosmo Innes, in the map in his Scotland in the Middle Ages, places it upon the great range of the Mounth, in which he is followed by Mr. E. W. Robertson, in his Scot- land under her Early Kings ; and Mr. Burton has made confusion worse confounded by identifying it with "the range now called the Grampians" [Hist. vol. i. p, 15) ; in this following Boece. Fordun gives an elaborate description of it in his Chronicle, B. ii. c. 7 ; and Buchanan rightly describes it as the highest part of Breadalban, and clearly indicates it as the ridge separating the east from the west waters, ' ex 80 enim dorso flumina in utrumque mare decurrunt, alia in septen- trionem, alia in meridiem. ' The name Dorsum Britannise im- plies that it was part of the ridge which might be called the backbone of Britain, separating the rivers flowing in opposite directions, as the backbone of the body separates the ribs — a definition that never could be applicable to the so-called Grampians. The name of Drum is found, too, attached to the range along the whole course of it. We have Tymlrum and Cdiimdrum at the part whence the Tay flows ; the Drummond. hills at the source of the Spey w^here the range divides Badenoch from Lochaber ; Acha- driim where it crosses the great glen of Scotland between Loch Oich and Loch Lochy ; and Loch Droma where it crosses the valley called the Deary-mor, in Ross-shire, at the head of the river Broom. Provinciis septentrionalium Pic- torum, hoc est, eis quae arduis atque horrentibus montium jugis ab australibus eorum sunt region- ibus sequestratae. — B. iii. c. iv. ^ Montes qui dividunt Scotiam ab Arregaithel. — Ghron. Picts and Scots, p. 135. ^ Quos utrosque Dorsi montes Bri- tannici disterminant. — Adamnan, B. ii. c. 47. 14 INTRODUCTIOX. debateable lands. in the terntoiy of the Picts, and at the very dawn of our history interposed as formidable a barrier to the progress of the Eoman 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 The tract of country in which the frontiers of several in- dependent kingdoms, or the territories in the occupation of tribes of different race, meet, usually forms a species of debate- able 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 ranoe 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 criven. 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 Xorthumbria ; 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, sur- passing the other districts in fertility, and possessing those rich carses which are still distinguished as the finest agri- cultural districts of Scotland, this region was coveted as the chief prize alike by the invaders and the native tribes. The scene of the principal Eoman campaigns, it appears through- out the entire course of Scottish history as the main battle- BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRAK^ CHE8TNTJT T >r INTRODUCTION. 1 5 field of contending races and struggling influences, lioman and Barbarian, Gael and Cymry, Scot and Angle, con- tended 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 supre- macy 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 kingjdom 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-inde- pendent 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, 16 INTRODUCTION. and Scotland was consolidated in its utmost extent of territory into one kingdom. Periods of The early history of Scotland thus presents itself to the its histoi}. j^jg|-Qj.jg^j^ 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 Eoman power, at one time struggling for inde- pendent 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 Eoman 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., Mal- colm 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 king- INTRODUCTION. 17 dom of 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 Celtic 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 eccle- siastical 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 informa- tion, 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 critical ascertained, there is a preliminary process which must be ^xamina- gone through, and which is quite essential to a sound treat- authorities ment 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 Scot- VOL. I. B 18 INTRODUCTION. land. Tlie whole of the existing materials for her early- history must be collected together and subjected to a criti- cal examination. Those which seem to contain fragments of genuine history must be disentangled from the less trust- worthy chronicles which have been tampered with for ecclesi- astical 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, W'ho in 1776 published his Annals of Scot- land, from the Accession of Malcolm ill., sirrnamed Canmore, to the Accession of Rohert i., abandons this period of Scot- tish 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 trust- worthy documents, but they were to a very limited extent accessible to him. The value of the work is greatly impaired INTRODUCTION. 19 by the adoption, to an excessive extent, of a theoiy 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 Eraser 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 judg- ment.^^ 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 The essays contained in the well deserve the consideration of appendix are of peculiar value, and historians. 20 INTRODUCTION. more fabulous narrative of Hector Boece and his followers, prior to the appearance of Mr. Burton's elaborate History of Scotland, from Agricolas 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 ^-iew 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 combina- tion 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 altera- tions 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 to- gether 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. "^^ " The author has collected the materials prior to Fordun's Chron- INTRODUCTION. SI He 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 guid- ance, 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 approxima- tion 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 unneces- sary 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 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 un- appropriated. It remains for him to indicate here at the outset the Spurious materials founded upon by the previous writers which he considers of questionable authority, or must reject as entirel}' spurious. icle in the volume of The Chronicles works contain a critical examina- of the Picts, Chronicles of the Scots, tion and analysis of these early and other early Memorials of Scottish documents as well as of the chron- History, published by the authority icle itself. In the Four Ancient of the Lords Commissioners of her Books of Wales, published in 1868, Majesty's Treasury, underthe super- he has subjected the Welsh docu- intendence of the Lord Clerk Regis- ments to a similar critical examina- ter of Scotland, in 1867, and has tion. likewise edited Fordun's Chronicle for the series of the Scottish Histori- Burton's Hist., vol. i. Preface, ans. The introductions to these two p, v. 22 INTRODUCTION. Among the first to be rejected as entirely spurious is the work attributed to Eichard of Cirencester, De situ Britannioe et StationuTii quas Romani ipsi in ea insula ceclificaverunt. 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 itiner- aries, 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.^^ The whole of the Eoman part of Pinkerton's Enquiry and of the elabor- ate work of Chalmers is tainted by it ; and, what is perhaps more to be regretted, the valuable work of General Eoy on The Military Antiquities of the Romans in Britain, published in 1793. He says in his introduction, 'From small begin- nings 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 Eichard 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 Eoman history and ^3 It is curious how difficult it is to get rid of the effects of an im- posture of this kind, even after it is detected. Mr. C. H. Pearson is one of those who has most conclusively demon- strated the forgery, and yet in his historical maps of England, pub- lished in 1869, he places the Roman provinces of Britain according to an arrangement for which the so-called Richard of Cirencester is the sole authority. Mr. Burton also de- nounces this work as a foi'gery (vol. i. p. 61, note) ; but he elsewhere says, ' Thus there were Scots in Ireland and Scots in Britain, and a practice arose among British ivriters of calling the latter Attacotti, ivhich has been explained to mean the hither Scots or Scots of this side' (vol. i. p. 256). This statement is ap- parently taken from Pinkerton, who identified the Attacotti with an early settlement of Scots in Argyll solely on the authority of Richard of Cirencester. The opinion is quite untenable, and the etymology preposterous. It was, however, rather unexpected to find Mr. W. Fraser, in a work printed in 1874 {The Lennox), adopting the whole of the spurious matter of the so-called Richard of Cirencester as genuine. ^"^ Roy, Military Ant., p. ix. INTRODUCTION. 23 geography of Britain in general, but more particularly the north part of it/ and by this unfortunate adoption of the forged work by General Eoy, 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 Archaeology 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 lolo MSS. These all proceeded from Edward Williams, one of the editors of the Myvyrian Archaeology published in 1801, and who is better known under the bardic title of lolo 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 \dewed with some suspicion, and that very careful discrimina- tion is required in the use of them.' He does not hesitate now to reject them as entirely spurious.^^ See Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. pp. 30-32. In reject- 24 INTRODUCTION. It 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 ing the Welsh Triads, which have Black Book of Caermarthen ; those been so extensively used, the author in the Hengwrt MS. 536, printed excepts those Triads which are to in the Four Ancient Boolcs of Wales, be found in ancient mss., such as vol. ii. p. 457 ; and those in the the Triads of the Horses in the Red Book of Hergest. INTRODUCTION. are 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.^^ 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.^'' 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 For instance, the annals record the death of Somhairle MacGilla- adomnan Ri Innsigall at 1083. This was Soraerled Regulus of Argyll, whose death really took place in 1166, and this entry has probably been inserted at haphazard from some genealogy of the Macdonalds. ^" It is usually supposed that true history in Ireland commences with the introduction of Christi- anity and the mission of St. Patrick, but this date is by no means certain. The author is more inclined to place the separation between those annals which may be depended on as consisting in the main of true history, and those which present the appearance of an artificial con- struction, into which fragments of history, legendary matter, and fabulous creations, have been inter- woven, at the event termed the battle of Ocha, fought in 483. By that battle the dynasty of the Hy Neill was placed on the throne of Ireland. It separates the Pagan kings from the Christian. The marvellous and fanciful events which characterise the previous reigns here drop from the annals, and what follows has an air of pro- bability and reality, and it was undoubtedly viewed as a great era by the older chroniclers ; as, for instance, Flann of Bute, who wrote his Synchronisms in 1054, has 'Forty-three years from the coming of St. Patrick to Erin to the battle of Ocha ; twenty years from the battle of Ocha till the children of Ere, son of Echach Muindremair, passed over into Alban.' — Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 18. 26 INTRODUCTION. the fifth century, the earlier events recorded by Tighernac, who died in the year 1088, may contain some fragments of genuine history. Plan of the 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 Komans 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 Koman 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, there- fore, carefully to weigh these short but precise statements, and to place before the reader the state of the early in- habitants of Scotland as the Eomans at the time knew them and viewed them, not as what by argument from other premises they can be made to appear.^^ 1^ The author has explained his view of the authority of Tacitus as views as to the authorities for this an historian, and the character of period of the history more anxious- his narrative. The author is un- ly, because he does not at all sym- able to see how the credibility of pathise with Mr, Burton in his his narrative is impaired by the INTRODUCTION. 27 This 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 hetero- geneous 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 misfor- tune of having been made the battle-field of polemical con- troversy. 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 fact that his Life of Agricola was not included in the first edition of his works, and was unknown to our historians before Hector Boece, Mr. Burton hardly ventures to question the authenticity of the Life of Agricola. The view he appears to hold, that it was written more as a political manifesto than as a plain historical relation of facts, has been hastily adopted from a school of German critics, whose views have not, however, met with acceptance from the sovmder class of them. The author holds the authenticity of the Life of Agricola to be unquestionable, and that its fidelity as a narrative cannot be reasonably assailed ; and he considers any argument drawn from the presence or absence of local tradition as to the events it records to be irrelevant, as all genuine tradition of this kind in Scotland has perished under the influence of the immense popu- larity and general acceptance at the time of Hector Boece's fabulous history, which has, in fact, created a spurious local tradition all over Scotland. 28 INTRODUCTION. of Presbyterian parity considers the principles of his Church involved in maintaining the existence of his early Presbyterian Cnldees. One great exception must be made, however, in Dr. Keeves's admirable edition of Adamnan's Life of St. Columha, 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 develop- ment 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 Scot- land. BOOK I. HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY, CHAPTEE L ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. As early as the sixth century before the Christian era, and Early no- while their knowledge of Northern Europe was still very imperfect, the G-reeks had already become aware of the isles, 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 Phoenicians, and by their colony, the Carthaginians, who extended their voyages beyond the Pillars of Hercules ; and was subse- quently 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 lernian Isles ; ^ but in the subsequent century they were known to Herodotus as the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands,^ 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 ^ Orphei Arfjonaut. v. 1171, w vrjcroio'iv 'lepviatu ^aaov iKw/j-at. - Herodot. iii. 115. 30 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book I. as 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 lerne.^ Polybius, in the second century before Christ, likewise alludes to the Britamiic Islands beyond the Pillars of Her- cules, and to the working of the mines by the inhabitants,* 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 Phcenician voyages and the land trade of the Phocaeans of Marseilles — in the narratives of the expeditions of Himilco and P}^heas. Himilco was a Carthaginian who w^as engaged in the Phcenician maritime trade in the sixth century, and the traditionary account of his voyage is preserved by a com- paratively late writer, Festus Eufus Avienus. In his poetical Description of the ^Yorld, 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.^ 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, Dio- dorus Siculus, and Pliny derived their information as to the Aristot. De JIundo, iii. ^ Polyb. iii. 87. 5 Ast hinc duobus in Sacram, sic insulain Dixere prisci, solibus cursus rati est. Haec inter undas multa cespitem jacet, Eamque late gens Hibernoruni colit. Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet. Festus Aviex. Ora Maritivux, 86. CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 31 size 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.^ 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 magni- tude, 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 Csesar in the year 55 b.c. 55. before the Christian era, although it added no new territory j^jf^g^' to the already overgrown empire of the Eomans, and was Csesar. probably undertaken more with the view of adding to the military renown of the great commander, for the first time made the Eomans acquainted with some of the tribes in- habiting 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 Caesar 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 Eoman 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. 6 Strabo, Geog. Lib. ii. 32 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book I. Caesar 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 ' Cserulei.' They had wives in common. They used chariots in war, and Csesar bears testimony to the bravery wdth which they defended their woods and rude fortresses, as well as encountered the disciplined Eoman 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.^ Strabo and Diodorus Siculus have preserved any additional accounts of the inhabitants which the Eomans 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 Csesar considered to be indigenous. He describes the pecu- 7 Cffis. De Bello Gall v. 12-14, CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 33 liarity of 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 'lerne' as more barbarous, regarding whom reports of cannibalism and the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes were current.^ Dio- dorus 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 repre- sents 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.^ 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 a.d. 43. attempt was renewed to subject the British tribes to the of°provtnce Eoman yoke ; but the second conquest under that emperor i"eign of 11 1 1 -I 1 r. Claudius. speedily assumed a more permanent character than the first under Julius Caesar, and the conquered territory was formed into a province of the Eoman empire. During this inter- vening 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 8 Strab. G'eofir. Lib. iv. » Diod. Sic. v. 21. VOL. L C 34 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book i. a 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 Eomans in Britain assumed the form of a province of the empire, all that they possessed in the island was termed * Britannia Eomana/ all that was still hostile to them, ' Britannia Barbara.' The con- quered tribes became the inhabitants of a Eoman 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 Eoman province at different times, and, if the history of the more favoured southern portion of the island must find its earliest annals in the Eoman 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 Eoman 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 com- menced 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 pro- vince, and annexed to the Eoman empire, — a result to which the valour and military talent of Vespasian, then serving under these generals, and afterwards Emperor, appears CHAP. I.] FIETHS OF FOETH AND CLYDE. 35 mainly to have contributed. In the year 50, under Ostorius, and perhaps his successor, the Eoman province appears to have already extended to the Severn on the west, and to the Humber on the north.^^ 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.^^ 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.^^ Beyond the nation of the Brigantes on the north, the Eomans as yet knew nothing save that Britain was believed to be an island, and that certain islands termed Orcades lay to the north of it ; but the names even of the more northern tribes had not yet reached them. Consularium primus Aulus Plautius preepositus ac subinde Ostorius Scapula uterque bello egregius : redactaque paulatim in formam provinciae proxima pars Britanniae. — Tacit, in Vii. Ag. 14. ^1 The Antona has been supposed to be the Avon, and an emendation of the text to Aufona has been pro- posed. This has been pronounced to be a happy conjecture, but the author does not think so. Avon is derived from no word that could possibly assume the form of Aufona ; and it is difficult to understand what a line of forts from the Avon to the Severn was to accomplish. The Nen, which has also been suggested, confines the province too much. It was more probably the Don, which falls into the Humber. The Don and the Severn were con- nected by the Fosseway and the forts along its line. That the pro- vince had reached the frontier of the Brigantes in the reign of Claudius, may be inferred from the lines of Lucius Annaeus Seneca : — Ille Britannos Ultra noti Litora ponti Et cseruleos, Scuta Brigantas Dare Bomuleis, Colla catenis Jussit, etc. ^- See chap. ii. note ^. Pomponius Mela (a.d. 45) men- tions them — ' Triginta sunt Orcades, angustis inter se ductas spatiis : sep- tem Haemodae, contra Germaniam vectae' {De s. orb. iii. 6). Eutropius has ' quasdam insulas etiam ultra Britanniam in Oceano positas Romano imperio addidit (Claudius) quae appellantur Orcades ' {Hist. Rom. lib. iv. c. 13). It is difficult 36 ADVANCE OF THE KOMAXS TO THE BOOK I. A.D. 50. It is to the war with the Brigautes that we must mainly with the t^^^'i^' i^J^ order to trace the progress of the Eoman arms, and Brigantes. the extension of the frontier of the Eoman province beyond the Humber. The Eomans 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 Eomans, 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 Eome. 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 Eoman 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 to reconcile this statement with that the Pacific, when first observed, of Tacitus, that Agricola first made is declared to belong to Britain, the Orcades known. That any con- and named Victoria. The existence quest took place in either case is and position of the Orkneys may unlikely, and they were probably have become known under Clau- annexed to the Eoman Empire in dins, and first actually seen under the sense in which an island in Agricola. CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 3'7 found 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 Eoman 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 Komans, 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 com- mander, 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.' He had married Cartismandua, the queen of the whole nation, and, while this marriage subsisted, had remained equally faithful to the Eomans. 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 1^ The anonymous geographer of south of the walls can be clearly Ravenna gives a list of the towns of distinguished. Among those north Britain when the Romans left the of the wall, between the Solway and island. Though plainly not stated the Tyne, is the town called by in any regular order, they are still him Venusio, and the identity of manifestly grouped according to the name shows its connection with situation, and those north and Venusius. 38 ADVANCE OF THE EOMAXS TO THE BOOK I factions."^^ 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 Eomans. They had attacked Cartismandua, who was only enabled to maintain her position by obtaining the assistance of the Eoman army. The short but significant expressions of Tacitus show that the war w^as not an easy one for the Eomans, and that they could do little more than maintain their own ground and the position of their aUy. We hear no more of this war till after that great insurrec- tion of the Eoman provincials under Boadicea or Bondiuca, queen of the Iceni, which shook the Eoman 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 Eoman arms eventually prevailed, the result produced a firm consolidation of their powder in that part of the island which formed the Eoman province. The immediate subject before us — the extension of the Eoman power towards the north, and the gradual advance of the northern frontier of the province — renders it un- necessary for us to dw^ell with any minuteness upon their contests wdth 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 Eoman 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 Eomans. 1^ Tacit. Annal. lib. xii. c. 40. from that in the interest of The expression 'regnum ejus in- Venusius. 'Acre praelium fecere vadunt ' shows that Cartismandua's cujus initio ambiguo tinis leetior kingdom was now distinguished fuit.' CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH ASD CLYDE. 39 We find the Brigantes again in hostility to the Eomans a.d. 69. during the government of Vettius Bolanus, which com- g^.^. menced in the year 69. Venusius appears to have maintained gantes an independent position and a hostile attitude towards the Eomans throughout, and a lengthened civil war had con- tinued to prevail between his adherents and that part of the nation which remained subject to Cartismandua, and in this war the Eomans 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. Cartis- mandua was reduced to the last extremity, and invoked the protection of the Eomans, 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.^^ 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 Eomans. This con- quest was maintained by his successor Julius Frontinus.^^ It was during this war with the Brigantes, in which the Tacit. Hist. lib. iii. c. 45. Taci- of Statius (see Note^o), which, mak- tus, in his Life of Agricola, imphes ing due allowance for a panegyrist, that Vettius did nothing, and was certainly imply a war, the result of not equal to his position; but in which had reflected credit upon him. his sketch of the previous governors The allusion to the Rex Britannus, it is manifest that he endeavours to from whom he took the ' thorax,' enhance the fame of his hero by is curious. Venusius is probably lessening the merits of his prede- meant, cessors. The account of the war is taken from his History, where, al- This narrative of the wars of though he does not name Vettius, the Romans with the provincials it is plain that the events there and the Brigantes is condensed from narrated happened during his govern- Tacitus's account in the Annals, the ment, and this accords with the lines History, and the Life of Agricola. 40 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book I, Roman troops had probably frequently approached the more northern portion of their territories, that the Eomans 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 Cale- donian Britons.^^ The Western Sea which bounded them they termed the * Caledonius Oceanus.'^^ The war under Vettius Bolanus had, it was supposed, reached the Caledonian plains.^^ On the conclusion of the war the Roman province approached the vicinity of the * Sylva Caledonia,' or Cale- donian Forest. They now knew of the ' Promontorium Caledonise,' 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 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.^^ In short, they learned that Lucan (a.d. 65) is the first who mentions them — Aiit vaga quum Tethys, Rutupinaque litora fervent, Unda Caledonios fallit turbata Britan- nos.— (vi. 67.) Martial (a.d. 96) says — Quincte Caledonios Ovidi visure Bri- tannos Et viridem Tethyn Oceanumque pa- trem.— (x. 44.) Valerius Flaecus (a.d. 70) says — Caledonius postquam tua carbasa vexit Oceamis.— (^rgrow. 1. 7). 2" Statius (A.D. 96) has the follow- ing line in his panegyric upon Vettius Bolanus — Quanta Calydonios attollet gloria campos. (v. 2. 140.) -1 Triginta prope jam annis noti- tiam ejus Romanis armis non ultra vicinitatem Sylvse Oaledoniaj pro- pagantibus. — (Plin. iv. 30.) 2^ A Caledonise promontorio Thu- len petentibus bidui navigatione perfecto excipiunt Hebudes insulai quinque numero.— (Solinus, Poly- histor. c. 22.) Ibid. CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 41 there existed among this new people a state of society similar to that which Ciesar 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 I^orthern 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 Eoman 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 ' Cserulei ' or Green, from the woad with which they stained their bodies ; and they are said to have fought in chariots.-* Such was the state of Britain, and such the knowledge a.d. 78. the Eomans now possessed of its northern districts and f ^"^^^ ^ Julius tribes, when, in the middle of the summer of the year 78, Agricoiaas Julius Agricola arrived to take the government of Britain. The frontiers of the Eoman province had been extended over the western tribes of "Wales, and advanced beyond the Silius Italicus (a.d. 68) says — Agmina falcifero circumvenit arta co- Hinc pater ignotam donabit vincere vmno. ''^^^l^"' . . Statins says of Vettius Bolanus— Inque Caledonios primus trahet agmina lucos {Pun. iii. 597) ; Quantusque nigrantem Fluctibus occiduis fessoq Thulen Intrarit mandata gereiis. and implies that the inhabitants Fluctibus occiduis fessoque Hyperione ^ Thulen of Thule had encountered the Ro- mans when he says, in another pla^gg Compare this with the line pre- Caerulus haud aliter, quum dimicat in- viously quoted, cola Thules, 42 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book I. Humber 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 Eoman province at this time, and Agricola was thus the first to carry the Eoman arms within the limits of that part of Britain which afterwards constituted the kingdom of Scotland. Agricola had every circumstance in his favour in com- mencino' his crovernment which could tend to a distino-uished 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 Eome — 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 CHAP. I. FIRTHS OF FOETH AND CLYDE. 43 Eonian 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 Ordo vices were de- feated 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 intro- duction of those measures most likely to lead to the consolida- tion of the Eoman power and the quiet submission of the inhabitants of the province. Justice and moderation were the characteristics of his government. An equal administra- tion 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 a.d. 79. proceeded to carry into execution his deliberately-formed clmpai'm plan for the subjugation of the northern tribes who had of Agri- coIr ' over- hitherto maintained their independence, and, indeed, had not runs'dis- as yet come into hostile collision with the Eoman power in ^"^^^ ; ^ the Solway. 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.^^ 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 sur- 2° The expression of Tacitus, and the Solway could hardly have 'aestuaria ac silvas ipse praetentare,' been excluded from it. It will be shows that this was the scene of his afterwards sho-wTi that the Selgova? campaign. It is only with reference who occupied its northern shore to the west coast, south of the Clyde, were a Brigantian tribe, that such an expression is applicable, 44 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE BOOK 1. rounded the subjugated tribes with forts and garrisons, and the remains of the numerous Eoman 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 Eoman troops. Between the hills which bound Galloway and Dumfriesshire on the north and the Solway Firth on the south, the remains of Eoman 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.^^ The great and extensive nation of the Brigantes was now entirely included within the limits of the Eoman 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 Eomans, and with whom their arms had not yet come in contact. The following winter was devoted to reducing the tur- bulent 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 Eoman lan- guage and to adopt their dress, and by degrees acquired a taste for the luxurious and voluptuous life of the Eomans, of which the numerous remains of Eoman baths which have been discovered within the limits of the Brigantian territory afford no slight indication.^'' The position of the Roman every word is pregnant with mean- camps and forts illustrates in a ing, and has a precision which has remarkable manner the expression been much overlooked. ' prgesidiis castellisque circum- ^ PauUatimque discessum ad de- datae." It must be kept in view, lenimenta vitiorum, portions et in following Tacitus' narrative, that balnea et conviviorum elegantiam. from the peculiarity of his style — Tacit, in Vit. Ag., c. 21. CHAP. I. FIIITHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 45 The third year introduced Agricola to regions hitherto a.d. 80. untrodden by Eoman foot. He penetrated with his army Ji^JJ^^^er • through the hilly region which separates the waters pouring ravages to their floods into the Solway from those which flow towards the Clyde. He entered a country occupied by 'new nations/ 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 Eoman 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 dis- tricts 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.-^ 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 Eoman 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 Eoss 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, ^ Novas gentes aperuit. shire and Perthshire, or across the Firth of Forth through Fife. The -9 That in this campaign the former is most probable, as Tacitus Koman arms reached the Firth of usually mentions crossing estuaries Tay is distinctly asserted by Taci- where it takes place; and the latter tus, and his clear statement cannot route is moreover plainly excluded, be explained away. Agricola could as the nations on the north shore of only reach it by two routes, — either the Firth of Forth were still new to entirely by land through Stirling- him in the sixth campaign. 46 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book i. into which the Koman arms could not follow them ; while the great camp at Ardoch marks the position of the entire Eoman army. In consequence of these posts being thus maintained, the Roman troops retained possession of the newly-acquired territory during the winter. A.D. 81. Agricola, with his usual policy, took measures still further summer; to sccurc the country he had already gained before he at- ^Th^^^^ ^^^^ tempted to push his conquests farther ; and the position of between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the comparatively narrow Clyde ^^^^ ^^^^ 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.^*^ From the shores of the Forth in the neighbourhood of Borrow- stounness 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 Eoman 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. 20 ' Quod turn prsesidiis firmaba- chap. ii. note ^^), and implies that tur.' These were obviously different Agricola's intention was to add the from and farther south than the forts conquered country south of the mentioned in the previous campaign. firths to the province. 'Summotis' The expression ' summotis velut in does not here or elsewhere mean the aliam insulam hostibus ' is the sig- actual driving out of the natives, nificant one used in fixing the but that those within the line of barrier between the provincial separation had ceased to be Britons and the Barbarians (see 'hostes.' CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 47 Before 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 fevv^ 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 Eoman 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 cliaracter 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 coniined 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 a.d, 82. the real character of the undertakino^ before him. With ^'^^^ <=> Slimmer ; this view, and in order to ascertain the character of the visits western side of the country before him, he in the fifth KiSfyre!"^ 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 4:8 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book i. A.D. 83-86. Three years' war north of the Forth. above the western horizon .^^ 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 The operations of this year have much perplexed historians. The obvious inference from the passage is that Argyllshire was the region he visited, and the author has entered thus minutely into the consideration of what Agricola had to accomplish, and his evident policy, to show that this was the natural step he would take. It has generally been supposed that he turned back upon his steps, and that Galloway was the country ' opposite to Ireland ' that he visited ; but, as we have seen, its inhabitants could not have been said to be ' ad id tempus ignoti,' and the language of the early geographers rather characterises Kintyre and the Hebrides as what impressed them most as overhang- ing Ireland. Chalmers, in order to avoid the plain inference from the passage, is driven to suppose that the Tavaus of the third campaign was the Solway, and that Agricola had advanced no farther, but this is quite inadmissible. The only alternative, that he crossed the river Clyde from north to south and entered Ayrshire, is equally inconsistent with Tacitus's brief but precise language. Early writers speak of the Clyde as fordable as far down as Dumbarton, and his natural course would be to return by the same route as he came. Tacitus clearly states that he crossed 'navi in proxima,' which shows that it was the estuary, and not the river. The Roman fleet was then probably in the Firth of Forth, and the expression seems to imply that he took the first native vessel he could get. There is on an elevated moor in Cowall, between the Holy Loch and Dunoon, the remains of a small square fort which has all the appearance of a Roman exploratory station. It commands an extensive view, in one range, of the entire Firth to its mouth, the river Clyde for many miles of its straight course, and Loch Long penetrating in another direction into what was known to the Romans as the Caledonian Forest, and, if it is a Roman work, adds strength to the natural reading of the pas- sage, and the expression, ' copiis instruxit,' is singularly applic- able. CHAP. I.] FIKTIIS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 49 the 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 manoeuvre 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 Eoman 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 VOL. I. D 50 ADVANCE OF THE KOMAXS TO THE [book I, immediately 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 Eoman 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 Eomans by surprise, and an engagement commenced in the very camp itself, when Agricola, ha^dng 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.-^- ^- Chalmers has narrated the Roman campaigns with a strange afifectation of military language. He makes the Roman troops de- bouch, delile, and deploy through the hills and in the glens in the most wonderful manner, so as to have rendered the cutting off of the whole army at any point of their progress no very difficult task to the natives. He involves the troops in this march, when the army was divided into three, among the re- mains of small camps in the hilly region of the west of Fife in a manner to render the real account of the transaction very unintel- ligible. General Roy, with corrector military knowledge, but without attending to the narrative with sufficient minuteness, is not more fortunate. He supposes that Agri- cola's position was at the camp at Ardoch, and that, when he divided his army into three, he remained there with the main division, and sent the ninth legion to Comrie, and the other division to Strageath, at both of which places there are the remains of Roman camps ; but, independently of the expression 'incessit,' which implies a march forward, conceive an able general sending the weakest legion into the heart of the Grampians, at a distance of nine miles from the CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 51 The Eomans 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 Eomans 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. The third season was destined to determine whether the Eomans 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, main body, through an almost im- passable country. So far from preventing the army from being surrounded, it sent its weakest division into the midst of the enemy. In what sense, too, could Agricola be said to have followed on the enemy's track, and how could he, between night and day- break, have received news of the attack, and have traversed what must have been, without roads, a long day's march ? It is obvious, on a careful attention to Tacitus's expressions, that the three divisions could have been at no great distance from each other, and the main division nearest the enemy. There is a plan of the camp at Lintrose in General Roy's Military Antiquities, Plate XIV., which will show how singularly it corresponds with the narrative. Tacitus commences the campaign in which the ninth legion was attacked by stating that it was in the sixth year of Agricola's ad- ministration ; and in his speech before the battle at Mons Granpius he says it was then the eighth year, and that the attack on the ninth legion had taken place the pre- ceding year. This apparent dis- crepancy has been usually solved by supposing the word eighth a mistake for seventh, but it is more probable that the previous campaign had lasted two years. Tacitus, after the fifth year, ceases to mark the separate campaigns with the same precision, and, perhaps, was not unwilling to gloss over the little real progress that had been made during the last three years. The expression, ' Ad manus et arma conversi Caledoniam in- colentes populi,' probably marks the commencement of the second year of the campaign. 52 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE iBOOK i. were at last to oppose an obstacle to the further advance of the Eoman dominion. Agricola commenced the opera- tions 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,'^-* 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 Eoman fort at one end, and enclosing a large triangular space capable of containing ^ In a recent edition of the Life of Agricola, from two Vatican mss., by Carolus "Wex, published in 1852, he substitutes Tanaus, Mons Grau- pius, and Boresti, for the Taus, Mons Grampius, and Horesti of the ordinary editions as the correct reading of these mss., and Mr. Burton has at once adopted the two former readings. The author, however, questions their accuracy. It is hardly possible to distinguish 11 from 71 in such mss., and they are constantly interchanged. That Tauaus is the correct reading of the first, is plain from the form of the name in Ptolemy, Taova or Tava, and the real form of the second he cannot doubt was Granpius. The combination of a u or v with a labial is rarely met in Celtic words. That of the dental with the labial is very common, as in Banba, an old name for Ireland ; Conpur, where the same combination occurs. As to the third there is fortunately an inscription on a Roman altar at Xeuwied, brought from the Roman station of XiederBiebr on the Rhine, where some British cohorts in the Roman army were stationed in the third century, in the following terms : — Idus Octob. Giinio Hor. N. Brittonum A. lb, kiomarius op. fi Us. posit tum quinta nensis pos. nt. v. h. m. which Mr. Roach Smith thus renders : — Idus Octobris Genio Horestorum numeri Brittonum. A. Ibkiomarus Obfius posuit titulum quintanensis posuerunt votum hoc monumentum {Collectanea, ii. part V. p. 133), which seems to leave no doubt as to Horesti being the correct form, and does not inspire one with much confidence in Wex's new readings, sanctioned as they are by Mr. Burton. CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AXD CLYDE. 53 Agricola'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 Eoman 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 54 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book i. hills, and in this direction the battle eventually carried itself.35 Such was the position of the two armies when the echoes of the wild yells and shouts of the natives, and the gUtter 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 Eoman 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 Eoman ^ There has been no point in the history of the Roman occupation of Scotland which has been more con- tested, or made the subject of more conflicting theories, than the posi- tion of this great battle. Gordon thought it was at Dealgan Ross, near Comrie. Chalmers, with less difficulty, from the size of the camp, at Ardoch ; others in Fife, and latterly a favourite theory has placed it at Urie in Kincardineshire. Mr. Burton abandons the attempt as hopeless. The conclusion the author has come to is, that a careful examina- tion of the narrative, compared with the physical features of the country, rightly apprehended, points to the site he has selected, and that it presents features which remarkably correspond with the description of the battle. This position was originally suggested in the Statisti- cal Account of the Parish of Ben- dochy, published in 1797 (0. S. A. V. 19, p. 367), but has not received the attention it deserves. The combined action of the fleet — praemissa classe — as well as the his- tory of the previous campaigns, exclude any position west of the Tay ; and if Dealgan Ross is evidently not the place, from the limited size of the camp, Ardoch is equally objectionable, from there being no hill near which answers the description of *Mons Granpius.' The expression ' transisse jestuaria ' in the plural, in Agricola's speech, places it north of the Firth of Tay. The position at Urie involves the improbability that he marched for several days parallel to the range of the so-called Grampians, if his route was by Strathmore, and there are no camps to indicate a march nearer the coast before the battle was fought. The remains of this ' vallum ' or rampart between the Isla and the Tay are still among the most remarkable Roman works in Scotland, and are known by the name of the Cleaven Dyke. It seems to have been the work of the same general who constructed the great camp at Ardoch, for, in con- nection with the latter, was a small work of an octagonal shape, with many ramparts, and the only other specimen the author has observed of a similar work is at the east end of the Cleaven Dyke. CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 55 soldiers. His object was to fight the battle with the auxiliary troops, among whom were even Britons, and to support them, if necessary, with the Eoman 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 Eoman 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 Eoman 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 Eoman 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, 56 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE I BOOK I. and 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 Eoman 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 Eomans 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 sub- stantially abandoned, and Agricola appears to have crossed CHAP. I.j FIRTHS OF FOKTH AND CLYDE. 57 the 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 Eoman 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 cam- paign 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 Eome. There is no doubt that he seriously contemplated the subjugation of Ireland and its annexation to the Eoman Empire. Had he remained to fulfil this intention, the colour of the future history of these islands might have been materi- ally 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 58 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book I. was 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 im- portant 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, LucuUus, 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 Eome and resumed its independent state, the Eoman pro^dnce being again limited to the boundary it possessed on the north when Agricola assumed the government. One result, however, was to add gi-eatly to the knowledge the Romans possessed of the island and its inhabitants, and to give them a practical acquaintance with the tribes inhabit- ing 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 distin- guished 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 encoun- tered during that and the subsequent years of his government ; and the arguments of the historian as to whether the inhabi- tants of the island were indigenous or an immigrant popula- tion show that, while the Eomans observed considerable difference in the physical appearance of the different races, they were not aware of any great distinction in their language. CHAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 59 Tacitus considers the question of origin as it affects the in- habitants 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 Csesar, 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 them- selves. 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 com- munity of women among them. He shows that, in the 60 ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE [book I. A.D. 120. Arrival of the Emperor Hadrian, and first Koman wall between Tyne and Solway. wedge-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 Eomans, and the Caledonian tribes having, so far as subjugated by him, resumed their independence imme- diately 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 Eoman 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 I HAP. I.] FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 61 Barbarians 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.^^ 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. See for an elaborate descrip- Britain is ^^lius Spartianus (181), tion of this wall Mr. Collingwood who says, ' Ergo conversis regio Brace's exhaustive work, The more militibus, Britanniam petiit : Roman Wall, a Description of the in qua multa correxit, murumque Mural Barrier of the North of Eng- per octaginta millia passuum primus land, third edition, 1867. The main duxit, qui Barbaros Romanosque authority for Hadrian's work in divideret.' — {De Hadr. 11.) 62 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. |_BOOK I. CHAPTEK II. THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. Ptolemy's The Eomans had now acquired more detailed information of No}th°" regarding the number and position of the tribes of Caledonia, Britain. 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 Eoman 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 pro- minent 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 CHAP. II. I THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 63 proportionably 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.-^ ^ The author has felt himself obliged to enter somewhat into detail regarding the Roman geo- graphy of Scotland, as the subject has been so much perverted by our best writers, owing to their unfor- tunate adoption of the spurious work of Richard of Cirencester. It is time that the credit of Ptolemy should be restored, and it is impos- sible ^for any one to compare his statements with the actual face of the country, without being struck with their general accuracy. Be- tween the Solway and the Tay the country is distorted and the dis- tances thrown out of proportion by the unfortunate mistake which turned the north of Scotland to the east. The effect is to increase some of the distances to a little more than double their proper length, and proportionally to diminish others. The whole country being placed in too northern a latitude does not affect the distances, and the smaller degree of longitude would be taken into account in laying down the positions ; but it must be kept in mind that Ptolemy uses no smaller division than one- eighth of a degree, giving a possible variation to each place of seven miles in one direction and five in another. Taking all this into ac- count, however, the distances between the leading features of the country, which it is impossible to mistake, are wonderfully correct. The Latin editions of Ptolemy are the earliest, and are greatly to be preferred to the Greek. They were printed from a translation into Latin by Jacob Angelas, and con- sist of an edition at Bologna bearing the date 1462, but which is believed not to be the true date ; one at Vincenza in 1475, which is really the earliest edition ; that of Rome, 1478, the first with maps; Ulm, 1482 and 1486 ; Rome, 1490 and 1507 ; Venice, 1511 ; Strasburg, 1513, 1520, and 1522, in which the text is com- pared with an old Greek ms. ; an edition in 1525, which bears to be a correction of Jacob Angelus's trans- lation by I. de Regiomonte, and in which the principal changes intro- duced into the later Greek editions first make their appearance ; and 64 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. Ptolemy 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,2 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 proportion- ably 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 the two editions by Servetus in 1535 and 1541. The principal Greek editions are those of Erasmus in 1533 and 1546, Montanus in 1605, and Bertius in 1619. A recent edition has appeared, by Dr. F. G. Wilberg, in 1838, from a collation of nine mss. with the editions of 1482, 1513, 1533, and 1535, and with a MS. at Milan, another at Vienna, and two Latin mss. collated by Mannert. The author has himself collated for this work the Latin editions of 1482, 1486, 1520, 1522, 1525, 1535, with the Greek editions of 1605 and 1619, and with Wil- berg's edition, and he agrees with Mannert in giving the preference among the early editions to the Ulm edition of 1482, and the Strasburg editions of 1520 and 1522. In the so-called corrected edition of 1525 he has no confidence. The variations occur both in the names and in the latitudes and longitudes. In cases where all the editions agree, there can be no doubt as to the genuine text used. When they differ, he has laid down the posi- tions according to the variant readings, and selected the one which best corresponded with the appearance of the country. The agreement is mainly in the position of the towns, and the variations in the features of the coast, and are, therefore, more easily corrected. ^ The Vedra might more natural- ly be supposed to be the Tyne, but an altar found at Chester-le-Street, on the Wear, on which the name Vadri occurs, indicates the Wear as the river, to which indeed the name bears a greater resemblance. There is no variation in the position of these two places. CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 65 strange 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 Eoman 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 defep, 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 tlie 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, The coast, keeping in view that he designates a headland by the Greek term uKpov, and the Latin ' promontorium ; ' a firth or estuary by eio-^^i/crt?, and ' aestuarium ; ' a bay or sea loch by VOL. I. E 66 THE KOMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. iBOOk i. Ko\7ro<;, and ' sinus ; ' and the mouth of a river by iroTa^ov €K^o\ai or ' liuvii 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 Xorthumberland ; 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 ' ISTovius ' or Nith, the ' Deva ' or Dee, and the 'lena'^ 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 ' ]^ovanta3 ' or Mull of Galloway, the Eerigonius Bay or Loch Ptyan, 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 ' The early Latin editions have, Wigtown Bay may have marked instead of lenae aestuariuni, Fines the utmost limit to which the aestus. It is possible that this may Roman troops penetrated in Agri- be the correct reading, and tliat cola's second campaign. CHAP. II.] TJIE ROMAN PROVINCE IX SCOTLAND. 67 correspond more closely with those of the places meant. North of the Tava, or Tay, is the river ' Leva,' ^ and farther north the promontory of the ' Taexali.' These cori'espond 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 pro- ceeding: along: the south shore we have the river ' Celnius ' or Devern, the ' Tuessis ' or Spey, the ' Loxa ' ^ or Lossy, and the Yarar estuary, or that part of the ]\Ioray 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 Eoss, 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 "Ox^v v^vKv^ 'Eipa alta,' or the high bank. Beyond these to the north is the mouth of the river ' Ha,' corresponding in situation with the Helmsdale river, termed by the Highlanders the Ulie. We have then three pro- * The early Latin editions all read Leva. The edition of 1525 first altered it to Deva, and is fol- lowed by the late editions, and also by Wilberg ; but the distance botli from the Firth of Tay in the south and from Kinnaird's Head corre- sponds more exactly with the mouth of the North Esk than with that of the river Dee. The editions of Ptolemy all vary as to the situation of Loxa. The Ulm editions place it after the Varar aestus at Lossiemouth ; the Strasburg editions at the mouth of the Nairn ; while Wilberg's edi- tion places it before the Varar, at the Dornoch Firth. The Ulm read- ing is here preferred from the re- semblance of Loxa to Lossie. The reading which places it north of the Varar seems inadmissible, as it is described by Ptolemy as the mouth of a river, and not an estuary or a bay, such as the Dornoch or Cromarty Firths would be described. 68 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. montories noticed — the ' Veruviuiii/ tlie ' 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, proceediog north from the Firth of Clyde, Ptolemy notices the ' Lemannonius ' Bay or Loch, which corresponds in situation with Loch Long,^ 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 Eomans as that of Caledonia, under the name of the Epidium promontory, which is obviously Kintyre. Xorth of the Mull of Kintyre he places exactly in Crinan Bay, w^hich must always have been a well-known shelter for vessels, the mouth of the ' Longus ' river, where we now find the river Add,^ known to the Highlanders as the Avon Fhada or long river. Between Scotland and Ireland Ptolemy places the five islands which he terms the ' Ebudse,' 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 ^ This has generally been supposed to be Loch Fine, in the usual ran- dom way of selecting the first large loch near about that part of the coast, but the position corresponds much more nearly with that of Loch Long. Its distance from the pro- montory of Kintyre is too great, and its vicinity to the Clyde too marked, for Loch Fine. The name, moreover, has clearly reference to the neighbouring Lake of Lomond, and the district of Lennox, the old name of which was Leamhan. " In the same loose way the Linnhe Loch is usually supposed to be meant by the Longus Fluvius, but it is impossible to suppose that a great arm of the sea — the greatest on the west coast — could be ex- pressed by the word Fluvius. The editions give two dififerent readings of the position, but that of all the editions, except "\Vilberg"s, corre- sponds with the mouth of the river Add. CHAP. II.] THE KOMAX PEOVINCE IX SCOTLAND. 69 Mull 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.^ 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 j)i'obably 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 ; Init these points must have ^ Epidium has generally been identified with the island of Isla, from the natural enough inference that its name connects it with the Epidium promontorium, and conse- quently historians have been much at a loss M'here to look for the two Ebudas, and have resorted to mere conjecture. The Epidii seem, how- ever, to have occupied Lorn as well as Kintyre, and the name would be appropriate to any island on that coast. Ptolemy jjlaces the two I-]budas close together, and makes them the most westerly of the group, while Maleus or Mull is the most northerly, placing it be- tween Engaricenna and Epidium, which latter is the most easterly ; and a comparison between Ptolemy's positions and those of the islands south of the point of Ardnamurchan seems to leave little doubt as to their identity. Ptolemy's five Ebudas with Mon- arina form the group of islands fre- quently mentioned in ancient Irish documents as 'Ara, He, Rachra acus innsi orcheana,' that is Arran, Isla, Itachra, and the other islands. 70 THE KOMAN PROVINCE IX SCOTLAND. [book r.' apparently been taken from report, as it is difficult other- wise 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 Ger- manic Ocean, and along the west, from the Mull of Galloway to Dunnet Head, the Deucaledonian. The tribes Such is the wonderfully accurate notice of the salient towns^^^^ 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 denomi- nates 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 TToXet? in Greek, and in Latin ' oppida.' That these towns were not exclusively Eoman stations is plain from their being mentioned in a part of the country to which the Eoman 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 Caesar; 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 to- gether, 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 Eoman operations, a Eoman camp placed in the immediate vicinity of the remains of these towns ; and the Eoman stations or roads are useful in assist- ing the accurate identification of these within the rano"e of their campaigns. CHAP. II.] THE KOMAN ITvOVIXCE IX SCOTLAND. 71 A 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 ob\iously an artificial line of separation, as it closely follows the course of the Eoman 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.^ These tribes were the Otalini or Otadeni and Gadeni, extending along the east coast from the Eoman 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 Eoman station, and High Eochester, in Eedesdale. Their northern frontier was guarded by the town of Alauna, which is placed by Ptolemy in the Firth of Forth, and corresponds in situa- tion wdth the island of Inchkeith.^*^ This appears from many circum- stances. Pausanias implies it when he says that Antoninus, who ad- vanced the frontier of the province from Hadrian's wall to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, took land from the Brigantes (Paus. viii. 43). Tacitus mentions Venusius, King of the Brigantes, hostile to Pome, and that his frontiers were to the north of the province appears from the geographer of Ravenna placing the town of Venusio north of the stations at the wall. The early Latin editions of Ptolemy omit the Gadeni, and call the tribe north of the wall Otalini ; but the edition of 1525, and the later editions, have ' Gadeni, the more north- ern (western) ; Otadeni, the more southern (eastern) ; ' and tlie name Gadeni occurs in inscrii)tions. If this is the correct reading, how- ever, it is obvious that Ptolemy considered them as substantially the same people, as he places the towns of Bremenium and Curia among them generally, without dis- tinguishing to which tribe each belonged, and the terminations are the same. Inscriptions mention- ing the god of the Gadeni have been found at Reesingham and at Old Penrith, within the territory of the Brigantes. On the other hand, an inscription to the goddess Brigan- tia has been found at Middlebie, within the territory of the Selgovse. This seems to be the town mentioned by Bede, Ec. Hid. B. i. 72 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. BOOK I. Farther to the west, the Selgovse or Elgovse 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 Xith. Their towns were ' Trimontium,' in the exact position where we find the remarkable Eoman 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 Eoman and native works ; ' Corda ' at Sanquhar, in the upper part of the valley of the Xith, a name which implies that it was the site of an ancient Caer or native strength. The remaining town of the Selgovse — Carban- torigum — 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 Selsrovas lav the tribe of the Xovantte, occupying the modern counties of Kirkcudbright and Wig- town. Their towns were — Lucopibia at Whithorn, where there are the remains of Eoman works, and Eerigonium^- on the eastern shore of Loch Eyan, the fortified moat of which is still to be seen on the farm of Innermessan. c. 12, * Orientalis (sinus) habet in medio sui urbeni Giudi. ' 11 Trimontium has been identified with the Eildon hills in Eoxburgh- shire, owing simply to the resem- blance of the form of the hill with a station supposed to be called the Three Mountains : but it is more probable that the syllable Tri repre- sents the Welsh Tre or Tref, and that it is a rendering of Trefmy- nydd, or the Town on the Moun- tain. To place it at the Eildon hills is to do great violence to Ptolemy's text. ^- The first of our historians to make use of Ptolemy was Hector Boece, but he placed his names too far north. He puts the Brigantes in Galloway, and the Xovantes in Kintyre, and hence their towns are placed in Argyll instead of Wigtown. The Ulm edition of 14S6, which is a very inaccurate one, was apparently the edition used by Boece, and in it the name Rerigonium is misprinted Bere- gonium. Boece applied the name to the vitrified remains, the correct name of which was Dunmhicuis- neachan, the fort of the sons of Uisneach, now corrupted into Dun- macsniochan, and thus arose one of the spurious traditions created by Boece's History. CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 73 Xortli of the Selgovoe and Xovaiitae, 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 Eenfrew ; 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, Selgovae or Elgovae, and Xovantae, on the south, from the northern tribes beyond the Tay, and were the ' novee 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 unim- portant post ; ' Coria,' at Carstairs, on the Clyde near Lanark, which, from the numerous remains both Eoman and native, appears to have been their principal seat ; and ' Vandogara,'^^ on the river Irvine, at Loudon Hill in Ayr- shire, where there are the remains of a Eoman camp, which 1^ In some of the editions this name is Vanduara, and is considered by Chalmers to have been Paisley, and he has been followed by all subsequent writers. His reasons are very inconclusive, viz. that there are said to have been Roman re- mains at Paisley, and that Van- duara is probably derived from the Welsh Gwendwr or White water, and the river at Paisley is called the White Cart. But rivers do not change their names. If it had ever been called Gwendwr, it would have borne the name still ; and to rest the identity of Vanduara with Pais- ley upon a mere conjectural etymo logy is the reverse of satisfactory. The best editions give Vandogara as the form of the name, which obviously connects it with Viudo- gara or the bay of Ayr ; and Ptol- emy's position corresponds very closely with Loudon Hill on the river Irvine, where there is a Ro- man camp. What confirms this identity is, that the towns in the territory of the Damnonii appear afterwards to have been all con- nected wnth Roman roads, and there are the remains of a Roman road leading from this camp to Carstairs. 74 THE KOMAX PROVINCE TX SCOTLAND. [book I. was afterwards connected with ' Coria,' or Carstairs, by a Eoman 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 Eoman camps, and of hill-forts which surround them, indi- cates 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 Eoman 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 Eoman 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,'^^ 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 ' Yernicomes ' and the ' Taexali,' and extending from the Moray Firth to the Tay, l*tolemy 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 irrepwrhv a-rparoTreBov, All editions agree iu placing with the sea-port of Aberdeen rests Devana in the interior of the conn- upon the authority of Richard of try, at a distance of at least thirty Cirencester alone, miles from the coast. Its identity CHAP. II.] THE KO.AIAN PEOVIXCE IX SCOTLAND. 75 Alata Castra,^^ or the AYinged Camp. They had aDother town on the Spey near Boharm, termed Tiiessis. 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 Eoman 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 Eomans. Ptolemy states that the Caledonii extended from the ' Lemannonius Sinus,' or Loch Long, to the ' Yarar 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 Scot- land, a native term apparently presented in a Greek form in Ptolemy's koXtjSovlo^ Spv/jLo^, and converted by Mr. Burton, in stating his dis- belief in the genuineness of Richard and its results, adds, among other things to be abandoned, ' the cele- brated Winged Camp : the Pteroton Stratopedon can no longer remain at Burghead in Moray, though a water tank there has become a Eo- man bath to help in its identifica- tion, and it must go back to Edin- burgh or some other of its old sites.' — (Vol. i. p. 62.) He is, however, mistaken in supposing that its identification rests upon Richard. Ptolemy is in reality the authoritj' for Alata Castra and its position on the shore of the Moray Firth. It is of course absurd to recognise Roman remains there at that early period, but there can be no question that a native strength existed on that headland. See Proc. A nt. Soc. vol. iv. p. 321, for an account of the remains. 76 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book 1. A.D. 139. First Roman wall between the Forth and Clyde. Establish- ment of the Roman province in Scotland. his Latin translator, who, puzzled by the term Spvfio^y 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 ter- mination 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 * Cantese ' or ' Decantse,' possessing the whole of Eoss-shire save the districts on the west coast. Sutherland proper was possessed by the ' Lugi ' and ' Mert«.' 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 Koman 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 venge- ance of the Roman Emperor. Lollius Urbicus was sent CHAP, n.j THE KOMAN PROVINCE IX SCOTLAND. 77 into 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 Eoman province to the isthmus between these firths, and again adding the inter- mediate territory to the Roman possessions in the island. This wall between the Forth and Clyde remained from this time, till the Eomans left the island, the proper boundary of the province during the entire period of their occupation of Britain.16 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 Pioman w^all w^as constructed along the ridge of the southern rising grounds, and the remains of this The only authorities for the events in the reign of Antoninus are two short passages. One, the passage of Pausanias, referred to in Xote ^, and the other of Julius Capitolinus, who says [De Anton. Fio, 5), 'Per legatos suos plurima bella gessit. Nam et Britannos per LoUiuin Urbicum legatum vicit, alio muro cespiticio submotis barbaris ducto.' The expression ' submotis barbaris ' proves that this wall now formed the boundary between the barbarian or independent tribes and the Eoman province. It is analogous to the expression used by Aelius Spartianus of 'qui bar- baros Romanosque divideret,' in stating the building of Hadrian's wall. It does not necessarily imply an actual driving north of the people, but only the extension of the province, so that tlie part hostile to the Eoman power came to be farther removed. Chalmers has treated the Eoman •wars in Scotland very strangely. His narrative of the actions of Lollius Urbicus extends over seventy closely printed pages ; while for all this the actual authority is com- prised within exactly fourteen words of Julius Capitolinus. The campaigns of Severus, by far more important, occupy just six pages ; and yet for these Me have the detailed narrative of two inde- pendent historians. 78 THE KOMAX PKOYINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. stupendous 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 Eoman 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.^^ 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 tui'f, 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. Mimerous 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 vexilla- The principal stations on the stone, and some of them connected wall were at the following places — with baths and more elaborate viz., West Kilpatrick, Duntocher, works, they are probably to be Castlehill, East Kilpatrick, Be- attributed to a later age. See a mulie, Kirkintilloch, Auchindav}', paper b}^ David Milne Home, Esq., Barhill, Westerwood, Castlecary, in the Tmn-^. Roy. Soc. vol. xxvii. and Rough Castle ; and as they are part i. p. 39, for the latest account in general constructed partly of of the wall. CHAr. II. i THE KOMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 71) tions. The first and last of these legions had l^een 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 a.d. 162. of Eoman troops, seems to have effectually protected the Koman province in its increased extent during the remainder province of the reign of Antoninus. But the first year of a new ^^tives 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.^^ In the commencement of the reign of Commodus, twenty a.d. 182. years later, the irruption was of a more formidable character. i^™ti^n^of The nations on the north of the wall succeeded in breaking bribes north through that great barrier, slew the commander v^ith a num- repelled by ber of the soldiers who j^uarded it, and si^read devastation ^i^^rceiius ^ ^ Ulpras. over the neighbouring part of the province. The war created great alarm at Eome, 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. On the death of Commodus in the year 192, three able generals commanded the Eoman troops stationed at the principal points of the boundary of the Eoman empire — Pescennius Niger in Syria, Lucius Septimius Se-verus 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 Prsetorian guards — a struggle took place between these Et adversus Britannos quidem Dacia imperium ejus recusantibus Calphurnius Agricola missus est. — provincialibus, quae omnia ista per (Capitolin. Mar. Aur. 8.) duces sedata sunt. — (Lamprid. In Britannia, in Germania, etin Comm. c. 13. Conf. Dion. 72. 8.) 80 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. generals for the empire. Severus ^vas proclaimed emperor at Kome, 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 Eome without drawing upon himself the simul- taneous attack of both. He therefore caused Albinus to be proclaimed CcTsar, 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 19-i. 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,-^ and Severus found him- self in possession of the undivided rule of the Eoman world. A.D. 201. It would appear that Albinus, in the course of his Revolt ot o'overnment, had come to terms with the barbarians or Caledonn ^ ' and independent tribes of the north, for four years after this Mceatie. ]3attle wc find the natives of the Mseatse, now for the first time mentioned, threatenino- hostilities afrainst the Eoman province, and the Caledonii, who are accused of not abiding by their promises, preparing to assist them. The governor, Die, 75, 76, 77 : Herodian, iii. 7 : Capitolin. Clod. Alb. c. 9 ; Eutro- piiis, viii. 18. CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 81 Virius 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 Mseatse 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 Eoman governors to protect the province from their attacks. The great extent of the province, and the difficulty expe- a.d. 204. rienced in defending it, probably led to Eoman Britain being now divided into two provinces. Herodian distinctly tells us Britain that after the war with Albinus, Severus settled matters in Provinces. 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 Eomans from the Humber to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, com- prising 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, ac- cording 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 Eoman 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 VOL. L F 82 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book i. of 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 Eoman province. A.D. 208. While Severus remained at Eome, after the defeat and o?the^^°° death of Albinus, he received letters from the prefect of Emperor Britain announcing that the independent tribes had again Severus in Britain. broken loose and were in a state of open hostility, overrun- ning 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 effectu- ally to prevent them from renewing them by striking a severe blow, and carrying the war, as Agricolahad done before him, into their fastnesses and the interior of the country. Situation When this war again drew the attention of the Eoman tribes. 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 de- scribed 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 CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 83 Roman invasion alone united into a temporary confederacy, they are now found combined into two nations, bearing the names respectively of ' Caledonii ' and ' Mseatae,' for into these two, says the historian Dio as abridged by Xiphiline, * were the names of the others merged.' The nation of the ' Maeatse ' 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.^^ 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 Eomans 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 com- munity 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 -1 From Magh, a plain. The same word seems to enter into the name Vacomagi. 84 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. produce the representation of animals, and to have refrained from clothing, in order that what they considered an orna- ment should not be hidden. But in these descriptions it must be remembered that the Eomans 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 fron- tier, and entered Caledonia.' Severus had seen that the nature of the country had hitherto in the main prevented the Eomans 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 Eomans, and the natives speedily regained possession. The policy adopted by Severus was the true mode of overcoming CHAP, n.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 85 such 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 Eomans 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 Kaf&rs 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 Kaf&rs 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 86 THE EOMAX PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. not 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.'- Roman It is to this period that the traces of the Eoman roads Scotland beyond the wall must be attributed, and their remains, with those of the Eoman 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 fortifica- tions of the stations as he passed.^^ 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 Eoman 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 Eoman 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, wath every appearance of probability, be attri- buted 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. Colonel Gurwood's Speeches of of the Rede, inscriptions have been the Duke of Wellington, vol. ii. p. found showing that Severus restored 729. the gate and repaired the walls of 23 At Habitancum, a station on the station. See Brace's Roman Watling Street, on the south bank Wall, p. 384. CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 87 From 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 Eoman army, through the counties of Forfar, Kincardine, and Aberdeen, till they terminate at the shores of the Moray Firth.2* 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.^^ These camps are as follows — viz., Wardykes, near Keithock ; Raedykes, near Stonehaven ; Nor- mandykes, on the Dee ; and Rae- dykes, on the Ythan. The account of the campaigns of Severus, and of the state of the hostile nations at the time, is given at length in the two independent narratives of Dio (as abridged by Xiphiline) and Herodian, and there- fore rests upon peculiarly firm ground. A great deal too much has been made of the Mseatse by previous historians. It has been stated, as if it w^ere a name in general use and applied to the tribes between the walls during the whole period of the Roman occu- pation of Britain ; but the fact is that the Mseatse are mentioned by Dio alone, and on this occasion only. We never hear of them before or after. Innes and Chalmers talk of the Maeatse or Midland Britons (that fatal or of historians implying an identity assumed butnot proved), as if there were some analogy be- tween the names. There is none. The term Midland Britons nowhere occurs, and the root of the name Mseatae is probably the word for a plain, nearly the same in Welsh and Gaelic— Maes, Magh. That both nations were in Caledonia is plain, independently of the position that the wall alluded to by Dio is the wall between the Forth and the Clyde, for Dio styles them both 'the inhabitants of that part of Britain which is hostile to us,' that is, extra-provincial. Moreover, 88 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book i. During 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 Eoman invader had hitherto reached, or even attempted, led eventually to a peace, the principal con- dition of which was that the native tribes should yield up a considerable part of their territory to be garrisoned by Eoman 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 Eoman 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. Dio's expression ' advanced into bridges is emphatically stated by Caledonia,' is the equivalent of both Dio and Herodian, and it is Herodian's, ' he passed beyond the to him alone that the classical his- rivers and fortresses that defended torians attribute such works in the Roman territory.' That Se- Britain, verus constructed roads and built CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PEOVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 89 A part of the inhabitants of this district, too, made their appearance about this time in the Eoman army, and two inscriptions found at Nieder Biebr on the Ehine, 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 Eoman auxiliaries.^^ These are all marks of Severus's occupation of this district, and, as there are traces of Eoman 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 Severus's Maeatse, 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 struc- ture itself.^'' 2^ The Horesti are mentioned in nately he does not give the length the inscription noticed in chap, i., of the wall, which would have in- Note The other inscription is dicated its position ; but he also as follows — 'In H.D.D. Baioli et says (c. 22), 'Post murum aut val- vexillarii CoUegio Victoriensium lum missum in Britannia, quum ad signiferorum Genum de suo fecerunt proximam mansionem rediret, non viii. kal. Octobr. Presente et Al- solum victor, sed etiam in aeternum bino Cos.' which places it in 239. jjace fundata ;' which shows that it ^ That Severus built or had re- was after his expedition into Cale- constructed a wall in Britain rests donia ; and it is rather remarkable upon the direct authority of Aure- that at Cramond — theproxima man- lius Victor, Eutropius, Spartian, sio — behind the wall of Antoninus, Orosius, and Eusebius. Spartian, was found a medal of Severus, who wrote in 280, says (c. 18), having on the reverse the inscrip- ' Britanniam, quod maximum ejus tion, ' fundator pacis.' Aurelius imperii decus est, muro per trans- Victor, who wrote 360, says, ' His versam insulam ducto, utrimque ad majora aggressus Britanniam quae finem oceani munivit.' Unfortu- ad ea utilis erat, pulsis hostibus, 90 THE KOMAN PROVINCE IX SCOTLAND. [book i. Having completed this work, and left the province thus once more protected, with the additional security of the occupation by Eoman 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 Cale- donians regarding the treaty of peace, in charge of the frontier. He had not remained long at York before the Meeatae 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 muro munivit, per transversam in- sulam ducto, utrimque ad finem oceani ' (De Caes. 20). And again : 'Hie in Britannia vallum per tri- ginta duo passuum millia a mari ad mare deduxit ' [Epit. 40). And Eutropius, who wrote at the same time, says, ' Xovissimum bellum in Britannia habuit : utque receptas provincias omni securitate muniret, vallum per 32 millia passuum a mari ad mare deduxit ' (viii. 19). Both these writers place the con- struction of the vallum after the war, and if it was thirty-two Roman miles in length, it can only have extended across the peninsula be- tween the Forth and the Clyde. Orosius, who wrote in 417, says, ' Severus victor in Britannias de- fectu pene omnium sociorum tra- hitur. Ubi magnis gravibusque praeliis saepe gestis, receptam par- tem insulae a caeteris indomitis gen- tibus vallo distinguendam putavit. Itaque magnam fossam firmissi- mumque vallum, crebris insuper turribus comraunitum, per centum triginta et duo millia passuum a mari ad mare duxit.' Eusebius, as reported by St. Jerome, says, 'Se- verus in Britannos bellum transfert, ubi, ut receptas provincias ab incur- sione barbarica faceret securiores, vallum per 132passuummillia amari ad mare duxit.' The length here given of 132 Roman miles is as inconsistent with the distance between the Tyne and the Solway, as it is with that be- tween the Forth and the Clyde. Horsley, who considered that the earthen vallum between the Tyne and the Solway was the work of Hadrian, and the murus or wall which runs parallel to it, the work of Severus, supposed that in the original MS. of these writers the distance had been written lxxxii and that c had been written by mis- take for L, which would reduce the distance to eighty-two miles ; but CHAP. II.] THE EOMAN PKOVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 91 his 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 -^-d. 287. relative position of the Eomans and the barbarian tribes, carausius ; Britain for between the Tyne and Solway in- ^^^^^ volves the manifest inconsistency, ^*^^P^^' that, after penetrating almost to the end of the island, and making a peace, in which territory was ceded to him, he abandoned the whole of his conquests, and with- di-ew the frontier of the province to where it had been placed by Had- rian. Chalmers, who saw this diffi- culty, supposes that he built the wall before he commenced his con- quests ; but this is equally against the direct statement of the older authorities, that it was built after he had driven back his enemies and concluded peace. Mr. Bruce has the pertinent remark that 'if Severus built the wall (between Tyne and Solway), we should expect to find frequent intimations of the fact in the stations and mile castles. The truth, however, is that from Wallsend to Bowness w^e do not meet with a single in- scription belonging to the reign of Severus, while we meet with several belonging to that of Hadrian ' (p. 382). no MS. supports this conjecture, and Mr. Bruce, in his work on the wall, clearly establishes that both are the work of Hadrian. It is inconceivable that our best historians should have gone so en- tirely against the direct testimony of the older authorities. They have in this given too much weight to the opinion of Bede, who first declared the remains of the wall between the Tyne and the Solway to be those of Severus's wall, for opinion it is only, and he was naturally biassed by the remains of the northern rampart being always before his eyes. Nennius gives the native tradition before his time when he quotes the passage from Eusebius, and adds, ' et vocatur Britannico sermone Guaul a Pen- guaul quae villa Scotici Cenail, Anglice vero Peneltun dicitur, usque ad ostium fluminis Cluth et Cairpentaloch, quo murus ille finitur rustico opere thus clearly placing the wall between the Forth and Clyde. Moreover, placing Severus's wall 92 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. A.D. 289. Carausius admitted Emperor. till, after an interval of seventy-five years, the attention of the Koman 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 Eoman 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 pro\dnces. 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 Eoman fleet was stationed at Gesoriacum or Boulogne. Carausius, a native of the city of Menapia in Belgium, who had risen to eminence in the Eoman army, was appointed to command it, and soon distinguished him- self 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 Eoman soldiers in Britain obeyed him, and he increased his naval force by building numerous new vessels.^^ A Barbarian by birth, and consequently connected with native tribes, he appears to have received the ready sub- mission of the Britons, as well as the support of the in- 28 Aurel. Victor, de Caes. 39 ; Eutrop. ix. 21 ; Orosius, vii. 25. CHAP. II.] THE EOMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 93 dependent tribes, 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.^^ In the meantime, owing to the disturbed state of the Empire and the revolt in Britain, Diocletian created Galerius Maximian and Constantius Chlorus, Caesars. It appears that the latter, to whose share the provinces a.d. 296. of Gaul, Spain, and Britain were assigned, resolved to wrest ^^^g^^^^^ the provinces of Britain from the usurper, but of the Chlorus particulars of this war we know nothing except what may Bpitain. 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.^^ The reign of Carausius was one of prosperity to the a.d. 294. Britons, and his government vigorous, but it was terminated ^|^^"|Jy^^ by his assassination by Allectus, one of his followers, who Aiiectus. 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. ^ Eumenius, Paneg. Const, c. 12. Eumen. Pan. Const. Caes. c. 6. Eutrop. ix. 22. Mamert. Pan. Max. Here. c. 11, 12. 94 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. It was found after the battle that Allectus had few Eoman 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 charac- teristic indicated by Tacitus as distinguishing them from the rest of the Britons, we can recognise the inhabitants of Caledonia.^^ Britain had thus been separated from the rest of the Eoman 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. A.D. 306. The termination of this independent government was the ^n^stan- signal for the independent tribes to break out into hostilities ; tins and, as they emerged from under the government of Carausius against^ and Allectus into their old position towards the Eoman Caiedo- province they now appear for the first time under the nians and n -r^- • n i i i other Picts. general name oi ricts, 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 Ficts, 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 re- cognise those termed by Dio the Maeatse.^- This expedition was probably limited to the territory beyond the waU which Comp. Eumenius, ' prolixo ^- Non dice Caledonum aliorum- crine rutilantia,' with Tacitus, que Pictorum silvas et paludes. — ' rutilae Caledoniam habitantium Eumen. c. 7. CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 95 had been ceded to the Komans in the peace concluded with the Emperor Severus. In the following year Con- st an tins 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 Eoman province, for a period of fifty years, till in the year 360 a new and very important feature in the history of the Eoman 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 expedi- tions for plunder, but evidently aimed at the subversion of the Eoman government in Britain, and, though checked at intervals, were ever again renewed till the Eomans 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 integxity 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 dis- trict, 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 96 THE KOMAN PKOVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. of 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 corre- sponding 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 Eomans was a mere encum- brance 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.' 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 Division of the arrangement introduced by Diocletian, and confirmed and fiSSn established by Constantine, the Eoman Empire was divided into four into f our portions, to correspond with the two Emperors and provinces, Csesars. Each of these dioceses, as they were called, was placed under a great officer termed the praetorian prefect. The diocese of the west consisted of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and the latter country was governed by a vicarius or vicar. Koman Britain, which from the time of Severus had con- sisted of two provinces, termed Upper and Lower Britain, was now divided into four provinces, — Maxima Csesariensis, Flavia, Britannia Prima, and Britannia Secunda,^* the two 33 Appian. Alex. Hist. Rom. Prsef . Sunt in Gallia cum Aquitania 5, Eumen. Pan. Const, cc. 9-19. et Britanniis decern et octo pro- CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 97 former or new provinces being apparently named after his fatlier, who had been Ca?sar, 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 repre- sented by Britannia Prima and Maxima Csesariensis. 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 Koman wall between the Sol- way 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 a.d. 360, the year 360, and proceeded from two nations. The one j^^^ade^i^ consisted of that union of tribes which had now become Pj^^^ generally known by the name of ' Picti ' or Picts, the dis- tinctive 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 knowxi to the Eomans under the name of ' Scoti.'^^ Having broken the vinciae ... in Britannia, Maxi- feranim excursus, rupta qiiiete con - ma Ceesariensis, Flavia, Britannia dicta, loca limitibus vicina vastar- Prima, Britannia Secunda. — Sextus ent, et implicaret forniido provincias Rufus Festus (360), Brev. 6. praeteritarum cladium congerie fes- "'^ ' Consulatu vero Constantii de- sas.' — Am. Mar. B. xx. c. 1. The cies, terque Juliani, in Britanniis sentence which follows — ' Hyemem cumScotorumPictorumque gentium agens apnd Parisios Csesar dis- VOL. I. G 98 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. A.D. 364. Ravaged by Picts, Scots, Saxons, and Attacotts. agreed-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 con- sternation, who dreaded a renewal by this formidable com- bination 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 tlie Picts were those extending from the territories of the inde- pendent 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 lerne, or the island of Ire- land, from whence they came.^^ The Emperor Julian wms unable to render effectual assistance, and Lupicinus, whom he sent, appears to have been unable to do more than main- tain the provinces from further encroachment. During four years the invading tribes retained possession of the districts they had occupied, and were wdth difficulty prevented from overrunning the province ; but in the fourtli year a more formidable irruption took place. To the two tractusque in solicitudines varias, verebatur ire subsidio transmarinis ; ut retulimus ante fecisse Constan- tem,' etc. — implies that there had been a previous attack in 343, but as this part of Ammianus's work is lost, it is impossible to found upon it. The peace said to have been broken probably followed it. 36 The early legends of Wales show that the seaboard of that dis- trict had been exposed at an early period to the attacks of the Scots. Nennius, in giving the early settle- ments of the Scots in Britain, says — ' Filii autem Liethan obtinuerunt in regione Demetorum (that is South Wales), et in aliis regioiiibus, id est, Guir et Cetgueli, donee expulsi sunt a Cuneda et a filiis ejus al) omnibus Britannicis regionibus. " And again — ' Scotti autem de occi- dente et Picti de aquilone.' And again — ' Mailcunus magnus rex apud Brittones regnabat, id est, in regione Guenedotas (that is. North Wales), quia atavus illius, id est, Cunedag cum filiis suis, quorum numerus octo erat, venerat prius de parte sinistrali, id est, de regione qnve vocatur Manau Guotodin centum quadraginta sex annis antequam Mailcun regnaret et Scottos cum ingentissima clade expulerunt ab istis regionibus et nunquam reversi sunt iterum ad habitandum.'— Xon- nii Brit. Hist. ( HAP. II.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 90 nations 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 Eomans had been driven out on its seizure by the independent tribes.^'^ 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 Xectarides, the Count of the maritime tract, the Picts and Attacotts on the north placing Fallofaudus, the Dux Britan- niarum, whose duty it was to guard the northern frontier, in extreme peril, and the Scots penetrating through the moun- tains 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 Eoman government, that the Emperor became roused to the immin- ence of the danger, and after various ofiicers 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 ' Dicalidonse ' and the ' Vecturiones,' a division evidently corresponding to the twofold division of the hostile tribes in the time of Severus, the ' Caledonii ' and the ' Maeata^/ The similarity of name and situation sufiiciently identifies the first-mentioned people in each of the twofold divisions. The Hoc tempore (364) . . . Picti Britannos rerumnis vexavere coii- .Saxonesque et Scoti et Attacotti tinuis. — Ammian. Mar. xxvi. 4. 100 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTIAM). [book i. Maeatse had been obliged to cede a part of their territory to the Eomans, 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 tliat their attacks must have been made on different parts of the coast.^^ A.D. 369. Theodosius landed at ^Eutupiye'or Eichborough, where restorer appointed the rendezvous of the troops, and marched by Theo- upon Loudou. When arrived there he divided his men into dosius. 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 ^ Illud tamen sufficiet dici, quod The ' Caledoiiii ' of Dio we know 60 tempore Picti in duas gentes di- were the most northerly of the two visi, Dicalidonas et Vecturiones, nations ; and the ' Dicalidonte ' of itidemque Attacotti, bellicosa ho- Ammianus must have extended minum natio, et Scotti, per diversa along the coast bounded by the vagantes, multa populabantur. — Deucaledonian Sea of Ptolemy. Ammian. Mar. xxvii. 8, 9. CHAP. Ji.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 101 character 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 lerne; and the Saxons he indicates had formed their headquarters in the islands of Orkney. The stations re- stored by Theodosius on the frontier he identifies as separat- ing 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 Eomans garrisoned the territory beyond the w^all ceded to them in the campaign of Severus.^^ 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 Eomans. They had exhibited even greater ferocity than the independent tribes, and these he now formed into Eoman cohorts, and enlisted as a part of the army.*^ 3» Ille leves Mauros, nec falso nomine Pictos Edomuit, Scotumque vago mucrone sequutus, Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas (vii. 54). Ille Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis . . . . . . Maduerunt Saxone fuso Orcades : incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule : Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis lerne (viii. 26). It has generally been supposed that the province had at this time only extended to the wall between the Solway and the Tyne, and that Theodosius added the additional territory, which now for the first time became a province under the name of Valentia. But the words of the historian are directly opposed to this : ' Recuperatamque provin- ciam, quae in ditionem concesserat hostium, ita reddiderat statui pris- tino.' — Am. Mar. B. xxviii. c. 3. The Notitia Imperii, compiled subsequently to this expedition, has the following bodies of Atecotti in the Roman army who were stationed in Gaul : — Atecotti. Atecotti juniores Gallieani. Atecotti Honoriani seniores. Atecotti Honoriani juniores. — Not. Dig., ed. Bocking. St. Jerome says that he saw in Gaul the Atticotts, a British nation, which implies that they were in- habitants of Britain. He says {Adv. Her. ii.), 'Quid loquar de cseteris nationibus, quum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Atticotos, gentem Britannicam, humanis vesci carnibus.' As St. Jerome says that he was then ' ado- lescentulus,' and was bom in the year 340, it is supposed that this could not have been later than 355 ; 102 THE EOMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. AVhat 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 Kichard of Cirencester, and rests upon his authority alone. Horsley, who wrote before his date, considers that this part of Eoman Britain belonged to the province of Maxima Ciesariensis, and is borne out by the distribution of the troops as given in the Xotitia 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 iinder the same commander, the ' Dux Britannite.' 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 Eoman 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. but this is a mistake arising from the period of Theodosius's conquest, overlooking the lax sense in which That the Atecotti were inhabitants Jerome uses the word ' adoles- of the district between the walls centulus,' which he stretches into appears from the fact that they very mature age. He uses the ex- only joined the invading tribes after pressionsof 'puer' and 'adolescens' the latter had been four years in for himself when he was at least possession of that territory ; and thirty years old. St. Jerome was that no sooner was it again wrested in Gaul at only one period of his from the invaders by Theodosius, life, and that we know from other than we find them enlisted in the circumstances must have been about Roman army. cHAi-. II. J THE ROMAN PKOVIXCE IN SCOTLAND. 103 As the ' Comes littoris Saxonici ' protected the south-eastern coast, and the ' Dux Britannise ' the northern frontier, this new military functionary was probably created for the pro- tection 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.'*^ 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 V alentia was that part of the province most exposed to tlie 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 The three bodies of infantry were the Victores Juniores Britan- niciani, the Primani Juniores, and Secundani Juniores. The six bodies of cavalry, the Equites Catafractarii Juniores, the Equites Scutarii Aureliaci, the Equites Honoriani .Seniores, the Equites Stablesiani, the Equites Syri, and the Equites Taifali. The Equites Catafractarii were stationed at Morbium, sup- posed by Horsley to be Templeburgh on the south bank of the river Don. The provinces are twice given in the Notitia, and the order is the same in both — Maxima Caesariensis, Valentia, Britannia Prima, Britannia Secunda, Flavia Csesariensis. The position usually assigned to these provinces rests entirely upon the authority of the spurious Richard of Cirencester, and involves the supposition that when Constantine divided the provinces into four, he substituted the name of Maxima Caesariensis for that of Lower Britain, and divided Upper Britain into three provinces, forming the district of "Wales into a separate province called Britannia Secunda ; but if the order in the Notitia is geo- graphical, and proceeds from north to south. Maxima Caesariensis is the most northerly, then Valentia and Britannia Prima extend across the island from west to east. Then south ^of them Britannia Secunda, and farther south Flavia Caesari- ensis ; and thus, before Valentia was formed. Maxima Cfesariensis and Britannia Prima would repre- sent what had been Lower Britain, and the Dux Britanniae would command the troops within it ; Britannia Secunda and Flavia Caesariensis what had been Upper Britain, and the Comes tractus maritimi, the troops within it. The new province would be formed in the west to meet the invasion in a new quarter from a new people, the Scots ; and a new commander, the Comes Britanniarum, or Count of the two Britannias, would be placed there to protect the western frontier. 104 THE KOMAN PKOVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book 1. province, the Eomans were notwithstanding obliged finally to abandon the island. This arose from two causes : — the yearly increasing pressure of the Barbarians upon the mili- tary 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 inevi- table 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 main- tained 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 con- veyed into Gaul to support the usurper's ambitious aim, and the province was thus left undefended to the incursions of the hostile nations. A.D. 383. fi^st of these insular Emperors after the war of Theo- Revoit by dosius was Clcmens Maximus, an Iberian or Spaniard by birth, who had served under Theodosius in Britain, and was now, twelve years later, in command of the Eoman 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 follow- ing year he repressed the incursions of the Picts and Scots,*^ * Incursantes Pictos et Scotos Maximus strenue superavit. — Prosper. Aquit. Gratian. iv. CHAP. 11.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 105 and 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 Eoman troops from Britain by a.d. :i87. With- Maximus left the province exposed to the incursions of their (JJ.a^val of old enemies, and the two nations of the Picts and Scots — the Rom&u one from the north, where the regions beyond the Forth and from Clyde formed their seat — the other from the west, where lay ' the island of lerne, whence they proceeded — continued to devastation harass the provincial Britons for many years with their ^y^p°^g^^^ piratical incursions, which they were the less able to resist and Scots, 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 a.d. 396. ■I ^ •< TT • 1 1 • Repelled the young Emperor Honorius, and a legion w^as sent to stilicho. Britain, which, for the time, drove back the invading tribes, ^^"^^^ a legion to and garrisoned the wall between the Forth and the Clyde, guard the The recovery of the territory at the northern frontier was on „ Avail this occasion, as well as when Theodosius repelled the in- vaders from it, followed by a part of the nation of the Atta- cotts being enrolled in the Eoman army, where they bore the name of Honoriani in honour of the Emperor Honorius. The Roman historians affbrdius: 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 northern 106 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. Stilicho. He alludes to the lefrion 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 lerne, nor the Pict nor the Saxon ravaging her coasts.^^ 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 Eoman army.^* A.D. 402. Four years later the legion was recalled from Britain in Roman conscQuence of the Gothic war and the attacks of Alaric, and legion -L ' with- left the island, having, as we are informed by Nennius, second' appointed a leader to command the Britons. They had no devastation sooner gone, however, than the old enemies of the provincial of provinctf. ' Britons — the Picts and Scots — again broke into the province and renewed their ravages. *3 . . . Quae Saxona frenat Vel Scotum legio . . . (xxxi. 89). Me quoque vicinis pereuntem gentibus, inquit, Munivit Stilichon. . . . (xxii. 250). Venit et extremis legio prsetenta Brit- annis Quae Scoto dat frtena truci, ferroque notatas Perlegit exsangues Picto moriente tiguras . . . Ne tela timerem Scotica, ne Pictum tremerem, ne litore toto Prospicerem dubiis venturum Saxona ventis (xxil. 253). Of the four bodies of Attecotti in the Roman army, the first tyro were those probably enrolled by Theodosius, and seen by St. Jerome in Gaul. The two last, which are termed Honoriani, must, from their name, have been enrolled by Stilicho, the minister of Honorius. Orosius called the latter ' Barbari . . . qui quondam in fcedus recepti atque in militiam adlecti Hono- riaci vocabantur ' (Oros. vii. 40). Thus, on the two occasions in which the territory between the walls was recovered, Attecotti w^ere enrolled in the Roman army. They were Barbari who ravaged Britain, when the Barbarians occupied this part of the province. They were ' in fcedus recepti et in militiam adlecti ' when the Romans re- covered it — a combination only applicable to the half-provincial half-independent tribes between the walls ; and they were probably the same people whom Ptolemy called the Ottedeni and Gadeni, who 'ex- tended from the southern wall to the Firth of Forth. The same word seems to enter into the compo- sition of the names Ottedeni and Attecotti. CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PKOVINCE IX SCOTLAND. 107 After three years, Stilicho sent assistance to them. He a.d. 406. appears to have feared the total loss of Britain to the Opened by liomans, and, apparently desirous to make a great effort for stilicho, . , and armv its permanent recovery on this occasion, he restored the restored!^ 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 Eoman troops.*^ As long as this army re- mained 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 Kotitia 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 pro- tected the frontiers of this distant portion of the Empire, in the last notice which we have regarding the Eoman 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 pro- bably 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 ^•^ The army is mentioned in Bri- after Theodosius, for the province tain in 406. Stilicho was consul of Valentia is mentioned, and the tlie preceding year. The Notitia army there described must have Imperii refers to a state of matters been in Britain at this time. 108 THE KOMAX PEOVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book i. the year -106, 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 report to the step which had now become the habitual tendency of a Eoman army so placed — to proclaim an Emperor. Accord- ingly 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.D. 407. A soldier named Constantine was then chosen, owing his Constan- gjgyr^^jQj^ mainly to his name being that of the celebrated proclaimed Emperor ; and this new Constantine no sooner assumed the wkhcSaws purple, than, with the fatal policy of his predecessors, he trom™' resolved to strike a blow for the possession of Gaul, and Britain; Spain likewise. Before withdrawing the troops from Britain, however, he counselled the provincial Britons to devastation ? ^ r byPicts abandon the districts between the walls, a territory now and Scotb. with difl&culty maintained by them, and to pro- tect the remainder of the province by maintaining garrisons on the southern wall. At the same time the valleys on tlie north side of the Solway Firth appear to have been pro- tected 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 Eyan. On the south coast, where the province had been exposed to the piratical descents of the Saxons, and had hitherto been protected by the Eoman vessels, he erected towers at stated intervals. Having thus taken the best measures in his power to enable the pro\'incial Britons to protect the province, Constantine crossed over to Gaul with CHAP. II.] THE EOM-AJN' PROVINCE IN' SCOTLANI', 109 the army, and the Eoman legion^ lefr 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 Eoman troops had left the island, the civil government of the Eomans still remained in force, and the provinces of Britain continued to form an integral part of the Empire. Tlie events, however, connected with the usurpation of Constantine speedily led to the termina- tion of the Eoman government in Britain, and its linal 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 Eoman troops in Gaul submitted to Constantine. and he thus obtained possession of the whole of that country. In the meantime, intelligence having reached Eome of Constantine's successful usurpation, and that the provinces of Gaul had become subject to him, Stilicho returned to Eome from Eavenna, and sent Sarus in command of an army against him. Justinian, one of Constantine's generals, was encoun- tered and slain. Ne\'iogastes, 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 difh- culty he reached the Alps and escaped into Italy, having had to bribe the ' Bagauda?,' 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 Ehine. in order to protect 110 THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book 1. the territory he had acquired from invasion. Being now in undisturbed possession of Gaul, he created his eldest son Constans, who had been a monk, Caesar, 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 Pra3torium, 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 — Con- stantine 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 Geron- tius, 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 Eoman army by Stilicho,'*^ to guard the passes through the Pyrenees. The unfortunate relatives of Honorius were no sooner brought before Con- stantine 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 AdversushosConstantinus Con- in fcedus recepti atque in niilitiani stantem filium suum, proh dolor ! adlecti, Honoriaci vocabantur, in ex monacho Csesarem factum, cum Hespanias misit. — Orosius, vii. 40. barbaris quibusdam, qui (quondam CHAP. 11.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. Ill wiis ill no condition to act otherwise, and by promising him assistance from Constantine's army in quelling commo- tions in Italy and Rome. Constans had, in the meantime, been sent back to Spain, a.d. 409. and took with him Justus as his general. This gave great j^v^^ef offence to Gerontius the Briton, who probably only waited Barbarians 1 i i . 1 i p to invade lor a pretext to endeavour to overturn the government of Empire. Constantine ; and, having gained over the soldiers in Spain, Termina- tion of who, being principally Attacotts, were probably more acces- Roman sible to the influence of their countrymen, he incited the Britain. Barbarians in Gaul to revolt, and invited those beyond the Ithine 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 Bar- barians wdio were thus invited and encouraged to attack the provinces of Britain were, we know from other sources, tlieir 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 w^eight 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 exist- ence 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 wdth an army, who shut Constantine into the town of Aries, took 112 THE KOMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. [book I. it, 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 Yienne, 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. Xo attempt was made to recover Britain. It no longer formed a portion of the Eoman Empire, and the Eoman 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 Eoman 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 Eoman occupation, so far as it affected the northern portion of the island; such the knowledge the Eomans had attained, and the record their historians have left us, compressed in few facts, and accom- panied 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 re- mained in hostility to the Eoman government throughout the whole period of their dominion in the island.-^" This account of the usurpation of Constautine, and its consequences, is taken from Zosimiis and Olympio- dorus, two contemporary historians. The opinion generally entertained that the Roman troops returned to Britain after the year 410 rests upon no direct authority, and is opposed to the testimony of those contem- porary historians. Mr. Bruce, in his Eoman Wall, makes the per- tinent remark (43) : ' The series of coins found in the stations of the north of England, and in the camps and Roman cities of the south, ex- tends from the earlier reigns of the Empire down to the times of Arca- dius and Honorius, and then ceases. CHAP. II.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND. 113 Any legion coming later must have been destitute of treasure. ' The mistake has arisen from the false chronology of the invasions of the Scots and Picts, and of the assistance of the Romans in repelling them, applied to the narrative of Gildas. No dates are given in the work of Gildas ; but if the mind is disabused of preconceived concep- tions in this respect, it is impossible to compare Gildas 's narrative with the notices of the legion sent by Stilicho, and of the army which elected Constantine, the attack which followed, and the repelling of the invaders by the provincial Britons, without seeing the absolute identity of the events. The following comparison will show this more clearly : — Roman and Greek Authors. 383 Maximus revolts. 387 Withdraws Roman army from Britain. 396 A legion sent by Stilicho, who drive back Picts and Scots, and garrison wall. 402 Legion withdrawn. 406 A Roman army in Britain — stationed ' per lineam valli. ' 407 Constantine withdraws Roman army. 409 Gerontius invites Barbarians. Honorius frees province. Provincials raise and repel in- vaders. Narrative of Gildas. Revolt of Maximus, who withdraws the army with the youth from Britain. First devastation of Picts and Scots. Britons apply for assistance. A legion sent, w'ho build northern wall. Legion withdrawn. Second devastation of Picts and Scots. Britons again apply for assistance. Roman troops sent, who fortifj- southern wall. Roman troops withdrawn, ' never to return.' Picts seize up to wall. Break through wall and ravage. Provincials take courage and repel them. Vortigern invites Saxons. VOL. I. H lU BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. CHAPTEE III. BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. Obsciu'ity of history of Britain after the departure of Romans. Settlement of barbaric tribes in Britain. The termination of the Eoman dominion in Britain pro- duced 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 strucrale, out of which the elements of a new historical world were to emerge, it seemed to relapse into that state of iDarbarism from which the in- liuence of the Eoman 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 dark- ness, 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 wliich succeeded to the dominion of the Eoman Empire, and inherited its concen- trating energy — the Christian Church — took Britain within its grasp, and the works of its monastic and clerical writers <)nce 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 Eoman province till the Eomans abandoned the island, had now effected fixed settlements within the island, and formed permanent kingdoms within its limits. South of the Firths CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 115 of Forth and Clyde we find her containing a Saxon organisa- tion 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 Eomans 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 Eoman 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.^ So little was known of Britain during this interval of ignorance upwards of a century and a half, so undefined were the writers notions of the Continental writers, that Procopius, writing ^^^^^ century. 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 di\dded 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 w^as the place of departed spirits. The country south of the Humber he considered a separate island, named ' Brettannia.'^ Stephanus Byzantinus, writing from the same place half a century earlier, considered 'Albion,' 'Brettia,' and 1 Hibernia is first mentioned as Procop. Bell. Goth. iv. 20. being also called Scotia by Isidore (a.d. 540-550.) of Seville in 580. 116 BRITAIN AFTER THE RO^IANS. [book I. ' Pretania ' separate islands, inhabited respectively by the * Albiones/ ' Brettanoi,' and ' Pretanoi.'^ 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,'^ 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 in- habitants 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 know- ledge of them, but had received them by report from a distant land ; for he says he will relate his history,^ ' 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 inter- course, is by no means clear.' 3 Steph. Byzant. De Urhihus (a.d. 490). ^ Exceptis div'ersorura prolixiori- bus promontoriorum tractibus, quse arcuatis oceani sinibus ambuitur. — Hist. Gild. § 3. * Quantum tamen potuero, non tarn ex scripturis patriae scripto- rumve monimentis — quippe qu«, vel si qua fuerint, aut ignibus hostium exusta, aut civium exsilii classe longius deportata, non compareant, — quam transmarina relatione, qufe crebris irrupta inter- capedinibus, non satis claret. — Hist. Gild. 4. ^ It is hardly conceivable that Gildas, if he was a native of Strath- clj^de, as is generallysupposed, could have used the language he does regarding the northern part of the island ; but there is much confusion regarding his life, and great diffi- culty in ascertaining the real events of it. Usher came to the conclusion that there were at least two persons of the name, whom he distinguishes as Gildas Albanus and Gildas Badonicus, whose acts have been confounded together, and his opinion has been very generally adopted. Mabillon considered that there was only one Gildas. There are four lives of St. Gildas preserved. One by Caradoc of Llancarvan, printed in Stevenson's edition of his CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 117 In order to realise thoroughly the cause of this darkness and confusion which appear to have settled upon Britain writings ; another in the Bodleian, printed by Capgi-ave ; another by a monk of Ruys, printed by Mabillon ; and a fourth in the British Museum, still in MS. (Egerton, No, 7457). It is, however, impossible to com- pare these lives without seeing that they relate to the same person. Gildas in his work states that the battle of Badon was fought in the year he was born, and that he was then forty-four years, which, as that battle was fought, according to the Annales Cambrife, in 516, gives us 560 as the year in which he com- posed his history. The confusion has arisen, in this as in everything relating to Welsh history, from not discriminating between his acts compiled before GeoflFrey of Monmouth's fabulous history appeared, and those which bear the impress of that work. The third and fourth life belong to the former period ; that by Caradoc of Llancarvan, and the second, which is substantially the same, to the latter. In the fourth life he is said to have been born in Bretagne ; to have been educated by St. Phyle- bert, abbot of Tournay ; to have founded a monastery, which, by its description, answers to that of Ruys ; and to have gone to Island, by which, however, Ireland is evidently meant — when it ter- minates abruptly. In the life by the monk of Buys, he is said to have been bom in ' Arecluta fer- tilissima regione,' which 'Arecluta autem regio, quum sit Britannire pars, vocabulum sumpsit a quodam flumine quod Glut nuncupatur.' His father, Cauuus, had four other sons — Cuillus, who succeeded him ; Mailocus, who founded a monastery at ' Lyuhes in pago Elmail ;' Egreas ; Alleccus ; and Peteona, who became a nun. Mailocus is evidently St. Meilig, son of Caw, to whom the church of Llowes in Elfael, Radnorshire, is dedicated, Egreas, Alleccus, and Peteona are Saints Eigrad, Gallgo, and Peithien, children of Caw, to whom churches in Anglesea are dedicated. If he was born, therefore, in Britain, it is more probable that Arecluta was the vale of the Clwyd in North Wales, where St. Kentigern founded the church of Llanelwy, or St. Asaphs. He is said in this life to have been educated by Illtutus, and to have gone to Ireland in the reign of King Ainmere, and after going to Rome to have gone to Armorica when he was thirty years old, and founded the monastery of Ruys, where after ten years he wrote his history. This places the date of his leaving Britain for Armorica in 546, and his history in 556, and he is said to have died an old man in Armorica. Ainmere, king of Ire- land, reigned according to Tigher- nac, from 566 to 569, and the Annales Cambriae have at 565, 'Navigatio Gild» in Hybemia,' and Tighernac has at 570 ' Gillas quievit.' He therefore probably died in Ireland, and tlie monk of Ruys has made his visit to Ireland precede his going to Armorica in order that he may claim Ruys as the place of his death. The acts compiled subsequent to the appearance of Geoffrey of Mon- mouth's history identify Cuillus, his father's eldest son, with Geoffrey's Howel, king of Alclyde — transfer his birth to Strathclyde, where his father is in the one life Nau rex Scotite — in the other Position of Britain at this time as viewed' from Rome. 118 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. and its affairs after the departure of the Eomaiis, we must consider its real position towards Eome as viewed from thence. During the period of the Eoman 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 Eome 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 Eoman 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 w^ould 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 un- certain ray. So it was with Britain. Deserted almost en- tirely 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 Caunus rex Albanite — increase his dies after it has been besieged by family from four to twenty-four sons King Arthur, — additions which — import the element of Arthur and have led to the solution of two his times into his acts ; and finally Gildases, but which may more rea- take him to Glastonbury, where he souably be rejected as spurious. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 119 the 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 some- thing 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 Komans 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 ter- minated 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 Eoman 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 Eoman rule ; and, on the other, of those independent tribes, partly inhabi- tants of the island and partly piratical adventurers from other regions, who had so frequently ravaged the Eoman 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 the Picts, the Scots, and the Saxons or Angles.^ The two [^^^ former were indigenous, the two latter foreign settlers. " In ea prius habitabant quatuor et Britones. — Nennius, HUt. Brit. 2. gentes ; Scoti, Picti, atque Saxones, Omnes nationes et provincias Bri- 120 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [BOOK 1. The With regard to the former, so many years of Eomaii 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 Eoman province for so long a period, a provincial people speaking the Eoman language, and pre- serving their laws and customs. The tendency of the Britons was to throw off the stamp of Eoman 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 Eoman 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 Eoman 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 Eoman civil rule was harsh and oppressive; the British provinces a field for exac- tion, from which everything it could be made to yield was extracted and carried off without remorse. The effects, too, of the Eoman 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 Eoman citizens. With it w^ent also their natural courage, and either the desire or the spirit to resume an independent position, and they became ener- vated 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 tanniffi, quie in quatuor linguas, id iii. c. vi. Gildas terms the latter est, Brettonum, Pictorum, Scot- people simply Saxones. Bede, in torum, et Anglorum divisae sunt, narrating their settlement, 'Gens in ditione aecepit.— Bede, Ec. Hist. Anglorum sive Saxonum.' CHAP. 111.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 121 exposed to the continual incursions of the barbaric tribes beyond the bounds of the Eoman Empire ; and as they had in a greater degree preserved their peculiar habits and national characteristics, the withdrawal of the Eoman 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 Eoman 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 organi- sation in advance of what they had been. But the great legacies of Eome to Britain were the idea of monarchy,^ the centralisation of authority, and the municipal government, the* position of the ' ci vitas ' or city as the centre of local authority to the surrounding territory. In provincial Britain the local government under the civil stafl" of the Eomans was vested in the cities with their senate or * curia,' the ' decuriones ' ^ which composed it, and the magistrates elected by them. It was to them Honorius ad- dressed his letters, and when the Eoman 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 Eomans, and bore the impress of their language and habits, among whom were also to be found the descendants of the Eoman soldiers who had become Procopius makes the important subject to tyrants.' — Procop. Bel. statement that, after the departure Van. i. 2. of Constantine, although the Ro- mans were unable to recover the ^ St. Patrick tells us in his Con- island, the kingly government did fessio that his father lived at Ban- not cease and the island fall into navem Tabernese, and in his epistle anarchy ; but ' that it remained to Coroticus that he was a ' decurio.' 122 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [BOOK I. naturalised prior to the termination of the Eouian govern- ment in Britain, and remained in the island. There were in fact three descriptions of persons who might be termed Eomans. There was, first, the Eoman army, consisting to a great extent of barbarian auxiliaries, parties of whom re- mained 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 sub- ordinate ; 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 Eoman 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 Eoman Empire, it was detested and re- luctantly submitted to ; but the third class remained, and naturally became the leaders of those provincials who had become, as it were, Eomanised. This class of the provincial Britons would be found mainly in tliat part of the province longest subjected and most easily accessible to Eoman in- fluence, 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 Eoman provincial rule. These, on the departure of the Eomans, 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 CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROiMANS. 123 integrity, 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 pro- tectors, the Koman troops, had passed away, took part in the struggle w^hich 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 sub- sistence. 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 over- threw their enemies who had for so many years been living in their country.' 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 Work- ington 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 The Picts. struggle for the prize, the first in order were the Picts. The accounts of them given by Gildas, Xennius, and Bede, vary considerably. Gildas first mentions them as taking a part in the iri-uption of the barbarians into the Eoman province after the departure of Maximus with the Eoman army, but he calls them a transmarine nation, and says they Interea fames dira ac famosis- potius de ipsis montibiis, speluncis sima vagis ac nutabundis haret, ac saltibus, dumis consertis continue quae multos eorum cruentis com- rebellabant. Et turn primum pellit prsedonibus sine delatione inimicis per multos annos in terra victas dare manus, ut pauxillum agentibus, strages dabant. — Gild, ad refocillandam animani cibi dt Excidio Brit. 17. caperent, alios vero nusquam ; quin 124 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [BOOK 1. came from the north-east.^^ He tells us that after the with- drawal 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 ; 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.^^ 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 w^aste 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 ; 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 inhabi- tants 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 ^1 Ab aquilone ; strictly north- taverunt regiones multas, et occu- north-east. paverunt eas in sinistrali plaga 12 Pro indigenis. Britanniae, et manent ibi usque in hodiernam diem, tertiam partem 13 SeeFordun, Chron. vol. ii. p. BHtanni^e tenentes. ' The previous 380, note. paragraph shows that he counted ' Post interv^aUum vero mul- the 800 years from the traditionary torum annorum non minus octin- settlement of the Britons, which gentorum Picti venerunt et occu- he places in the time when Eli paverunt insulas quae vocantur judged Israel, that is, in the twelfth Orcades, et postea ex insulis vas- century before Christ. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 125 Scythia, as is reported/^ 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 tlie 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.^^ Bede does not say at what time this settlement took place ; but it is obvious that he is reporting a tradition, and that ISTennius'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 pro- vinces of Britain by the Eomans, were known to them as the Barbarians who dwelt beyond the northern wall — those ancient enemies of the Eomans 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 Eomans 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 15 Ut perhibent. Bede, Hist. Ec. I % 7. 126 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. seemed at first destined to carry off the prize, and, altliough 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 encoun- tered 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 w^as 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 ci^dlisation 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 CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 127 'Damnonii,' in itself representing, with the tribe of the 'Novantae' 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 un- equal 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 IMoray 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 ' Novantae ' 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 TToXet? 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 exist- ence 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 ' I^ovantae ' in Galloway possesses two. 128 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book r. Not many years after this account of the tribes, the Eoman 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 Eoman government, while the other remained beyond the boundary of Roman Britain. Of the towns enumerated by Ptolemy, three w^ere now within the province, and the other three were situated north of the wall. When the Roman classical writers again furnish us w^ith 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 ' Maeatee.' 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 ' M?eatae ' were next the wall. The name of ' Caledonii ' identifies that nation with the group of northern tribes, of which the ' Caledonii ' were the lead- ing tribe, while the 'Mseatae' must have included those extending from the ' Caledonii ' to the wall. The ' M^eatse,' 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 'Maeatse' — it is recorded of them, as a characteristic feature, that they retained the custom of painting their CUAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTEIi THE ROMANS. 129 bodies, 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 AUectus, in whose armies they seem to have been largely enrolled. They are said at this time to have con- sisted 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 de- scribed by the historian as now consisting of two nations — the ' Dicaledonae ' and the ' Vecturiones while the occupa- tion of the Eoman territory nearest them during the first four years, brought to their assistance, in their more ex- tended attack upon the Eoman province, a part of its population under the new designation of the * Attacotti.' We thus see that prior to the extension of the Eoman province under Antoninus, the people known to the Eomans by report as the Caledonian Britons, and described by Taci- tus 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 Eoman wall, the tribes remaining independent combined into two nations — the ' Caledonii ' and 'Mseatse;' that the Mseatfe 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 ' Dicaledonae,' 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 Eoman historians ; and while they VOL. I. I 130 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book i. give 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 preserva- tion 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 con- sider ' lerne ' 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. Mnian,^^ who, he tells us, built a church at ' Candida Casa,' or Whithern, in Galloway, which he dedi- cated to St. Martin of Tours. Ailred probably repeats a genuine tradition when he says in his Life of St. Ninian Praedicaturus verbum Dei pro- sequestratse. Namque ipsi austra- vinciis septentrionalium Pictorum, les Picti, qui intra eosdem montes hoc est, eis quae arduis atque hor- habent sedes, etc. — Bede, Hist. Ec. rentibus montium jugis, ab aus- B. iii. c. 4. tralibus eorum sunt regionibus CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 131 that 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 ' Cruith- nigh ; ' 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 ' Dala- raidhe,' Latinised * Dalaradia,' and its inhabitants were the remains of a Pictish people believed to have once occupied the whole of Ulster.^^ 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, Eoxburgh, and the Lothians. In the north-western part of this region they appear to have remained till a com- paratively 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 inhabit- ants of Galloway, comprising the modern counties of Kirk- cudbright and Wigtown, till a still later period, and survived ^® These Cruithnigh are repeatedly Cadroe we find, ' Igitur ad terram mentioned by Adamnan in his Life egressi, ut moris est, situm locorum, of St. Columba, who wrote between mores et habitum hominum explor- the years 692 and 697. See ed. 1874, are, gentem Pietaneorum reperiunt. ' pp. 120, 146, 253. In the Life of St. —Chron, Picts and Scots, p. 108. 132 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book r. the 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 'Novantae/ with their towns of Eerigonium 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 tlie site of the older Lucopibia.^^ 19 Chalmers, in his Caledonia (i. p. 358), states dogmatically that Gallo- way was colonised in the eighth century by Cruithne from Ireland, and that they were followed by ' fresh swarms from the Irish hive during the ninth and tenth cen- turies,' and this statement has been accepted and repeated by all subse- <[uent writers as if there were no doubt about it. There is not a ves- tige of authority for it. Galloway belonged during these centuries to the Northumbrian kingdom, and was a part of Bernicia. Bede, in narrat- ing the foundation of Candida Casa by St. Ninian (B, iii. c. iv.), says, ' qui locus ad provinciam Berni- ciorum pertinens ; ' and there is abundant evidence that Galloway was under the rule of the North- umbrian kings after his time. It is antecedently quite improbable that it could have been colonised from Ireland during this time without a hint of such an event being recorded either in the Irish or the English Annals. The only authorities referred to by Chalmers consist of an entire misapplication of two passages from the Ulster Annals. He says, ' In 682 A.D., Cathasao, the son of Mao- ledun, the Maonnor of the Ulster Cruithne, sailed with his followers from Ireland, and landing on the Firth of Clyde, among the Britons, he M-as encountered and slain by them near Mauchlin, in Ayr, at a place to which the Irish gave the name of Rathmore, or great fort. In this stronghold Cathasao and his Cruithne had probably attacked the Britons, who certainlyj repulsed them with decisive success. — Ulster An. sub an. 682. In 702 the Ulster Cruithne made another attempt to obtain a settlement among the Britons on the Firth of Clyde, but they were again repulsed in the battle of Culin. — Ih. suh an. 702. The original text of these passages is as follows : — '682. Bellum Ratha- moire Muigeline contra Britones ubi ceciderunt Catusach mac Maelduin Ki Cruithne et Ultan filius Dicolla. 702. Bellum Campi Cuilinn in Airdo nepotum Necdaig inter Ultu et Britones ubi filius Radgaind ceci- dit [adversarius] Ecclesiarum Dei. Ulait victores erant.' Now, both of these battles were fought in Ulster. Rathmore or great fort of Muigeline, which Chalmers sup- poses to be Mauchlin, in Ayr, was the chief seat of the Cruithnigh in Dalaraidhe, or Dalaradia, and is now called Moylinny. — See Reeves's Antiqiiities of Dovm and Connor, p. 70. Airdo nepotum Necdaig, or Arduibh Eachach, was the Barony of Iveagh, also in Dalaradia, in Ulster [Ih. p. 348) ; and these events were attacks hy the Britons CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 133 The oldest record connected with the Picts is the Pictish Chronicle, apparently compiled in the tenth century, of upon the Cniithnigh of Ulster, where the battles were fought, and not attacks by the latter upon the British inhabitants of Ayrshire. The natural inference from an ex- amination of Bede's Ecclesiastical History is that apparently he knew of no Picts south of the Firth of Forth. He certainly mentions none, and expressly says (B. iv. c. xxvi.), in describing the result of the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, king of North- umbria, by the Picts in 686, that Trumwine, with his Angles, fled from the monastery of Abercorn, 'positoquidem in regione Anglorum, sed in vicinia freti quod Anglorum terras Pictorumque disterminat ; ' but he is here talking of the terri- tories belonging to each kingdom, and not of the distribution of the population ; and as the territory of Galloway undoubtedly belonged to the Anglic kingdom, its population must have been either a subject British or Pictish population, as Bede elsewhere implies that twenty years later it was but partially occu- pied by Angles. In another work, however, Bede clearly implies that the population of Galloway was Pictish at that time. In his Life of St. Cuthbert (cap. xi.) he says, * Quodam etenim tempore pergens de suo monasterio pro necessitatis causa accidentis ad terram Pic- torum, qui Xiduari vocantur navi- gando pervenit.' His monastery was Melrose. Mr. E. W. Robertson was inclined to think that St. Cuth- bert had sailed from the mouth of the Tweed, and been driven north- wards by contrary winds into the Firth of Tay, landing near Aber- nethy, on the coast of Fife, the inhabitants of the banks of the Nethy probably being the * Picti qui Xiduari vocantur and lie refers in a note to a suggestion of the author's that Cuthbert may have crossed the Firth of Forth and landed at Xewburn, the old name of which was Nithbren [Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 383), but a more careful consideration has satisfied him that neither view is tenable. Bede says (B. i. c. xv.), ' De Jutarum origine sunt Cantuari et Yictuari, hoc est, ea gens quae Vectam tenet insulam et ea quas usque hodie in provincia Occiden- talium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam in» sulam Yectam.' Now, the term Xiduari is a word evidently formed in precisely the same way from the root Xid, as Cantuari and Vectuari are from the roots Cantia and Vecta, and certainly signifies the * gens ' on the Xid, which can only mean the river Xith, now forming the eastern boundary of Galloway, and which separated it in the lower part of its course from the Strathclyde kingdom. Ptolemy terms the river Xith ' Xovius ; ' and from this in the same way was formed the name 'Xovantse,' a tribe which occupied the territory from the 'Xovius,' which here separated them from the Selgovje, to the Irish Sea. As the name Xith is the equivalent of Ptol- emy's 'Xovius,' so Bede's 'Xiduari' is the exact equivalent of Ptolemy's ' Xovantae ; ' and the author does not now doubt that they were the same people to whom the name of ' Picti ' was likewise applied. In either view St. Cuthbert had to go some distance by land from Melrose to reach the sea. If he proceeded to the Solway Firth, he would pass from Teviotdale by Ewisdale, and his course is marked by the church 134 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. which two separate editions are preserved, one of which probably emerged from Abernethy and the other from Brechin.-^ 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 philo- logical 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 ISTectan Morbet, to which twenty-four years are assigned, we probably have something historical. A calcula- tion 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 being dedicated to him. The most prominent headland on the north side of the Solway is where the Dee enters into it, and here the parish of Kirkcudbright is also dedicated to him. He landed ' sub ripa,' where he and his companions passed three days between the high- land and the shore, waiting for a fair wind. ' The line of coast from Mullock bay on the east to Torr's point extends about three miles. It is bold and rocky, except for a short space immediately below the farm- house of Howell, and at a point east of that called " the Haen," i.e. Haven, in Balmae. ... In a preci- pice, on the Balmae shore, to the west, and not far from the mouth of the Dee, is a remarkable natural cavern called Torr's Cove which extends sixty feet into the rock. . . . The door is said to have been originally built with stone, and to have had a lintel at the top, which is now buried in the ruins. The cave is thought to have been some- times used as a hiding-place in former times.' — {N. S. A. vol. iv. Kirkcudbright, p. 6.) This may have been the scene of .^^^t. Cuth- bert's adventure. See Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, Pref. pp. xviii-xxiii. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 135 that 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 king- dom 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.^^ 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 return- ing 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.^^ 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 neigh- bouring church of Kirkbuddo, situated within the ramparts of what was a Eoman 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 con- nected 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. 21 Chron, Picts and Scots, p. 6. Ibid. p. 410. 136 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. Todd, 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 Kioc and Talmach, and several others with him. Drust was king of " Bretan " then, and had a daughter, viz. Drus- ticc 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 Whiter n, the Wh being represented by F;^^ and that the Drust of the legend is one of these two Drusts who reigned from 523 to 528. As Finnen's death is re- corded 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 : Truist, king of the free bay on the strand, Had one perfect daughter Dustric, she was for every good deed-* (renowned;. 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 pro- bably king of the Picts of Galloway. 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.-^ He is said to have reigned thirty years, and to have been baptized in the eighth year Liber IJymnorum, i. pp. 97, mains of a vitrified wall. ' — Stuart's 105. Sculptured Stones, vol. i. p. 31. An- lb. p. 117. woth is on the east side of Wig- ' Near to the parish church of town Bay ; Whithern in the pen- Anwoth, in Galloway, is a low un- insula on the west side, dulating range of hills, called the Mailcon is the genitive form of Boreland Hills. One of these goes Mailcu. It is the same name as by the name of Trusty's Hill, and Milchu, the Dalaradian king who round its top may be traced the re- held St. Patrick in slavery. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 137 of 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 ; and Adamnan places his fort and palace on the banks of the river Ness.^^ 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.^^ 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. 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 The Scots, tribes beyond the northern frontier of the Ptoman 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 nortli-west/^ which, from his standpoint, indicates Ulster as Venit autem Brittauiam Co- lumba, regnante Pictis Bridie filio Meilochon, rege potentissimo, nono anno regni ejus, gentemque illam verbo et exemplo ad fidem Christi convertit. — Hist. Ec. B. iii. c. iv. Adamnan, Vit. Columbce, ed. 1874, p. 174. 580 Cendaeladh rex Pictorum mortuus est. — Citron, Picts and Scots, p. 67. The old name of the parish of New Abbey, in Kirkcudbright, was Loch Kindeloch, as appears from the Chartulary of Kelso, No. 253. The loch seems to have taken its name from Cendaeladh. Scotorum a circione, Pictorum ab aquilone. 138 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I, the 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. By this expression he appears to indicate that there was a subse- quent 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.^^ 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 Eeuda they ^- Revertuntur ergo impudentes grassatores Hiberni domum post uon multum temporis reversuri (§ 21). The author considers this the correct reading in preference to 'ad hibernas domos,' as it is sup- ported by the best mss. '■^'^ The MSS. differ so much that it is impossible to give a correct quo- tation, and the reader is referred to any of the recent additions of Nennius. The settlement of the Dam Hoctor, or company of eight, was probably that in Gwyned or North Wales, which he afterwards states was driven out by Cuneda, as was the settlement in ' regione Dimetorum ' or S. Wales. That by Istoreth in Dalmeta or Dalrieta was the same as that described by Bede. The Irish translator, in transferring the first to Ireland, and in connect- ing the latter with the Picts, is probably making alterations at his own hand ; but is right in iden- tifying the settlers of Builc in Eubonia with the Firbolg who fled to the isles of Man, Arran, and others. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 139 were termed ' Dalreudini.' He adds, that 'Hibernia' or Ireland was the native country of these vScots, 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.' 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 ques- tion; 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 Theo- dosius 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 ' lerne ' 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 riann 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 Ere passed over into ' Alban ' or Scotland.^^ The battle of Ocha is a celebrated era in Irish chronological his- 5* Bede, Hist. Ec. B. i. c. 1. so chron. Picts and Scots, p. 18. 140 BRITAIN AFTEll THE ROMANS. [book I. tory, and Avas 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 Ere, held a part of Britain with the tribe of Dalriada, and died there.' 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 tlie Scots among the Picts of Ulster, and to have derived its name from its supposed founder Cairbre, surnamed ' Eighfhada ' or Eiada. It lay exactly opposite the peninsula of Kintyre, from whence it was separated by a part of the Irish Channel of no grreater breadth than about o fourteen miles ; and from this Irish district the colony of Scots, which was already Christian,^'^ passed over and settled in Kintyre, and in the island of Isla. The earlier settle- ments indicated by the traditionary accounts of Xennius and Bede no doubt refer to the incursions of the Scots in the fourth century, and their temporary occupation of Britain during eight years.^ The circumstances wliich enabled a Feargus nior mac p]area cum gente Dalnada partem Britannia:' teniiit et ibi mortuus est. — Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 66. The tripartite life of St. Patrick contains an account of the con- version of Ere and his people by St. Patrick.— 76. p. 17. ^ The tale told by the Irish his- torians is this : — Conare, son of Mogalama, chief of a tribe of Munster Scots called the Degads, became king of Ireland, and reigned eight years, from 158 to 165. He had tlu*ee sons : Cairbre Muse, from whom descend all the septs of the Muscraidhe in Munster ; Cairbre Baschaein, from whom descend the Baiscnidh of Corco Baiscinn in Munster ; and Cairbre Eiada, who established himself witli liis sept in Ulster, and whose possessions there were termed Dalriada. He is said to have passed over to Argyll and settled the Scots there, and is the Reuda of Bede. Pinkerton adopts this story, and dates their earliest colony in 258. He identifies it with the Attacotti, which he absurdlj' explains to mean — Hither Scots, and in this Mr. Bui'ton seems disposed to follow him ; but this part of his argument is based entirely upon the spurious Richard of Cirencester. Chalmers, with more judgment, rejects it, and in fact there is no authority for it in the Irish Annals. The Scotch Chronicles are opposed to it. The oldest which gives the Dalriadic history expressly says of Fergus, son of Ere, ' ipse fuit p-rimv.s qui de CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 141 small body of Scots to effect this settlement among the Picts cannot now be ascertained, and they appear to have ex- tended 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 semine Chonare suscepit regnuni Alban.' The Albanic Duan knows of no earlier colony than that under the sons of Ere. Flann Mainistrech and Tighemac know nothing of it, nor do the Irish additions made to Nennius. Gildas, too, knows nothing of it. It is to be found in Nennius and Bede alone, and the Irish translator neutralises Nen- nius's statement of a settlement of Scots in Dalrieta under Istoreth, son of Istorinus, by converting it into a settlement of Picts, while he re- moves the colony of Dam Hoctor, or the company of eight, from Britannia to Erin. The only Irish authority which at all points to an earlier settlement is the curious legend contained in Cormac's Glossary, under the word Mog-Eime (a lap-dog). It is there said, 'Cairbre Muse, son of Conaire, brought it from the east from Britain, for when great was the power of the Gael in Britain, they divided Alban between them into districts, and each knew the residence of his friend ; and not less did the Gael dwell on the east side of the sea than in Scotia (Ireland), and their habitations and royal forts were built there. Inde dicitur Duin Tradui, i.e. Dun Tredui, i.e. the triple fort of Crim- than mor, son of Fidach, king of Erin and Alban, to the Mur n-Icht (Straits of Dover), et inde est Glasimpere of the Gael, i.e. a church on the borders of Mur n-Icht . . . and it is in that part is Duin Map Lethain in the land of the Cornish Britons, i.e. the Fort of Mac Liathain, for Mac is the same as Map in the British. Thus every tribe divided on that side, for its property to the east was equal (to that on the west).' — Goidilica Sanas Cormaic, p. 29. But it wiU be re- marked that in this passage the legend is attached to Cairbre Muse, and there is no mention of Cairbre Riada ; there is also no allusion to a settlement of Dalriada, and it evidently points to an occupation of the whole country by the Scots. The reference to Duin Map Liathan connects it with Nennius's list of the Scottish colonies in Britain, one of which was by the sons of Liathan, while the reference to Crimthan mor mac Fidach, king of Erin and Alban, who is said to have reigned over Ireland from 366 to 378, as clearly connects it with the invasion of the Scots who occupied Britain for eight years, from 360 to 368, when they were expelled by Theo- dosius. The occasional occurrence of names in their Welsh form seems to point to a British origin for this legend ; and the author considers that the tradition of an earlier settlement in Dalriada is a British and not an Irish legend ; that it arose when the Britons and Angles came in contact with Dalriada as a settled kingdom in Britain ; that it is not older than the seventh century ; and that its sole historical foundation is the temporary occu- pation of Britain by the Scots during the last fifty years of the Roman province. 142 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. sons, 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 ori spinal seat in Kintyre, slaying their king Gabran.^^ He was suc- ceeded 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 pow^erful 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 — Woe to the Cruithnigh to whom he will go eastward, He knew the thing that is Nor was it happy with him that an Erinach Should be king in the east under the Cruithnigh.^ 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.'*^ This 29 Tighernac terms these three terms Conall and the subsequent kings ' Ri Alban,' which implies a kings Ri Dalriada, or kings of considerable extent of territory ; Dalriada only. — Chron. Picts and but in 560 he has * Bass (death of) Scots, p. 67. Gabrain mic Domanguirt, Ri Albain. ^ lb. p. 82. Teichedh do Albanchaib ria (flight 574 Bass Conaill mac Comgaill of the people of Alban before) Ri Dalriada xiii. anno regni sui qui m-Bruidi mic Maelchon Ri Cruith- oferavit insulam la Coluimcille. nech (king of the Picts),' and he Cath Delgon a Cindtire in quo CHAP. III. -J BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. U3 battle 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 : — Thirteen years altogether, Against the hosts of the Cruithnigh, mild the illustrious. When he died he was not king, On Thursday in Kintyre.*^ 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. Col- umba, 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 lona.*^ 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,'"** that is, of extended territories. The Dalriads seem, as yet, to have been con- sidered 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 kins 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 Duncadh mac Conaill mic Comgaill dates a charter in 1471, apud et alii multi de sociis filiorum Ceandaghallagan in Knapdal. Gabrain ceciderunt. — Ih. p. 67. ^ Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 83. Delgon seems to be afterwards called ^ Reeves's Adamnan, ed. 1874, Cindelgen. It is probably the place p. 81. from which the Lord of the Isles ^ Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 60. 144 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. expeditions.^^ Aidan thus became, as it were, the second founder of the Dalriadic colony in Scotland, and its first monarch as an independent kingdom."^^ 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 pro- vince, and drove the Britons before them, the provincial Britons applied to Aetius, a powerful Eoman 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 ; ' that no assistance being given from Eome, 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 ap- proaching 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 '^^ Reeves's Adamnan, ed. 1874, land), and this was fulfilled in p. 264. Aidan, son of Gabran, who took ^ This is e\'idently alluded to in Alban by force.' — Chron. Picts ami the passage in the tripartite life of Scot--<, p. 17. St. Patrick, when he blesses Fergus, son of Ere, in Irish Dalriada, and Aetio ter consuli gemitus Brit- says, 'Though not great is thy land annonun. Repellunt nos Barbari at this day among thy brothers, it ad mare, repellit nos mare ad Bar- is thou shalt be king. From thee baros ; inter haec oriuntur duo the kings of this territory shall for genera funerum, aut jugulamur, aut ever descend, and in Fortrenn (Pict- mergimur. — Gildas, 17. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 145 that the councillors, along with that proud tyrant, the leader of the Britons,"*^ 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 Bar- barians, 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 Eoman nation — Ambrosius Aure- lianus, attack their cruel conqueror and obtain a victory. A war then follows, in which sometimes the citizens and some- times the enemy have the advantage, till the year of the siege of the Badon Mount,^^ which was also the year of his birth. Such is a resume 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 wdiich 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 Camhrice, in the year 516. Procopius, who wTote 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 ^ The name Gurthrigern, usually a Roman military title, inserted in the text, is not to be found in the best mss., and is an ^'^ 'Usque ad annum obsessionis interpolation. The ' concilium ' or Badonici montis.' The words which council was evidently the Roman follow, 'qui prope Sabrinum ostium provincial council, and the leader is habetur,' are not in the best mss., here called Dux Britannorum, also and are an interpolation. VOL. I. K 146 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. Saxons, consisted of two nations, the Angles and the Frisians; but he tells us nothincj 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 Eoman power, and the dread of Ambrosius. In the meantime three cyuls came from Germany, driven into exile, in which were Hors and Heno^ist. Guorthesjirn received them kindly, and gave them the island of Thanet. "While Gratianus the Second and Equantius were ruling at Eome, the Saxons were received by Guorthegirn in the 347th year after the passion of Christ.' The 347th year after the pas- sion of Christ is equal to the 374th year after his incarnation, and in that year Gratianus was consul a second time in con- junction with ^quitius. He then proceeds, 'After the Sax- ons had continued some time in the island of Thanet, Guor- thegirn 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 o 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 ' Transactoque Romauorum im- nus suscepit eos benigne et tradidit perio in Brittannia per quadraginta eis insulam quag in lingua eorum annos fuerunt sub metu. Guerthi- vocatur Tanet Britannico sermone girnus regnavit in Brittania et dum Rusihen. Regnante Gratiano se- ipse regnabat in Brittannia urge- cundo Equantio Romae Saxones a batur a metu Pictorum Scottorum- Guorthigirno suscepti sunt anno que et a Romanico impetu necnon trecentesimo quadragesimo septimo et a timore Ambrosii. Interea post passionem Christi.' This ae- venerunt tres cyulse a Germania count appears to belong to the work expulsae in exilio in quibus erant as originally compiled in the Hors et Hengist. . . . Guorthiger- seventh century. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 147 Ebissa 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.^^ 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.'^^ 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 Theodo- sius 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.' Invitabo filium meum cum fra- traeli suo, bellatores enim viri sunt, ut dimicent contra Scottos et da illis regiones, quae sunt in aquilone, juxta murum qui vocatur Guaul. Et jussit ut invitaret eos et invitati sunt Octha et Ebissa cunj quadra- ginte, ciulis. At ipsi, cum navigar- ent circa Pictos, vastaverunt Orcades insulas, et venerunt et oc- cupaverunt regiones plurimas ultra mare Fresicum usque ad confinia Pictorum. Some mss. connected with Durham add after * mare Fre- sicum, ' * quod inter nos Scottosque est.' The author understands Nen- nius to mean that this body of in- vaders arrived on the east coast, went round the island, ravaging the Orkneys on their way, and entered the districts about the wall and on the north of the Firth of Forth by the west. ^2 A tempore quo primo Saxones venerunt in Bryttanniam usque ad annum quartum Mermeni regis computantur anni ccccxxix. This account is in the Vatican MS. only. and has obviously been added in an edition compiled in 821. It corre- sponds with an old Welsh chronicle in the Red Book of Hergest, which commences thus : — ' From the age of Guorthegirn Guorthenau to the battle of Badwn are 128 years.' — Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 161. The date of the battle is 516, and deducting 128 years gives us 388 as the beginning of Guorthegirn's reign, and the fourth year when the Saxons came 392. Guorthigirnus autem tenuit imperium in Brittannia Theodosio et Valentiniano consulibus et in quarto anno regni sui Saxones ad Brittanniam venerunt, Felice et Tauro consulibus, quadringentesimo anno ab incarnatione Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Nennius appears to have reckoned 27 years between the incarnation and the passion of Christ. We should probably read ' a passione ' for ' ab incarnatione, ' which makes the year equal to 427 or 428. 148 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [BOOK I. The consulship of Theodosius and Yalentinian 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 Eavenna, who wrote in the same century in which the work which bears the name of N"ennius 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 in- habit.' 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,^^ 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.' 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 In Oceano vero occidentali est grassatores Hiberni domus,' which insula quae dicitur Britannia, ubi shows the reading of the text in his olim gens Saxonum veniens ab an- time. — B. i. c. xiv. tiqua Saxonia cum principe suo, nomine Anschis, modo habitare Placuitque omnibus cum suo videtur. rege Vortigerno ut Saxonum gentem Bede quotes the passage thus : de transmarinis partibus in auxilium — ' Revertuntur ergo impudentes vocarent. — B. i. c. xiv. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 149 to 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 in- vincible 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 imited 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.'^^ Bede then takes from Gil das 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 ^" Turn subito inito ad tempus vertere incipiunt. — Bede, Hist. Ec. foedere cum Pictis quos longius jam B. i. c. xv. bellando pepulerant, in socios arma 150 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. the Britons by the SaxoDS 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 AUelujatic victory. This part of his narrative he takes from the life of Germanus, written within forty years of his death by Constantius of Lyons.^^ Such is the form into which Bede has reduced this legend- ary history. Let us now see how far, by the aid of con- temporary notices, we can extract the few really historical facts imbedded in it. Though Gildas tells us very distinctly that the Barbarians who assailed the Eoman province after Maximus, who usurped the Empire, had departed with the Eoman 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. Por 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 Avere driven back by Stilicho. Ammianus tells us that in 368 the Count of the Maritime Tract was slain, and in the Xotitia 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,-"^^ where the Saxons °8 Bede, Hist. Ec. B. i. c. xv. in his Saxons in England, takes the In his Chronicon, written apparently same view. Nevertheless, Mr. two years earlier than his History, Freeman, in his Old English History, Bede narrates the incursions of the appears to accept both dates and Picts and Scots and the final depar- narratives as history ; and Mr. ture of the Romans under the year Green, in his History of the English 429, and the landing of the Angles People, describes the landing of the or Saxons in 459. The true date Saxons under Hengist and Horsa in of the accession of Martian to the 449 in the island of Thanet as if he Empire in conjunction with Valen- had himself witnessed the event, tinian is 450. Lappenberg, in his Histoi-y of England, has clearly Tribunus Cohortis Primse No- demonstrated the legendary charac- vse Armories Grannona in Litore ter of this narrative ; and Kemble, Saxonico. — Not. Imp, CHAP, III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 151 had established regular settlements. It is therefore reason- able 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.^^ We may w^ell 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 as- sociated 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 identi- fied.^^ 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 com- bination 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 This has been well shown by This was first observed by Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. i. Sharon Turner in his History of the p. 10. Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 105. 152 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. the Britisli provinces had abeady been reduced under the power of the Saxons.^^ -pive 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.^ 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 concludincr 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 Eoman party, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and the siege of Mount Badon in 516. Xen- nius, who connects Ambrosius with the Pioman power, and alludes to a discord between him and Guitolin, of wdiich he gives no particulars, but which he places in the year 437, fills up this interval with the exploits of Arthur'. War with The Arthur of l^ennius was, however, a very different Ebissa'f personage from the shadowy and mythic monarch of the colony. 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.^^ The Saxons referred ^- Theodosii xviii (a.d. 441) Bri- etc.; and of the Britons, 'Itaque tanniae usque ad hoc tempus variis nonnulli miserarum reliquiarum in cladibus eventibusque lata in diti- montibus deprehensi acervatim onem Saxonum rediguntur. jugulabantur . . . alii transmarinas ^ Compare the expression, 'Re- petebant regiones.' pellunt nos Barbari ad mare, re- ^ Xennius, after describing how pellit nos mare ad Barbaros ; aut the Saxons increased in number in jugulamur aut mergimur,' with Britain, and how Octa passed from what is said of the Saxons, ' Con- the north to Kent, from whom the fovebatur namque, ultionis justre subsequent kings of Kent descended, praecedentium scelerum causa, de proceeds, ' Tunc Arthur pugnabat mari usque ad mare ignis orientalis,' contra illos in illis diebus cum regi- CHAP, ni.l BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 153 to 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.' The sixth battle was fought at a river called Bassas. The seventh in the Caledonian wood,^^ 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.^'' The twelfth was the battle at Mount Badon,^^ in bus Brittonum, sed ipse dux erat bellorum.' The ' illos ' here is re- ferred in another MS. to the Saxones mentioned in the beginning of the passage, and not to the ' reges Can- tiorum. ' ' Et vocatur Britannico semione Guaul.' This district is termed in the Bruts Mureif , from ' mur, ' signifying a wall, and is identified with Reged, the kingdom of Urien, the old form of which name was Urbgen — Urbigena — Cityborn, al- luding probably^ to Dumbarton. 'Id est Cat Coit Celidon,' the battle of the wood Celidon. ^ The Vatican ms. adds, * ubi illos in fugam vertit quem nos Cat Bregion appellamus. ' This strange name seems to belong to the Picts more than to the Saxons, who could hardly have possessed Edinburgh at that early period. ^ 516, Bellum Badonis in quo Arthur portavit Crucem Domini nostri Jesu Christi tribus diebus et tribus noctibus in humeros sues et Britones victores fuerunt. — An. 154 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. which Nennius tells us that 9 GO men of the enemy perished in one day from the onslaught of Arthur, and that lie was ^'ictorious in all of these battles. Kennius 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 nan^ative, 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 tradi- tion.^^ The chronicle attached to Xennius tells us that he was slain twenty-one years afterwards in the battle of Camlan, fought in 537 between him and Medraud.'^ As Medraud was the son of Llew of Lothian, this battle agjain takes us to the north for its site.^^ Ten years after this we find the scattered tribes of the Cam. Tradition points to Ossa Cyllellaur, a descendant of Octa, as Arthur's opponent in this battle. The author goes no further than this in this work. The question as to the true character of Arthur, and the site of these battles, is discussed in the Four Ancknt Bools of Wales, vol. i. pp. 51-58 ; and in Mr. Glen- nie's A'rthirrian Localities. Neither does he import into this work any matter from the old Welsh poems, which, whether genuine or spurious, afford at all events no proper basis for an historical narrative. A.D. 537, Gueith Camlann in qua Arthur et Medraut corruere. — An. Cam., Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 14. ^ Mr, Xash, in his introduction to ' Merlin or the Early History of King Arthur ' {Early English Text Society, 1865), makes a statement which appears to me well founded : ' Certain it is,' he says, ' that there are two Celtic — we may perhaps say two Cymric — localities, in which the legends of Arthur and Merlin have been deeply implanted, and to this day remain living traditions cherished by the peasantry of these two countries, and that neither of them is Wales or Britain west of the Severn. It is in Brittany and in the old Cumbrian kingdom south of the Firth of Forth that the legends of Arthur and Merlin have taken root and flourished.' To Cumbria, however, may be added Cornwall, where the Arthurian romance places the scene of many of its adventures ; and it is rather remarkable that we should find in the second century a tribe termed Damnonii, possessing Cornwall, and a tribe of the same name occupying the ground which forms the scene of his exploits in the north. CHAP. III.] BEITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 155 Angles and the Frisians occupying the districts on the east Kingdom 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,^"^ who placed his ca^^ital 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 ISTorthumbria, extending from the Humber as far north as the territory occupied by the Angles reached. The province of Bernicia, however, remained under the rule It is usually stated by modern writers that Ida landed in 547 with a body of Angles, and founded the kingdom of Xorthumberland, but the older authorities give no coun- tenance to the idea of a colony under Ida. Xennius has no hint of his having come into the island from the Continent. Bede, in the short chronicle annexed to his History, has ' Anno 547, Ida regnare ccepit, a quo regalis Xordauhj-mbrorum prosapia originem tenet et duodecim annis in I'egno permansit.' This statement is repeated by the Saxon. Chronicle, which adds, ' And built Bambrough, which was at first en- closed by a hedge, and afterwards by a wall, ' and by Florence of Wor- cester. Simeon of Durham has simply, ' Ida rex annis regnavit xi.' William of ZSIalmesbury, however, connects Ida very clearly with the earlier settlements ; for, after nar- rating how Octa and Ebissa seized the northern parts of Britain, he says, ' Annis enim uno minus cen- tum, Northanhimbri duces com- muni habitu contenti, sub imperio Cantuaritarum privates agebant : sed non postea stetit hsec ambitionis continentia, seu quia semper in de- teriora decliva est humanus animus, seu quia gens ilia naturaliter in- flatiores anhelat spiritus. Anno itaque DominicaB incarnationis quingentesimo quadragesimo sep- timo, post mortem Hengesti sexa- gesimo, ducatus in regnum mutatu'^, regnavitque ibi primus Ida, baud dubie nobilissimus, setate et viribus integer ; verum utrum ipse per se principatum invaserit, an aliorum consensu delatum susceperit, parum definio. ' The first writer wdio men- tions the colony is the anonymous author of the tract ' De primo Sax- onum Adventu,' and he is copied by John Wallingford. After repeating the usual statement, ' Ida primus rex ex Anglis ccepit regnare in Xorthanhymbrorum provincia,' he adds, ' Venerat autem Ida comite patre Eoppa cum Ix. navibus ad Flamaburch, indeque boreales pla- gas occupans, ibidem regnavit duo- decim annis. ' The statement seems to be adopted from the account of Octa and Ebissa's colony. 156 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book i. of Ida's sons, and it is with this province alone that we are concerned in this workJ^ 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, Rider- chen, Guallauc, and Morcant — f ought.' One of their kings, Eiderchen, belonged to that party among the Britons wdio were termed Eomans, from their supposed descent either from Eoman soldiers or from Eoman 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 Eomans were to be found principally in the central regions. Of the result of this war durinf^ Hussa's reim we are told nothing ; but dissensions seem now to have broken out among the Britons themselves, wdio 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 wdth them, ^2 These names, Bernicia and Deira, are taken from the British names of the same districts, Deifr and Byrneich. Nennius has a curi- ous notice which shows that these Anglic kingdoms did not first arise from colonies as late as 547. He says of Soemil, four generations before Ella, 'Ipse primus separavit Deur o Berneich.' The race from which Ella sprang must have been some generations before in the country. Contra ilium quatuor reges Urbgen et Riderchen et Guallauc et Morcant dimicaverunt. — Gen. Nen- nius. The genealogy of these four kings is given in the Welsh pedi- grees annexed to Nennius. — Chron. ricts and Scots, pp. 15, 16. The reader is referred to the Four An- cient Boobs of Wales, vol. i. pp. 336-355, for the historical poems relating to the battles fought in this war. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 157 were more immediately under their influence, and seem to a great extent to have apostatised from the Christianity intro- duced among them by St. Xinian, and a great x^art of the British population in the south fell back upon a half paganism fostered by their bards, who recalled the old tra- ditions of the race before they had been Christianised under the Eoman dominion. There was thus a Christian and what may be called a Pagan party. The so-called Eomans mainly belonged to the former, and this Eiderchen or Ehyd- derch 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 op>en rupture, and a Battle of 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 magnifi- cent hill-fort called the Moat of LiddeL Here this great battle was fought, the centre of a group of Welsh traditions."^ '■5 The Chronicle annexed to Xen- p. 91), in a notice of the site of the nius has, at573, 'Bellum Armterid,' battle of Ardderyd. The "Welsh to which a later MS. adds — ' Inter genealogies annexed to Nennius, as filios Elifer et Gwendolen filium well as those in the tract on the Keidiau ; in quo bello Gwendolen Gwyr Gogled, or men of the north cecidit : Merlinus insanus effectus {Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. est.' — An. Canib. A more detailed 455), show us very clearly the account will be found in the Pro- native and the Roman j)arty. The ceedings of the S. A. Scot. (vol. vi. former are in both documents traced 158 BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. [book I. It resulted in the victory of the Christian party and the establishment of Ehydderch 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 Eodercus, son of Tothail, who reigned at the Eock of Cluaithe (Petra Cloithe, to Coil Hen, who is supposed to have given his name to the district of Kyle in Ayrshire, and to them belonged both Eliffer and Gwendo- lew. The latter are brought by both from Dungual Hen, or the aged, but in this document he is made grandson of Maxim Guletic, or Maximus the emperor ; but in the former and older account he is grandson of Ceretic Guletic, whose pedigree is traced from Confer or Cynfor, the reputed father of Con- stantine, who usurped the empire in 406. This Ceretic, the Guletic or leader of the North Britons, being four generations earlier than Rhydderch, must have lived in the middle of the fifth centur}^ and I do not hesitate to identify him with the Coroticus to whom St. Patrick addressed his letter written be- tween 432 and 493. It is addressed ' ad Christianos Corotici Tyranni subditos.' It is to be given to his soldiers, ' tradenda militibus mit- tenda Corotici.' He will not call them his fellow-citizens (civibus meis), St. Patrick being a native of Strathclyde — sed civibus dtemonio- rum. He calls them * Socii Scoto- rum atque Pictorum apostatarum ' — the Scots and the apostate Picts of this region. And again he says that his sheep have been plundered by robbers — ' jubente Corotico . . . traditor Christianorum in manus Scottorum et Pictorum ;' and again that 'iugenui homines Christiani in servitute redacti sunt, prsesertim indignissimorum pessimorum apo- statarumque Pictorum.' It shows Coroticus as the Guletic, or one of the Tyranni who succeeded the Romans in command of soldiers, and in close contact with apostate Picts. This falling off of the Britons and Picts will be further illustrated in another part of this work. For a more detailed account of the Men of the North, see the Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. chap. X., and the genealogical tables there given. Among the descendants of Dungual Hen will be found another grandson, Xud, also called Hael or liberal, whose son Dryan fought at Ardderyd ; and at Yarrow, in the centre of the dis- tricts more especially connected with the Roman party, a stone has been found with the following in- scription, part of which only can be read : HIC MEMOR lACETI LOix : : : NI : : : : : : PRINC PE : : NVDI (LIBERALI) dVMXOGENI • HIC lACEXT IN TVMVLO dvo FlllI LIBERALI This inscription appears to contain the name of Nud Hael or Liberalis, and the word Dumnogeni probably connects him with the Damnonii whom Ptolemy places here. — Pro- ceed. S. A. Scot. vol. iv. p. 539. CHAP. III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 159 Alclyde, 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 Eoderic, was fully accomplished, for, according to his word, he died quietly in his own house.'^^ Adamnan was born only twenty-one years after the death of Ehydderch. The next brother who reigned over Bernicia was Freo- dulf, 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.^^ 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 ex- terminating or subjugating the natives, caused a greater "^^ Reeves's Adamnan, ed. 1874, pp. 15, 136. Adamnan was bom in 624.-/6. p. 244. ^7 Contra ilium Urbgen cum filiis dimicabat fortiter. In ilio tempore aliquando hostes, nunc cives, vince- bantur. — Nennius, Gen. It is invari- ably assumed that Flamddwyn was a title borne by Ida, but there is no authority whatever for it. It is merely asserted by writers on Welsh history without proof. The epithet is only mentioned by the Bards in two poems : the Gweith Argoet Llwyfein or Battle of Leven Wood, and the Marwnat Owein or Death- song of Owen, son of Urien. In the one Urien and his son Owen are described as fighting against Flamd- dwyn, and in the other Owen is slain by Flamddwyn. (See Four Ancient Books of Wales, i. 265, 366 ; ii. 413, 418.) It is clear, therefore, that it was Theodoric, against whom Urien with his sons fought valiantly. 160 BRITAIN AFTER THE EOMANS. [BOOK I. extent of their territory to become either tributary to the nation of the Angles or to be colonised by them."^ 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 57-1 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."^ Two years after Tighernac records the battle of ''^ His temporibus signo Nordan- hymbrorum prasfuit rex fortissimus et gloriae cupidissimus Aedilf rid, qui plus omnibus Anglorum primatibus gentem vastavit Brittonum, . . . Kemo enim in tribunis, nemo in regibus plures eorum terras, ex- terminatis vel subjugatis indigenis, aut tributarias genti Anglorum, aut habitabiles fecit. — Bede, Hist. Ec. B. i. c. xxxiv. "^^ See Chron. Plcts and Scots, p. 127. Tighernac records, at 606, the death of Aidan, son of Gabran, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign and seventy-fourth of his age. This places his birth in 533, and the com- mencement of his reign in 569. He did not, however, succeed Conall on the throne of Dalriada till 574. There were, therefore, five years during which he reigned elsewhere before he became king of Dalriada. Welsh tradition connects him with the battle of Ardderyd as one of the contending parties ; and in the tract on the Gwyr y Gogled, or Men of the North, he appears among the Roman party as grandson of Dungual Hen. His mother was Lleian, daughter of Brachan of Brecheniauc. There is a tract in the Cotton mss. (Yesp. A, xiv.), ' De Brachan Brecheniauc et cog- natione ejus,' which states that Brecheniauc or Brecknock, in South Wales, received its name from him, and that he was son of Aulach, son of Cormac, king of Ireland. It gives him ten sons and twenty-six daughters, but while some of these sons and daughters are connected with localities in South Wales, others are stated to have founded churches or died in the north. Thus Arthur is buried in Manau or Manann, Rhun Dremrudd was slain with his brother Rhawin or Rhuofan by the Saxons and Picts, and both founded churches in Manau ; Nefydd was a bishop in y Gogledd, where he was slain by Saxons and Picts. Of the daughters Beithan died in Manau ; Lleian was mother of Aidan ; Xevyn was mother of Urien ; Gwawr was mother of Llywarch Hen ; Gwrgon Goddeu was wife of Cadrawd Cal- eb vynydd, and the sepulchre of Brychan is said to be in an island called Yny Brychan, near Manau. The history of two different persons CHAP, III.] BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 161 Manann by Aidan, of which, however, we have no particulars except that he was victorious ; and again, in 59G, the battle of Chirchind, in which four of his sons were slain.^^ 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 lona ' he suddenly said to his minister, Diormit, "Eing 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.'^^ It is difficult to of the same name is here obviously combined, and one of the Brychans, the son of Aulach, is closely con- nected with Manaii, and brought in contact with the Picts and .Saxons. His daughter Lleian was mother of Aidan, and through her he may have inherited rights connected with it, and thus appear among the British knights engaged in the struggle which terminated with the battle of Ardderyd in 573. The other Brychan was probably Bry- chan, son of Gwyngon, who appears in the Liher Llandavensis (p. 456) as a donor of lands to Bishop Trychan, and among the witnesses are Dingad and Clydawg, two of the sons who are connected with Wales. 80 582 or 583, Cath Manand in quo victor erat Aidan mac Gabrain. -Tigh. 590, Cath Leithrig la h-Aidan mac Gabrian. — lb. VOL. T. 596, Jugulatio filiorum Aidan i Bran Domangart et Eochad Find et Artuir i Cath Chirchind in quo victus est Aedan. — lb. Reeves's Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. 12. The author cannot identify the battle of Leithrig, but Adamnan tells us that Artur and Eochoid Find, two of Aidan's sons, were killed in the battle of the Miathi, which identifies it with the battle of Chirchind, fought in 596. This was the last year of St. Columba's life. It is difficult to fix the locality of this battle. Circinn was a name applied to the district of which Maghgirgiun or Mearns, now Kincardineshire, was a part, but Aidan could hardly have penetrated so far east. Dr. Reeves thinks it may have been at the place now called Kirkintulloch. The term ' Barbari' is applied by Adamnan both to Picts and Saxons, but the name Miathi seems to belong to L 162 BRITAIN AFTER THE EOMANS. [book I, fix 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 Mseatse. Battle of In 603 Ehydderch appears to have died, and Bede tells or^Daw-^^^ US that Aidan came against Aedilfrid with a large and power- stane. ful 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.^^ On Mne Stone Eig, 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 the Picts. The same war may have erat.' The Irish annalist ignores embraced Saxons also, as Doman- Aidan's defeat, and fixes upon gart, slain the same year, perished, Maeluma's success in cutting off according to Adamnan, in battle Theobald with his troops. By 'inSaxonia.' some it has been supposed that 8- Bede, Hist. Ecc. B. i. c. xxxiv. Dalstone in Cumberland was the Tighernac has, in 600, ' Cath scene of this battle ; but while the Saxonum la h-Aedain ubi cecidit word Degsastane passes naturally Eanfraith frater Etalfraich la into Dawstone, it never could Maeluma mc Baedain in quo victor have formed Dalstone. CHAP. III.] BKITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS. 163 enormous 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 j)eople, who under Aedilfrid now re- tained possession of the eastern districts from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, as far west as the river Esk. 164 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. CHAPTEE IV. ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. Inquiry HAVING thus given the traditionary history of that dark Ethnology ^^^^^^'^'^^ which intervened between the departure of the of Britain Eomans from the island of Britain in the beoinnincr of the thi?sta^e ^^^^ 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 wdiole 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 iuhabitants of the island. Archaeology, 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. An Iberian A distinguished writer on ethnology lays down certain peopie^^^^ propositions which he terms fixed points in British ethnology, preceded His first proposition is this : * Eighteen hundred years ago race^n the population of Britain comprised peoples of two types of Britain and complexion, the one fair, and the other dark. The dark Ireland. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 165 people 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 Eomans, did not differ in any important physical character/ These two propositions we may accept as well founded.^ Certain it is that when the Eomans 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, pos- sessed 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 ^ ^ee Critiques and Addresses hy conclusions, bethinks it unnecessary- Thomas Henry Huxley, LL.D., to enter into the grounds on which 1873, p. 167. As the author sub- they are based, stantially adopts Professor Huxley's 166 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I, merchants, 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 Xarbonne.' 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.^ 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, - Diod. Sic, Lib. ii. cc. 21, 22, sea is much broader between them 38. The reasons for supposing the and Spain than between them and Cassiterides to be the Scilly Islands Britain ; they lie just upon the are thus stated in Camden's Britan- Iberian sea ; there are only ten of Ilia : They are opposite to the them of any note ; and they have Artabri in Spain ; they bend directly veins of tin which no other isle has to the north from them; they lie in this tract. — Camd.. Brit. p. 1112, in the same clime with Britain ; ed. 1695. they look towards Celtiberia ; the CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 167 but the others are inhabited by men in black cloaks, clad in tunics reaching to the feet, and girt about the breast ; walk- ing 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 Csesar'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.'^ 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 merchan- dise, value w^hat 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.* In the following century we find that the name of Cas- siterides has been dropped, and they are now called the 3 Strabo, Geog. Lib. iii. 4. ent, turbidum fretum distinguit : cujus homines etiamnum ciistodiunt * In Celticis aliquot sunt (insulse) morem vetustum : nummum re- quas quia plumbo abundant uno futant : dant res et accipiunt : omnes nomine Cassiterides appel- mutationibus necessaria potius, lant. — Pomp. Mda. quam pretiis parant : Deos perco- Ex adverse Celtiberias complures lunt : scientiam futurorum pariter sunt insulae Cassiterides dictse viri ac feminae ostentant. — SoUn. Graecis a fertilitate plumbi, — Plin. Poly. c. 22. Cassiterides insulae Siluram quoque insulam ab ora, spectant adversumCeltiberise latus : quam gens Britannia Dumnonii ten- plumbi f ertiles. — Ih. c. 23. 168 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book i. Hesperides, 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 pro- ceeds, dwell the rich sons of the noble Iberians.' ^ In the fourth century, Eufus 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 them- selves ' — Lying far off, and rich in metals Of tin and lead. Great the strength of this nation, Proud their mind, powerful their skill, Trading the constant care of all. The broad boisterous channel with boats and southerly wind, They cut the gulf of the monster-filled ocean ; They know not to fit with pine Their keels, nor with fir, as use is, They shape their boats ; but, strange to say, They fit their vessels with united skins, And often traverse the deep in a hide. 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 Oes- trymnides 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 ° Ai'Tdp L'Tt' aKp-qv 'Iprju fjv eveTTovcTL KapTjv efxev Y.vpis^TreLTjs 'Srjcrovs 6' "EcnrepLSas t66l KaaairipoLO 'A(pveLol vaLovcTLV dyaioiVTraLdes'l^ fjpuv. 6 Sub hujus autem prominentis vertice Sinus dehiscit incolis Oestrymnicus, In quo insulae sese exserunt Oestrymnides Laxe jacentes, et metallo divites Stanni atque plumbi. Multa vis hie gentis est, Superbus animus, efficax sollertia, Negotiandi cura jugis omnibus : Xotisque cymbis turbidum late fretum, Et belluosi gurgitem Oceani secant : Xon hi carinas quippe pinu texere, Acereve norunt, non abiete, ut usus est, Curvant faselos ; sed rei ad miraculum, Navigia junctis semper aptant pellibus Corioque vastum ssepe percummt salum. * * * * Tartessiisque in terminos Oestrymnidem >segotiandi mos erat. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 169 call the eud of Europe lie the Hesperides, full of tm, which the strong people of the Iberi occupy.^ If these notices show that a persuasion existed among many that the population of the Scilly Isles, Cornwall, and South AVales was Iberian, an examination of the ancient sepulchral remains in Britain gives us reason to suj)pose 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 pre- historic 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 (Brachy- cephali 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 in- vaded 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 ' Sed summum contra sacram Hesperides : populus tenuit quas cognomine, dicunt quam Caput Eu- fortes Iberi. — Prise. Per. ropae, sunt Stanni pondere plenae 170 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book t. two races.' ^ Ireland presents precisely the same phenomena.^ 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 ao^e, inhabit- ing caves, and burying their dead in caves and chambered tombs, just as in the Iberian peninsula also in the neolithic age.' 10 Ethnologic Of the Celtic race, which succeeded the Iberians in the traditions. ;g-j,|^jgj^ Isles, and whosc 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 de- scent, 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, apj)ear 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 8 Cave Hunting, by W. Boyd '^^ Cave Hunting, p. 214. For the Dawkins, M.A., 1874, p. 191. facts on which these conclusions are ^ See The Beauties of the Boyne, by based, reference is made to this work Sir William R. Wilde, 1850, p. 228, and that of Sir William Wilde, for an account of the Irish skulls. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 171 supposed 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 British look to ^N'ennius. According to him, the Britons were a colony of Trojans who came from Italy, and were the first inhabitants of the island. * ^neas the Trojan had by Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, king of Italy, besides his son from whom the Eomans 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. Accord- ing to this form, ' the first mau who came to Europe of the race of Japhet was Alanus, with his three sons, Hessitio, Armenon, and ^^'egue. Hessitio had four sons, Francus, Eomanus, Britto, and Albanus. Armenon had five sons, Gothus, Ualagothus, Gebidus, Burgoandus, and Longobardus. ISTegue, 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 172 ETHNOLOGY OF BEITAIN. [book I. previous form of ethnologic tradition of these inhabitants of Britain having been preceded by the Iberi. The Irish ethnologic legends are found in a prose tract, termed the Leabhar Gahhala, or Book of Conquests.^- 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, Eughraidhe, Slainge, and Laighline, and a thousand soldiers, at Inversceine, in the west of Munster, on the 1 4th of May, but after three hundred years this colony was entirely swept off by a plague at the Hill of Howth. Thirty years after Xemhidh landed with a colony in Ire- land. He came from Scythia, through the Euxine Sea, past the Ehiphyean Mountains, to the North Sea, whence he sailed The author does not import anything from the Bards, as it is difficult to say how far they con- tain genuine tradition, or have been manipulated by Geoftrey of Mon- mouth. The author confines him- self as much as possible to "Welsh documents before his time, and the so-called Historical Triads he re- jects as entirely spurious. The Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Conquests, is, strictly speaking, the work of Michael O'CIery, one of the compilers of the Annals of the Four Masters, but it is founded upon older documents, and upon a more ancient Book of Invasions, a fragment of which is contained in the Leabhar na Huidhri and the Book of Leinster, and complete editions in the Books of Ballimote and Leacan. A full account of it will be found in O'Curry's Lectures on the MS. 2IateriaU, p. 168. It is much to be desired that this ancient tract should be published. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 173 to Ireland with his four sons, Starn, larbhainel Faidh or the Prophet, Aininn, and Fergus Leithderg or Eedside. After liis death his followers were expelled by a people called the Fomhoruigh or sea robbers, and left Eirin in three bands. One, under Simon Breae, son of Starn, went to that part of Greece called Thrace. The second, nnder lobaath, son of Beothuig, son of larbhainel, went to the regions of the north of Europe ; and the third, under Briotan Maol, son of Fergus Leithderg, to Dobhar and lardobhar, 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, oblig- ing them to dig the earth and raise mould, and carry it in sacks or bags of leather, termed holgs 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, Eugh- ruidhe, 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 lorrus Domnann in Connaught ; the Fir Domhnan, so called from the domhin or pits they used to dig, landed under Geannan and Rughruidhe at Tracht Eugh- ruidhe 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 Eocliaidh, son of Ere, their last king, a people called the Tuatha De Danaan arrived in Ireland. They were descended from lobaath, son of Beothuig, son of larbhainel the Prophet, son of Nemhidh, who had taken refuge in the north of Europe. They lived in the land of 174 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book r. Lochlin, 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 lardobhar, 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, Eachlin, 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 Eefloir, 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, CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 175 and 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 Crim- than Sgiathbhel of the Fir Domnan. 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 w^ould drive out a people called the Tuatha Fidhbhe. This they accomplished. Of the brothers, Leithenn died in France ; and Drostan, Solan, Kechtan, 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 Tnver Boinne to dwell in the country beyond He, and from thence they conquered Alban from Cath to Forchu.'i* An older account of the settlement of the sons of Miledh, This account of these legendary colonies is abridged from Keating, who takes it from the Booh of Conquests. " Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 30. 176 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. BOOK 1 and that of the Cruitlmigh 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.^^ 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 Eed Sea, they seized his ships, and passed by India and by Asia to Scythia ; and then by the Caspian Sea to the Slieve Ptiffi or Pthipha^an 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 Mediter- ranean, 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 Ben- tracht 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 Eire- amon. 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 Inbher- colphtha; 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. ^5 See Irish Nennius, p. 221. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BKITAIX. 177 Tliey made alliance with the Tuatha Dea, and half the land was given to them. Eireamon took the north as the inherit- ance 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 inhabit- ants, 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 Cruith- nigh, is that ' Cruithnechan, son of Cinge, son of Lochit, went from the sons of Miledh to the Britons of Eortrenn, 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 succes- sion should be on the mother's side, and they took twelve of the women whose husbands had been drowned with Douu.'-^ 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 intervals, while the last three, beginning with the Eirbolg, are continuous, each succeeding the other with- out interval. The older form, as contained in Maelmurra's poem, knows nothing of Partholan and his colony, names the Eirbolg first, and appears to identify the Clanna Nemidh with the Tuatha Dea.^" An unfortunate resem- blance between the name of the Eirbolg and Ctesar's Belgae Chron. PkU and ScoU, p. 45. according to the Book of Conquests, 1'' This seems clearly implied. seem obviously the same — the one Gillacaoman, in a poem quoted l)y under Fergus Leth Derg settling in Colgan, A.SS.^. 198, also identifies a district in Alban called Dobhar the Nemedians with the Tuatha de and lardobhar, and the Tuatha De Danaan. Two of the three bands Danaan corning to Erin from the of the Nemedians who left Erin, same district. VOL. L M 178 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIX. [book I. has 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 rirbolg is simply legendary — to warrant this, and the inter- pretation 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 Fir- domnan 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, prosper- ous, 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 enter- taining 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 Liogairne, 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.' 18 O'Curry, Lectures on 3IS. Materials, p. 223. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 179 That 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,' — 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.^^ In this legend of the sons of Miledh, too, we can recog- nise the appearance of the second form in which such traditions usually embody themselves — that of the ethno- logic 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 popu- ^9 O'Ciirry's Lectures on Manners chief, whose name was Partholyni. and Customs of Andent Irish. In- Hereupon this chief prayed his pro- troduction by Professor Sullivan, tection, telling him that they were p. Ixxii. called Barclenses, had been driven The colony of Partholan seems from Spain, and were roving on the to have been the same with the Fir- seas to find a place of settlement, bolg. Partolan has three sons — and that he therefore entreated Slainge, Rudhraige, and Laighlinne Gwrgant to grant them permission — and two of these, Slainge and to abide in some part of the island, Rudhraige, are among the leaders as they had then been at sea for a of the Firbolg. If w^e may consider year and a half. Gwrgant having the following passage from the thus learned whence they were and Welsh Bruts as containing genuine what was their purpose, directed tradition, they seem to have con- them with his goodwill to go to sidered them as Iberian or Basque : Ireland, which at that time lay ' Gwrgant, on his return, as he was waste and uninhabited. Thither passing through the isles of Ore, therefore they went, and there they came up with thirty ships, which settled, and peopled the country, were full of men and women, and and their descendants are to this finding them there, he seized their day in Ireland.' 180 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. lation of Ireland which succeeded the Tuatha De Danaan is brought, represent the different races of which it was com- posed. Bede distinguishes the Scots as divided into northern and southern Scots.^^ The former are represented by Here- mon, the latter by Heber, who divided Ireland between them." The descendants of Ir, to whom Ulster w^as 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 IMasters, to have arrived in Ireland in the age of the world 3500, w^hich, 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 wdiich 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 throucjhout, until we find ourselves at leno-th within what may be termed the historic period of Irish history.-^ B. iii. c. iii. where he distin- guishes between ' Septentrionalis Scottorum provincia,' aiid the ' Gentes Scottorum, qua? in austra- libus Hiberniaj insuhi? partibus morabantur. ' -- Heber appears also to have in one view represented the old Iber- ians of Munster, with whom, indeed, the name seems connected, Par- tholan is said to have divided Ire- land into four parts among his four sons, Er, Orba, Fearran, and Fear- gna ; and Heremon, when he divides Ireland, gives Munster to Er, Orba, Fearran, and Feargna, tlie four sons of Heber. The southern Scottish royal race are brought, however, from Conmaol, son of Heber. -•^ The turning-point appears to be the battle of Ocha, which was fought in the year 478 by Lughaidh, son of that Laogaire who appears as king of Ireland in the Acts of St. Patrick ; — Murcertach MacErca, Fiachna, king of Dalaradia, and Crimthau, king of Leinster, against Olioll Molt, son of Dathi, king of Ireland. It is made an era by most of the annalists, and un- doubtedly was viewed as accom- plishing a revolution which secured CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 181 It 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 town- land. He was called OUamh Fodhla because he had been first a learned Ollamh, or chief poet, and afterwards king of Todhla, 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 OlioU, 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 ; the throne of Ireland to the Hy Xeill, or descendants of Niall Mor of the nine hostages. There is also a marked difference in the annals that precede and follow it, as those incidents which evidently belong to a mythic period — such as the death of Dathi by a flash of lightning at the foot of the Alps, and that of Laogaire by the elements, because he had violated an oath he had sworn by them — here come to an end. Murcertach MacErca, too. who followed the short reign of Lughaidh, was the first Christian monarch of Ireland. The author considers that the real chronological history of Ireland begins here, and that the previous annals are an artificially-constructed history, in which some fragments of genuine annals, and some historic tales founded on fact, are imbedded in a mass of tradition, legend, and fable. 182 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. and adds this significant sentence, ' All records of the Scots before Cimbaoch are uncertain.'-^ From Cimbaoch, Tigher- nac 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 men- tions that some of the Ultonians were driven by the king of Ireland to Manann and in 332 he records the battle of Achadh Leithdearg, in Fernmiiigh, in which Fergus Foga, the last king of Eamania, was slain by the three CoUas of the line of Heremon, who, says Tighernac, ' afterwards de- stroyed Eamhian Macha or Eamania, and the Ultonians did not dwell in it from thenceforth, and they took from them their kingdom from Loch Xeagh westward,' which became known as Air£jialla, 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 leoend contained in the Acts of Saint Cadroe, 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, Abides, and the islands of the Hellespont, to Upper Thrace, and being joined by the people of Pergamus, and the Lacedaemonians, 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 'In anno xviii, Ptolemfei, in- a.d. 236. Fiacha Araidhe reg- itiatus est regnare in Eamaiu Cim- nat an Eamain An. x. Bellum oc baoch filius Fintain qui regnavit Fothaird Mnirtheimne Mebnig re annis xviii. Omnia monumenta Cormuic hua Cuind agiis re Fia- Scotorum usque Cimbaoch incerta chaig Muillitain Righ Mumhan fer erant.' Eaman was the great capi- Cruithniu agus for Fiacha Araidhe. tal of Ulster, now Navan, near 254 Indarba Ullad a h Erend a Armagh. Manand re Cormac hua Cond. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 183 tliey 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.-^ 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 lona, and crossing the contiguous sea enter the region of Eossia by the river Ptosis, and take possession of the towns Eigmonath and Bellethor,^^ situated at a distance from it, and thus the whole country, called after their own name Chorischia, they now called Scotia after the wife of a certain son of ^neas the Igitur ad terrain egressi, ut moris est, situm locorum, mores et habitum hominum explorare, gen- tem Pictaneorum reperiunt. — Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 108. Colgan considers that by the Gens Pictan- eorum the Tuatha De Danaan are meant. -'' They entered apparently by Loch Broom, and proceeded by the river which flows from Loch Droma near the head of Loch Broom, through the valley called the Deary- more, till it falls into the Conan near Dingwall. It is now called the Blackwater, but was formerly known as the Pvaasay. Pigmonath is St. Andrews. Colgan considers that it was Ireland which was formerly called Chorischia and not Scotia ; but as the sentence follows the settlements in Scotland, it seems more applic- able to that country, and elsewhere in the Acts Scotia is used for Scot- land. The word Chorischia is pro- bably taken from what Tacitus says of the Horesti. The passage is this : ' Nec satis, post pelagus Bri- tannia contiguum perlegentes, per Rosim amnem, Rossiam regionem manserunt; Rigmonath quoque Bel- lethor urbes, a se procul positas, petentes, possessuri vicerunt ; sic- que totam terram suo nomine Cho- rischiam nominatam, post cujusdam Lacedemonii Aeneae filium nomine Nelum sen Xiulum, qui princeps eorum fuerat, et olim ^gyptiam conjugem bello meruerat, nomine Scottam, ex vocabulo conjugis, pa- trio sermone depravato, Scotiam vo- caverunt. ' 18-t ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. Lacedaimonian,-^ called Nelus or Xiulus, 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 Xeimhidh or Xemedians 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 Ere, 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 leo-end combines the British with the Irish forms. We have Briutus and Albanus, sons of Isacon, as in the ethnologic family given by Xennius, the ' eponymi ' of the Britanni and Albani, and the latter representing the first inhabitants of the north. The Xemedian colony is obviously that part of the Irish legend in which one body of the descendants of Xemedius settled in Dobhar and lardobhar in Xorth Alban, out of which the Tuatha De Danaan emerge. The colony of the Cruithnigh belongs also to the Irish form ^i^neas the Lacedainouian is obviously the Feuius Farsadh of the -other legend. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 185 of the legend, and the settlement of the sons of Ere is historic, except perhaps in so far as in this poem Loarn is made to precede Fergus as the first king of Dalriadic Alban.^*^ There is no appearance here of the Firbolg, but they are made in the Irish legend to precede the Picts in the Western Isles.^^ Of the Pictish legends there are still three forms to be Pictish 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 ISTennius'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.^^ It then proceeds to tell us that Cruidne, son of Cinge, was the father of the Picts inhabiting '•^^ The Albanic Duan gives him a Scotti qui nunc corrupte vocan- reign of ten years, and to Fergus tur Hibernienses quasi Sciti, quia twenty-seven in place of three. a Scithia regione venerunt et inde Taking a.d. 501 as the date of originem duxerunt ; sive a Scotta Fergus's death, this would place the filia Pharaonis regis Egypti, que settlement of the Dalriads in 461. fuit, ut fertur, regina Scottorum, — 31 There is a native fort in the Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 3. island of St. Kilda called Dunfhir- Albani de quibus originem duxe- bolg. runt Scoti et Picti.— 7/^. 186 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. this island, and had seven sons — Fib, Fidach, Fodla, Fortrenn, Got, Ce, Circinn. The edition in the Irish Xennius adds to this, 'And they divided the land into seven divisions as Columcille says. Seven children of Cmithne, Divided Alban into seven divisions : Cait, Ce, Cirig, a warhke clan ; Fib, Fidach, Fotla, Fortrenn, 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 AthoU ; 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 sove- reignty of the seven divisions, and that Finach was lord of Erin at that time, and took hostao'es of the Cruithnioh. He also is one of the seven Irian kings. After three more names we have Brude bont, and are told that from him thirty Brndes 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.^^ 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 leo'end of the Irish Picts of Dalaradia has a close o 33 See Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 4 and 24. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 187 bearing 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 Tortrenn, 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 Altnaning^hean 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 OUamhan, 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 kino-s of the race of Ir, who are said in the Irish legend to have ruled at Tara.^^ 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 Einach 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 Eiachaidh, son of Baedan, was victorious ; and in 608 the death of Fiachach, son of Baedan, by the Cruithnigh.^^ These entries relate surely to the event above recorded, and give us a date between 602 and 608 for the 3^ Chronicles of the Picts and Fiachaidh mac Baedan victor erat. Scots, p. 319. 608 Bass Fiachach chraich mic 602 Cath Cuile Cail in quo Baedan la Cruithnachu, p. 68. 188 ETHNOLOGY OF BllITAIiN^. [book I. termination 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 Eomans, when the Picts took possession of the districts extending to the southern wall, and settled there as inhabitants. It is as follows ' After this Sarran assumed the sovereignty of Britain, and established his power over the Saxons and the Cruithnigh. He married Ere, daughter of Loarn, king of Alban, but she eloped from him with Muredach, son of Eogan, son of Mall, 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 Dalian 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 ^vith 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 j)ower 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 Ore (Orkney) and Saxan (Saxonia or Lothian). Murceartach then takes the wife of Luirig, and has by her four sons, — Constantine and ^'^ Ghron. Picts and Scots, p. 52. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 189 Gaedel Ficht, from whom descend the lords^'' of Breatan and the kins^s of Breatan Cornd, or Cornwall ; and jSTellan, from whom the race of Xellan, 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. Con- stantine 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 ' Euirig Bretan,' are descended. Such being the legendary matter connected with the Picts Saxon 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 wdio 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 Ambles, from whom came the East and Mid Angles, the Mercians, and the whole race of the jSTorthumbrians — 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 re- porting a tradition of the people themselves, or whether it is 2'' The word is Euiri(/, plural of Rulrc, a champion, a kuight : also Dominus, a lord. 190 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. merely a speculation of his own, he does not tell us.^^ Nen- nius brings the Saxons from Germania generally ; 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,^^ 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 Eoman Empire about a century before Christ. The name of Teutones appears to have passed through several forms into that of Juthae or Jutae, 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 ISTorthstrand, Busen, and Heligoland.^^ The Angles Ptolemy places on the w^est bank of the river 33 Bede, Ec. Hid. B. i. c. xv, and Horsa into Britain. They de- '^^ Nennius implies in a part of his scribe a war between Hengist, an legend of Hengist and Guorthegirn Eoten and vassal of the king of that Hengist's people came 'dein- Denmark, and Finn, son of Folc- sula Oghgul,' which is probably wald, king of the Frisians. Xennius Heligoland. makes Finn, son of Folcgwald, •^'^ There are two poems which grandfather of his Woden, preserve Saxon traditions connected Zeuss, Die Denfschen unci die with the mainland. These are the Nachhardcimme, p. 141. Nennius BattleofFinnesburgh, and Beowulf. has ' Omne genus Ambronum, id Kemble considers that they were est Aldsaxonum Saxonum ; ' and nearly contemporary with the again, 'Et nunquam addiderunt events they relate, and not far re- Saxones Ambronem ut a Pictis moved from the coming of Hengist vectigal exigerent.' CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 191 Elbe, somewhat more to the south, in what is now the Duchy of Magdeburg. ^2 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^ aloncf the north coast from the Elbe to the Ems, if not the Ehine. These wT,re 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 Eoman pro- vince. It is to the people inhabiting this country that the name of Old Saxons w^as 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 Cim- brian 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;*^ 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.** Of the Saxons who settled in Britain prior to the Mannert, GeograpMe, iii. 330. under the form of Angrii, and in '•^ Zeuss inclines to the latter the Xotitia as Anglevarii. They view ; see Nachharsfdmme, p. 93S, were probably the same people with ^■^ Thus Angrivarii appear also the Angli. 192 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. year 441, the colony which occupied the northern district about the Eoman wall were probably Frisians, as the Firth of Forth is termed by TvTennius 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 ■QS 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 Andes. The name of Anoiia was, however, unknown to Bede ; and in his Lives of the Abbots of AVearmouth he quotes a letter written by Huaetberctiis, abbot of the monastery of "Wearmouth, to Pope Gregory in 716, in which he says his monastery was in ' Saxonia.'^^ 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.^*" The tribes who arrived much later, and founded the petty king- doms 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 super- seded the general appellation of Saxons, though the geo- graphical term 'Saxonia' still remained attached to the most northern part of their territory. Languasres Ha^'ing thus analysed the legends of the four races, it of Britain. ]3ecomes ncccssary, before we attempt to draw any deduc- tions from them, to inquire into the relation of their lan- miao'es to each other. Bede chives us a list of the lanmiaoes O O "-J o o 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 w^as confessed and studied in the languages of five nations — viz., that of the Angles, the Britons, the Scots, the Bede, Vit. Sauct. Ab. Jlon. im the Saxons first had their habita- Uyramnfha, c. 14, tions on the Rhine, and thence ^•^ Adam of Bremen (i. 3) saj-s that passed over to Britain. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 193 Picts, and the Latins, which latter language, from the study of the Scriptures, has become common to alL^^ 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 belong- ing 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 lan- guage to wliich the first three belonged. AVe 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, Anglic 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, British but not now in Cornwall, though it lingered there till the ^''^"^'^^''*se- 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 lan- guage 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 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 ^ Hsec in praesenti, juxta nume- licet, Brettonum, Scottorum, Picto- rum librorum quibus Lex Divina rum, et Latinorum, quae medita- scripta est, quinque gentium linguis, tione Scripturarum cseteris omnibus unam eamdemque summae veritatis est facta communis, — Bede, H. E. et verse sublimitatis scientiam scru- B. i. c. i. tatur et confitetur, Anglorum, vide- VOL. I. N 194 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. called Gaelic, and show no greater variety among each other than those which characterise the vernacular speech of dif- ferent 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 eacli 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 Bre- tagne, speaking three different dialectic varieties of the same language. To the other belong the Irish, the Scotch High- landers, and the Manx, who all call their lancruagje Gaelic. The Pictish In the attempt we are about to make to assign to the language, p^^^g ^^^^ proper place among these races, w^e 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 w^e 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.^^ But here we are met at once by a difficulty. ^ Henry of Huntingdon, in repeating Bede's statement as to the five CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 195 If 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 dis- tinguished 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 lan- guage ? 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 languages, adds, 'Quamvis Picti jam that one of the spoken languages videantur deleti, et lingua eorum ita might equally represent it ; neither omnino destructa, ut jam fabula is it true of the people, as almost videatur, quod in veterum scriptis in the very year he makes this eorum mentio invenitur.' This is statement he mentions the Picts as true of the language if it was differ- forming an entire division in David ent from the others, but not if it the First's army at the Battle of resembled one of them so closely the Standard. 196 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I, is mainly historic, and is at first sight very plausible. It may be thus shortly stated: — Tacitus says that the Cale- donians 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.^^ 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 sepa- ration 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. ISTor 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 ^9 Pinkerton first urged the argu- ment for the Picts being a Teutonic people, and, with the knowledge then possessed, with much force. Chalmers is equally clear that they spoke Welsh ; but the philological arguments of both have little value, as the science of comparative philology was not then known or understood. Mr. Burton has dis- cussed this question in the first volume of his History of Scotland, p. 183, but in a very unsatisfactory way. He has dealt with it as if the whole materials for deciding the question were contained in the discussion between Pinkerton and Chalmers, and writers of that period, and as if nothing remained for him to do but to estimate the value of their respective arguments. He contributes nothing additional to the solution of the question. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 197 Gaelic. 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 Gae- dheal. Throughout the whole of the Welsh documents the Picts are usually denominated Gwyddyl Pfichti, 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.^*^ This is quite in accordance w^ith what may be called ^ The author does not here ad- duce the superabundant evidence furnished by the old Welsh poems, which will be found in T]ie Four Ancient Books of Wales. Neither does he refer to the so-called His- toric Triads, because he considers them spurious ; but among the genuine ' Triads of Arthur and his Warriors' {ib. vol. ii. p. 457) there is one to this effect: — 'Three op- pressions came to this island, and did not go out of it. The nation of the Coranyeit, who came in the time of Llud, son of Beli, and did not go out of it ; and the oppres- sion of the Gwyddyl Ffichti, and they did not again go out of it. The third, the oppression of the Saxons, and they did not again go out of it,' Here the term Gwyddyl Ffichti is clearly applied to the whole Pictish nation who settled in Britain. The same designation is given to them by one edition of the Chronicle called the Brut of Tywysogion, which records, in a.d. 750, ' the action of Mygedawc, in which the Britons (Britanyat) con- quered the Gwyddyl Ffichti, after a bloody battle' {Myv. Ar. vol. ii. p. 472). This is the same battle 198 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. the 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 terri- tory 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.^^ It is true that Adamnau 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 messen- gers, without the intervention of an interpreter.^^ On two occasions only does he mention that an interpreter was which Tighernac thus gives : ' A battle between the Pictones and the Britones, viz., Talorgan, the son of Fergus, and his brother, and the slaughter of the Piccardach with him,' — Citron. PicU and ScoU,^. 76. The Irish Archseological Society have published (in 1842) the ancient Historical Tale called the Battle of Magh Rath. This was a battle fought in 637 between Congal Claen, king of Uladh, the head of the Cruithnigh of Ulster, with the as- sistance of the Scotch Dalriads and other allies from Britain, against the king of Ireland ; but throughout this tale there is not the slightest hint of any diversity of language between the Cruithnigh and the Scots. ^- Reeves's Adamnan (ed. 1874), pp. 174-176. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 199 required; and on both occasions it is connected with his preaching the Word of Life.^^ 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, w^ould 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.^^ Saint °^ Verbo Dei a Sancto per inter- pretem recepto (B. i. c. 27). Verbum vitae per interpreta- torem sancto praedicanteviro (B. ii. c. 33). •'^ The Rev. T. Price of Cwmdt\, one of the best and soundest of the Welsh scholars, when he visited Brittany, remarks, 'Notwithstand- ing the many assertions that have been made respecting the natives of Wales and Brittany being mutually intelligible through the medium of their respective languages, I do not hesitate to say that the thing is utterly impossible. Single words in either language will frequently be found to have corresponding terms of a similar sound in the other, and occasionally a short sentence deliberately pronounced may be partially intelligible ; but as to holding a conversation, that is totally out of the question.' — Price's Remains, vol. i. p. 35. And Mr. Norris, the highest Cornish author- ity, says, 'In spite of state- ments to the contrary, the writer is of opinion that a Breton within the historical existence of the two dialects could not have understood a Cornishman speaking at any length, or on any but the most trivial subjects. He is himself unable to read a sentence in Armoric of more than half-a-dozen lines without the help of a dictionary.' — Norris, Ancient Cornish Drama, B. ii. p. 458. O'Donovan says : ' An Irish scholar would find it difficult to understand a Manx book without studying the language as a distinct dialect.' — Introd. to Irish Grammar, p. Ixxx. An English Greek scholar cannot follow a con- versation in modern Greek, where the difference consists mainly in the vowel sounds and in the accent. 200 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. (volumba was an educated man, possessing all tlie 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 eccle- siastic. 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 ver- nacular speech may liave 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.' The other case was when Saint Col- umba preached the Word of Life to a peasant somewhere in the province of the Picts ; and it may be added that w^hen he preached the Word of Life to an old man in the Vale of This quite accords with the author's own experience. Although familiar with German from boyhood, and acquainted with most of its pro- vincial varieties, when he first entered the Bavarian Alps he could not understand what was said to him till he made out that the diffi- culty arose almost entirely from a difference in the vowel sounds, the umlaut being applied almost uni- versally ; and at one period of his life, when a branch of the Irish Society employed Irishmen to read the Irish Scriptures to their poor countrymen in Edinburgh, and, as one of the Committee, he had to examine them as to their fitness, he found he could readily understand a Conu aught man from the vowel sounds approaching most nearly to those of Scotch Gaelic ; but he had great difficultj' in following an Ulster ma]i, the vowel sounds being ver}' different, while the position of the accent, which in Irish is on the last syllable, and in Scotch Gaelic on the first, and the use of the eclipsis in the former, which the latter is without, added to the difficulty. °' Fluviusque ejusdem loci in quo idem baptisma acceperat, ex nomine ejus, Dobur Artbranani usque in hodiernum nominatus diem, ab accolis vocitatur (B. i. c. 27). An old Irish Glossary, quoted hy O'Reilly, under Aidhbheis, has Bior, is An agas Dobhar Tri hanmann d'uisce an domhain. Bior and An and Dobar, Three names for water in the world. Quidam cum tota plebeius familia (B. ii. c. 33). CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 201 Urquhart, who was apparent]y of a higher class, and lived not far from the headquarters of the Picts, no interpreter appears to have been required.^'' 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 w^ere 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, N'ennius, 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.' 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 Ibidemque quidam repertus Acceptisque eorum uxoribus et senex, Emchatus nomine, audiens filiabus in conjugium, omnes earum a Sancto verbum Dei prsedicatuni, linguas amputaverunt, ne eorum et credens, baptizatus est (B. iii. successio maternam linguam dis- c- 15). ceret. 202 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. found in the country. In that contained in the Life of St. Cadroe 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 un- doubtedly given in Layamon's Brut, in order to explain the language of the Picts, which adds — Through the same women Who there long dwelt, The folk began to speak Ireland's speech.^^ 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 59 airon. Picts and Scots, p. 160. CHAr. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BKITAIN. 203 to this day in the Highlands among those who are called Scots.' 60 The portion of the Pictish people which longest retained the name were the Picts of Galloway. Completely sur- rounded 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 Xorthumbria, 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.^^ 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 Picht 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.' 6- What that language was we learn from a contemporary of Buchanan, William Dunbar the poet, who, in the ' Ply ting ' 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 — ^ Sure condicioun qe lour issu bright as being ' in terra Pictorum,' parlascent Irrays, quel patois de- and calls their language ' sermo murt a iour de huy du haute pays Pictorum.' — LibeUus, c. Ixxxiv. entre lez uns, qest dit Escotoys. — Sequitur in eodem latere, et lb. p. 199. littore occidentali, Gallovidia. . . . Reginald of Durham, writing Ea magna ex parte patrio sermone in the last half of the twelfth cen- adhuc utitur. — Buchanan, Berum tury, mentions, in 1164, Kirkcud- Scoticarum Hist., Lib. ii. 27. 204 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. Had Sanct Jerome bene borne intil Argyle, Into Irische toung his bukis had done compyle. And Kennedy retorts upon Dunbar — Thow luvis nane Erische, elf I understand, But it sowld be all trew Scottisniennis leid ; It wes the gud langage of this land.^^ 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.^* 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 lan- guages 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 through- out 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.^^ It is obvious that the mere comparison of a very few words with the vocabulary of other 6^ Laing's Poems of William Dun- bar. Chalmers's Poems of Sir David Lyndesay, vol. ii. p. 350. Mr. Burton, in his chapter on ' The Early Races' [Hist. vol. i. p. 206), makes the assertion that the Gaelic of Scotland ' was ever called by the Teutonic Scots, Irish, Ersch, or Erse.' In this he is mistaken. It was not so called before the fifteenth century, but invariably ' Lingua Scotica,' or Scotch. The inference as to the lan- guage of the Picts is the same, even though Chalmers' imaginary colony of Irish Cruithne in the seventh century really took place. The author has thrown these materials into the form of an alpha- betical list, which will be found in the Appendix I. , with a comparison with similar words and names in the other dialects. CHAP. IV,] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 205 languages 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 lan- guage. 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, how- ever 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 con- nection ; and where these syllables show the phonetic differ- ences of the dialects, they furnish as good a means of com- parison as the few words of the language which have been preserved.^^ In examining these words and proper names, The names of the primary colours which enter into the com- Gaelic. position both of names, persons, and places will illustrate this : — Ban Finn Breac Brit Ciar Dubh Glas Gorm Liath Dearg Ruadh white speckled black green blue grey red Can Gwyn Brych Brith Du white speckled black green, blue brown gray red Here some are so alike as to afford no test, others again are different from each other ; but those in which the phonetic differences occur — as Finn, Gwyn ; Ban, Can— afford at Glas Gwrm Llwyd Coch \ Rhudd \ • once a test of the dialect. Again, the features of the face and form enter both into epithets and names of places. We may take a few — 206 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIX. [book t. it 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 ; 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 Ptoman V, which represents Gw in Welsh and F in G-aelic.^^ Gaelic. Welsh. Ceann head Pen head Claggan . skull Clopen skull Cluas ear Cluit, Clyw ear Bronn breast Bron breast Fait hair Gwallt hair Sron nose Trwyn nose Cefn ^ Trwm - . Cil J Drum back back Cul J • Lamh hand Llaw hand Troidh . foot Troed foot Here, also, some are so alike it would be impossible to distinguish the dialect, but Ceann and Pen, Claggan and Clopen, Fait and Gwallt, Sron and Trwyn, afford at once a criterion. So also in proper names, where the phonetic differ- ences are equally apparent. ^7 The tribes are Caledonii, Can- teae, Creones, Carnones, Curnaovii, Carini. The other three are Epidii, Lugi, Mertfe. The two latter occu- pied Sutherland. Ptolemy has the river Lugia in Ireland, and this can be identified with Belfast Lough. The Irish name was Loch Laogh, and Adamnan renders it by Stag- num Vituli. Laogh is a calf in Irish, and is probably the word meant by Lugia. If the same word enters into the name Lugi, it is rather remark- able that Mart should be the Irish word for a heifer. It would seem as if the two tribes of the Lugi and Mertse took their names from these animals, which would indicate their belonging to the Gaelic race. The tribes are Vacomagi, Ver- nicomes, Taexali. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BKITAIN. 207 In 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 Dicaledonse with the guttural C, and the other, first Mseata^ and then Yecturiones with the Eoman 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 ' epony- mus ' 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 re- cognise 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.^^ 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 Sluind Aed fortren Ferna. Name Aed, the powerful of Ferua. Angus Culdee, Felire at 31st Jany. 208 ETHNOLOGY OF BKITAIX. [book I. Caitli and ' Ardrigh ' or sovereign over the seven divisions while Finachta reigned in Ireland."*^ 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.'^ 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 tw^o parts — one W' here 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 Y, which seems to point to a twofold distinction similar to what we have already noticed. The name Brude belonsfs to the northern Picts, as the first historic kincr of the name is called by Bede king of the provinces of the ISTorthern Picts, and it may be viewed as an Irish form.'^^ After these The age of the world 3923. was on Inchkeith, the island may This was the first year of the reign have taken its name from Gaeth, of Finuachta, son of Ollamh Fodhla, He must therefore have belonged over Ireland. The age of the world to the British people of the Otta- 3960, the first of the reign of Gede deni, whose frontier city this was. Ollgothach over Ireland. — Annals The name Bruidhe appears of Four Masters. among the kings of O'Faly in Lein- Aen is a common prefix in Irish ster, and in the Annals of the Four names, and Becan occurs repeatedly Masters in the form of Bruaideadh. as an Irish name. — Index An. IV. We find in Ireland analogous names Masters. to these of the thirty Brudes applied "1 Bede mentions that the ' Sinus to districts. In Leinster we have Orientalis (Firth of Forth) habet in Tola and Fortola {An. IV. M. 571). medio sui urbem Giudi.' It is not In Ulster in Tirconnell, Guill and impossible that this town may have Irguill [ih. 718). In Alban, Dobhar taken its name from this Guidid or and Irdobhar. In this list Cal and Giudid Gaethbrechach, and if it Ureal, etc. , and in one of the Welsh CHAP. IV,] ETHNOLOGY OF BPJTAIX. 209 Brudes we have a list of twenty-one names, beginning with Gilgide and ending with Dmst, 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 ' Tin.' The form of the name is Teutonic, and is the same name as Theodric. I^ennius 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 Ger- manic 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. Eu 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 Forfar- shire,^^ and another bears the epithet 'Duiperr,' which is rendered in another list, ' Dives ' or the rich. It is the Irish pedigrees Cein, son of Gwrcein, son of Doli, sou of Gwrdoli, son of Dubhn, son of Gwrdubhn. In the Manumissions of Bodmin we have as Cornish forms Guest, Wurguest, Ceint, Wurceint. This will show the exact position of this form as between Irish and Cornish. The author is inclined to think that this legend of the thirty Brudes whose names were given to their portions of land is based upon the Irish VOL. I. system of land denominations, as that of the seven sons of Cruithne evidently was. There were thirty townships or haile betaghs in a barony or triocha ced, and the Irish Annals tell us that the mythic King Ollamh Fodla * appointed a Taoise.ch over every triocha ced and a Brug- haidh over every baile.' — An. Four blasters, vol. i. p. 53. Brev. Ah., Pars Hyem. f. xxii. 0 210 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book i. word ' Saoibher,' rich, with the interchange of D for 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 Cathlnan, 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, Kectan 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."^ Talorcen may be either, though more probably British. Brude, as we have seen, is an Irish form, and belongs to the northern Picts. Gartnaidh, Kectan, 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, showino; the interchange of Pf and P,'^ and Ungust and Wrgust are ^"^ The following words may be cited as examples of the interchange of S and D in Gaelic :— Suil, Duil, hope ; Seangan, Deangan, an ant ; Seas, Deas, stay ; Samh, Damh, learning ; Scire, Deirc, almsgiving ; Sonnach, Tonnach, a iva/l. Welsh G passes into D in Gel, W., Daoil, Ir., a leech; Gloin, W., Dealan, Jr., coal; Gwneyd, W., Deanadh, Ir., do. ; Gobaith, W., Dobhchais, Jr., hope. St. Drostan was son of Cosgrich, and nephew of Saint Columba, and a Scot by descent. ''^ F, or as it is written in Welsh Ff , passes into P in Irish, as in Kyf , lame, Ir, ceap, etc. Of the two Alpins in the list, the father of the first is not given, but, as we shall see afterwards, his father was a Dalriadic Scot. The father of the second was Wroid ; this is near the Cornish form, which would be Uored. In this form the name appears in an inscription on one of the sculptured stones at St. Vigeans. Mr. Whitley Stokes thus reads it : — Drosten : Ipe uoret Elt For Cus. It is a good specimen of the mixtui-e CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 211 Cornish forms, and belong to the province called * Fortrenn,' or the districts of Stratherne and Menteith.'''^ 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,'^^ 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 of forms we find in this part of the Kinneff to the sons of Talore. ' The Pictish territory. Drosten is not a word ' robbait ' is the Irish word Welsh form but Gaelic ; Ipe Uoret, ' robaith,' used in the Book of Deer Cornish ; and Forcus unmistakably for a donation to the church. Irish. See Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. The Manumissions in the 120, for Forcus. An Ogham in- Bodmin Gospels, from which the scription on a stone at Aboyne has Cornish forms are taken, have been thus read : — Wurgustel and Ungust among the Neahhtla robbait ceanneff names. Maqqoi Talluorrh. Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 45, 'Neachtla or Neachtan immolated 319, .329. 212 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. Angles. 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. Eeginald of Durham, who wrote in the latter part of tlie twelfth century, reports one word of the Pictish language of Galloway. He tells us that certain clerics of Kirkcudbrio-ht were called in the lanfjuage 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 dis- criminating, though it approaches most nearly to the Irish form.'^ Evifience Such being the results which we obtain from an analysis derived ^£ j-^^.g Pictisli kins^s, and an examination of the from ° ' topogi-a- few Pictish w^ords preserved to us, the meaning of which we can ascertain, there remains one other source of informa- tion. The topography of the country furnishes us with a not unimportant element of evidence in endeavouring to ascertain the character of the lanouac^es 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 primi- tive names remain attached to them through successive '9 ' Clerici illi, qui in ecclesia ilia represents his attempt to pronounce commorantur, qui Pictorum lingua a word ending with a guttural. He ScoUofthes cognominantur " (cap. would soften Sgolog to Sgolofth, Ixxxv. ). Reginald of Durham was just as the Normans softened Ban- a Xorman, and it probably merely nockburn to Banoffburn. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 213 fluctuations 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 tlieir 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 tliat 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 ascer- tain 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 Scot- land, where the local names obviously belong to the same Gaelic language which is still tlie vernacular speech of its population. It is the case too with Wales, where the people still speak that form of British to whicli 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 Northum- brian English. 214 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [book I. There is no ditticulty in distinguisliing the names whicli 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.^*^ 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 ^ This is the process which George Chalmers has gone through in endeavouring to show that the Cymric language originally per- vaded the whole of Scotland. He has, in vol, i. p. 33, an elaborate comparison between the names in north and south Britain, which in reality proves nothing ; and in applying his Welsh etymologies to the names of places, he proceeds entirel}- upon the mere resemblance of sounds in the modern form of the word. This mode, which the author has elsewhere termed pho- netic etymology, taints almost all the attempts which have been made to attach the local names in Scot- land to one or other of the Celtic dialects. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BUITALN. 215 test 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.^^ 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.^"^ 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, wliich 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. ^1 We have an instance of this in bhar, and in John O'Dugan's Forus two Gaelic synonyms for a moun- Focail, quoted by O'Reilly, it is tain, Sliabh and Beann, the one glossed by Taobhnocht, a naked being mainly used in Ireland and side. It does not occur in Wales, the other in Scotland. Travernent, now Tranent (Had. ). Traverquair, now Traquair (Peebles). 82 This may be w ell illustrated Traverbrun, now Trabroun (Rox. ). by showing the various forms which Traveieglys, now Terregles (Dumfries), the word Traver has assumed, and Travertrold, now Trailtrow (do.), tlie false etymologies it has given Travevflat, now Trailflat (do.), rise to. The word is properly Trea- Traverlen, now Crailing (Roxburgh). 216 ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIX. [book I. Uisge 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 II, too, enters largely into the topography of the Basque countries ; and the old name for the island of Isla, which w^as He, 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.^^ 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 Piavenna gives us a large collection of local names, many of ^ In the Welsh poems the name Tawi is also applied to the Ta}-. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 217 which are obviously corrupted forms of tliose 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 Eoman 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,' 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 ' Carbaiitium,' wdiich must be ' Carbantorigum ' the town of the Selgova^, of ' Tadoriton ' and ' Maporiton.' In the second group, we have the sixth name, 'Medio Nemeton,' which latter word is surely the Irish Itemed, a sanctuary. 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 Selgovse, or Dumfriesshire ; and that occupied by the Damnonii, or the shires of Ayr, Eenfrew, 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 men- Ubi et ipsa Britannia plus an- In Latin ' sacellum ' (see Zeuss, gustissima de oceano in oceano esse Grammatica Celfica, p. 10). Can ilinoscitur, — Ravennatis Anonymi this refer to the building called Cosmographia. Arthur's O'on ? ^' In Welsh Tad is father. Map son. 218 ETHNOLOGY OF BKITAIN. [book I. tions Ilea, 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 equiva- lents.^^ There is the ' Stagnum Aporicum ' or ' Aporum/ in which we recomise Lochaber. The river of ' Xesa,' the lake called ' Lochdise,' 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.^^ The former is Saxon, but the latter unmistak- ably 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 ' Pen- neltun,' and terminates near ' Alcluith.' The place meant ^~ For the names in Adaninan, antiquissima duorum ferme mil- the reader is referred to Reeves's Hum spatio a monasterio Abercur- edition of Adamnan's Life of St. nig, quod nunc vocatur Abercorn, Columba, in the series of Histo- ad occidentem tendens, contra rians of Scotland for 1874. occidentem juxta urbem Alcluith. The passages regarding the curnig ad occidentem, in loco qui A mari Scotise usque ad mare autem Anglorum Penneltun appel- Hiberniae id est, a Cair Eden civitate latur ; et tendens contra occidentem 88 Eddi, Vita S. Wilfridi apud Gale, pp. 70, 71. — Gildas, CapHula lihri. Incipit autem duorum ferme mi- lium spatio a monasterio Aebber- wall are as follows : — sermone Pictorum Peanfahel, lingua CHAP, IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 219 can only be the village of Walton, wliicli is exactly three English miles from Abercorn. Now these names belong to that district in wliich 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 popula- tion, 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 Strath clyde, 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 terminatur juxta urbem Alcluith. — nail, Anglice vero Peneltun dicitur, Beda, Hist. Ec. B. i. c. xii. usque ad ostium fluminis Cluth et Per vero miliaria, passum unum a Cairpentaloch. — Ad. to Nennius. Penguaul, quae villa Scottice Ce- 220 ETHNOLOGY OF BTIITAIN. [book 1, adjacent regions to his kingdom. The place meant is more probably Tyniiighame in East Lothian. The Irish Nennius gives us three words as tlie 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 lardohbar, 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 Eindhorn, 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.^^ 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 popu- larly 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. Tliis line nearly coincides with the present southern limit of the ^ Simeon of Durham calls it 'In is Athfhotia ; and in the Prophecy tiningaham,' and says it was in the of St. Berchan, one of the kings, diocese of Xindisfarne, and belonged who represents Kenneth M'Alpin, to the Angles. — See Surtees ed., is said to have died for hrninnihh pp. 20, 65, 68. C has probably Eirenn, on the banks of Erin. He been read by the scribe for T. died at Forteviot, on the river •'^ The old form of the name Atholl Earn. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 221 Gaelic tongue, and probably also with the ancient division between the Picts and the Scots.' ^"^ 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 distribu- tion 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 Aberdeen- shire thirteen Abers and twenty-six Invers ; in Forfarshire eight Abers and eight Invers; in Perthshire nine Abers and eight Invers ; and in Pifeshire 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 Eoss- shire. 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 Pirths of Forth and Clyde is this — in Argyllshire, Invers alone ; in Word-i and Place-n, by the Rev. old charter, in which king David Isaac Taylor, p. 258. This argu- grants to the monks of May "In- ment appears to have been first used verin qui fuit Aberin." So Aber- by Mr. Kemble in his Saxom in nethy became Invernethy, although England, vol. ii. p. 4, but his line of the old name is now restored. This demarcation is quite different from is quoted without acknowledgment Mr. Taylor's. He says — ' The dis- from George Chalmers, with the tinctive names of water in the two usual result of second-hand quota- principal languages appear to be tion, that of perpetuating error. Aber and Inver.' He then gives a The true reading in the charter is list of seven Abers in Wales, and in ' Petnaweem et Inverin que fuit Scotland eleven Abers on the south- Averin ; ' and it means in the ordin- east side of his line, and twelve In- ary charter Latin that these places vers on the north-west ; but the con- formerly belonged to a person called trast is produced by simply omitting Averin. Abernethy never became the Invers which are on the same Invernethy. The two places are side with the Abers, and the Abers distinct from each other : Inver- which are to be found among the nethy at the junction of the Nethy Invers. Mr. Taylor adds— 'The with the Earn, and Abernethy a process of change is shown by an mile farther up the river. 222 ETHNOLOGY OF BUITAIX. [book I. luverness-sliire and Koss-shire, luvers 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, Eenfrew, Lanark, Stirling, and Dumbarton, occupied by the Damnonii ; four Abers in Dumfriesshire, and six in Lothian, occupied by the Selgovse 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.^^ 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.^^ In Ireland Inver seems under- 93 Diefenbach, inhisCeWm,vol.i. Mr. Bannister, in his Glosmry p. 23, is of this opinion. He says, of Cornish Names, has no Abers, ' Aber gehort vollig beiden Sprach- but an Appledor. aesten an.' CHAP. IV. J ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 223 going a 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, w^e 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. j\Ir. Taylor attempts to apply this test. He says, * In Argyllshire and the northern parts of Scotland the Cymric pen is ordi- narily replaced by the ten or cenn, the Gaelic forms of the same w^ord. The distinctive usage of jpen and hen enables us to detect the line of demarcation between the Cymric and Gaelic branches of the Celtic race. The Gadhelic Cenn, a head, is another form of the same word.' 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,^^ We find, however, in these districts four root- Taylor, Words and Plart-^, p. 232. With what success he attempts to make this out his list of Pens will show. Leaving out those in Dum- friesshire, Ayrshii e, and Hadding- ton, where there was originally a Welsh-speaking jjeople, 'we find,' he says, ' the Cymric form of the word in the (jvampians,' which is utter nonsense, ' the Pentland Hills,' which is a corruption of Petland Hills, as the Pentland Firth is of the Petland Firth, ' the Penn- guaul Hills,' which have no exist- ence, and 'Pendrich in Perth,' which is a corruption of Pittin- driech. The whole of this part of Mr. Taylor's work is tainted with phonetic etymology; e.j/. ,he says, ' From Ihvn, smooth, or from linn^ a deep still pool, we obtain the names of Loch Leven, and three rivers called Leven in Scotland.' The old form of this name Leven is ' Leamhan, ' which means in Irish an elm -tree. The Welsh equivalent is Llwyfan. Perhaps Pennan, the modern name of a headland at the Moray Firth, may be an exception, but we have not its old form. 224 ETHNOLOGY OF BKITAIN. [book I. words that 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 aj^pears to signify a portion of land, and is used synonymously with Both, a dwelling, and Baile, a town.^^ 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.^^ 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 waiting, 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 Pette is the form of this word in the Book of Deer, and it appears to mean a portion of land, as it is conjoined with proper names, as Pette MacGarnait, Pette Malduib. It also appears connected with Gaelic specific terms, as Pette an Muihnn, ' of the mill. ' With the article it forms Petten, or Pitten, as in Petten-taggart, termed in a charter of the church of Migvie (St. Andrews Chartulary, preface, p. 21) ' terra ecclesise.' It is Pettan t-sag- uirt, the priest's land. In the same Chartulary (114) the ' villula qua? dicitur Pettemokane ' is afterwards apparently called ' domus cujusdam viri nomine Mochan. ' It is synony- mous with Both, a dwelling, as we find Bothgouanan, near Elgin, has become Pitgownie, and Badfodullis, near Aberdeen, Pitfoddles. Dr. Stuart points out, in his introduc- tion to the Book of Deer, p. Ixxxiv., that Pit and Bal are frequently used indiscriminately. As in Fothuirtabhaicht now Forteviot, Fothurdun now Fordun, Fothenaven now Finhaven. CHAP. IV.] ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 225 name 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. Zdj 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. ith, 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 ^th, Applying these laws, the generic terms do not show the existence of a Cymric language in the districts occupied by the Picts.^^ 9^ These laws are taken from The Four Ancient Books of Wales, where the subject of the race and language of the Picts is fully discussed in Chapters vii., viii., and ix. This has, of course, led to some repeti- tion, and in one respect the author has been led to modify the views there stated. An examination of the old forms of the Cornish names in the Manumissions in the Bodmin Gospels, printed in the Heme Celt- ique, vol. i. p. 332, has led him to see that there is a British element in the proper names in the list of Pictish kings, and that that element is not Welsh, but Corn- ish. VOL. I. P 226 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. CHAPTEE V. THE FOUR KINGDOMS. Result of The result of our inquiry into the ethnology of Britain and 10*^10^1 language of the occupants of its northern dis- inquiry. tricts, 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 Corn- wall 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 Eomans thought to be indigenous, and who, after the Eoman 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 equiva- lent of the Latin ' Picti,' and was applied to the Picts of CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 227 Scotland, 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 ex- tended itself over the whole of that part of Britain which became subject to the Eoman power, and was incorporated into a province of the Eoman 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 Ehine to the Cimbric Chersonese. After assailing the Eoman 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 The four 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 Eomans from the island, and the termination of their power in Britain, may 228 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book 1. be held to have ceased, and the limits of these kingdoms to have become settled. Xorth 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 Drum- alban. 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 lona and Colonsay to Isla, where it separated the eastern from the western districts of the island.^ ^ The oldest of the Latin Chron- icles says that Fergus, first king of Dalriada, reigned ' a monte Drum- alban usque ad mare Hibernie et ad Inchegal ' [Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 130), apparently excluding the islands ; but the tract De Situ Alhanice, of the same date, has it ' a monte Brunalban usque ad Mare Hibernian' and adds, ' Deinde reges de semine Fergus regnaverunt in Brunalban sive Brunhere' (76. p. 137). Brunalban seems to be the district on the east side of the range now called Breadalban, and Brun- here is probably Bruneire, and meant for the district on the west side of the range. There are two glens both called Glenlochy, the one proceeding from the range east- ward to Loch Tay, the other west- ward to Loch Awe, and the former is called in charters Glenlochy Alban, to distinguish it from the other. We have therefore the term Alban applied to the country be- yond the frontier of Dalriada, and the term Eire to Dalriada as being a colony of Scots from Eire. The south part of Morvern was called Kinelvadon or Cinelbhadon, from Badon, a son of Loarn, and there- fore belonged to Dalriada. On the shoulder of the hill in Mull called Benmore, which forms the pass from the northern to the southern part of the island and is called Mamchlachaig, there are two cairns. The one on the north is called Cam Cul ri Alban, or the cairn with its back to Alban, and the other Carn Cul ri Erin, or the cairn with its back to Eire. There is a similar cairn on lona and another on Colon- say, both called Carn Cul ri Eirin, which seem to mark the boundary. If lona was exactly on the bound- ary which separated Dalriada from the Picts, it is obvious how Bede's statement that it was given to CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 229 The Scottish colony was originally founded by Fergus Scottish Mor, son of Ere, who came with his two brothers Loarn and Dairiada. Angus from Irish Dalriada in the end of the fifth century, but the true founder of the Dalriadic kingdom was his creat-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 fottified, 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, Dun- monaidh. The possessions of these Dalriadic tribes sur- rounded a small district extending from the districts of Saint Columba by the Picts who pression is ' offeravit.' SeeEeeves's inhabit the adjacent districts, is Adamnan, orig. ed., p. 434, for not inconsistent with that of Tig- a judicious examination of this hernac, that it was immolated to him point, by the king of Dalriada. The ex- 230 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. Lorn, 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 Ere, 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 Dal- riada it alternated first between the descendants of Gabran and Comgall, the two grandsons of Fergus, and afterwards between the Cinel Gabran and Cinel Loarn.^ The king- The remaining districts north of the Firths of Forth and Picts*?^^^^^ 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 peo]3le, 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 moun- tain chains, and he terms in one place the northern Picts, the Transmontane Picts.^ 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 ter- 2 This account is taken from the be severally assigned. Dr. O'Dono- Tract ' On the Men of Alban ' van identified Dunmonaidh, the tra- (Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 308). ditionary capital of Dalriada, with The Cinel Comgall, from whom Dunstaffnage, but e\'idently upon Cowall takes its name, formed pro- mere conjecture. Dr. Reeves, in perly a fourth tribe, being descended his edition of Adaninan, rightly from a brother of Gabran, but they identifies it with Dunadel. appear to have been incorporated with the Cinel Gabran. The Cinel ^ Eis qu« arduis atque horrenti- Loarn consisted of three smaller bus montium jugis, ab australibus tribes — the Cinel Fergus Salach, eorum sunt regionibus sequestratse the Cinel Cathbath, and the Cinel (B. iii. c. iv.). Eachadh, to whom the three sub- Erat autem Columba primus doc- divisions of Lorn — Xether Lorn, tor fidei Christianae transmontanis Mid-Lorn, and Upper Lorn — may Pictis ad aquilonem (B. v. c. ix.). CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 231 minates near the east coast between Aberdeen and Stone- haven. 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 Pdk 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 ' epony- mus' of the race, and the reference to Saint Columba, as 232 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. perpetuating 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, origin- ally 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 w^ithin 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.' * 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 ^ Ut, iibi res perveniret in du- sibi eligerent ; quod usque hodie bium, magis de feminea regum pro- apud Pictos constat esse servatum. sapia, quam de masculina regem — Bede, B. i. c. 1. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 233 for ever ; ' ^ '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.' ^ 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 succes- sion ; 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. 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 ^ and he quotes this as a reason for believing that exogamy pre- vailed among the Picts. But this explanation, though it ^ Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 40, 45, 126. 6 Ibid. pp. 319, 328, 329. Brude mac Bile and Talorcan mac Ainfrait. This will appear afterwards. ^ M 'Lennan, Primitive Marriage, p. 129. 234 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. goes 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 ; ' ^ 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 ; "^^ 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 suc- cession to the throne could not be opposed in conformity with the Pictish law of succession, should become powerful ^ Cffisar says of the Britons of to the mother, not the father, as the interior, ' Uxores habent deni the link which connected him with duodenique inter se communes, et it ; and that the Pictish sj'stem maxime fratres cum fratribus, par- would naturally spring out of it ; entesque cum liberis ; sed, si qui but it is probable Ctesar and Dio sunt ex his nati, eorum habentur represented a custom as it appeared liberi, quo primum virgo quwque to them, without understanding it. deductaest. ' — (B. v. c. 14.) Dio, as When the father of the chil- reported by Xiphiline, attributes a dren adopted was king in a nation similar custom to the Caledonians where male succession prevailed, and Mfeata?, when he says that they the eldest son ajDpears to have re- have wives in common, and rear the mained in the father's tribe, and whole of their progeny. It is ob- succeeded to his throne, while the vious that such a custom must have children adopted alone non-Pictish given rise to the feeling, that the names. We shall find this to be only certainty of a child belonging the case where the kings were of to a particular family was to look foreign race. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 235 enough 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 north- ern Picts, whom Saint Columba converted, is recorded by Tighernac in the year 584,"^^ 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 Dal- riada 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,^^ 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.^^ The districts south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and Kingdom extending to the Solway Firth on the west and to the Tyne on ^^^^^^^ the east, were possessed by the two kingdoms of the Britons Aiciyde. 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 584 Mors Bruidhe mac Mail- In the Latin lists this king is chon Righ Cruithneach. — 2''{gh. confounded with the older Nectan, 599 Bas Gartnaidh regis Picto- and called the son of Irb and the rum. — Tiyh. founder of Abernethy. 236 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. former and Kendal in the latter, and the counties of Dumfries, Ayr, Eenfrew, 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 wliich runs from the south-east corner of Peeblesshire, near Gala- shiels, 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 soathern 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 Eomans, and claimed descent from the ancient Eoman rulers in Britain. The law of succession seems to have been one of purely male descent. Kingdom Of Aedilfrid, who at this time ruled over Bernicia, and of Bernicia. ^^^^ ^^^^^^ 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 plac- ing the iSTorthumbrian 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, CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 237 with 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 includ- ing the counties of Berwick and Eoxburgh 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.^* In the centre of Scotland, where it is intersected by the 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 pos- sessed 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 Ptoman 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 Eoman 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 Eoman 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 Bamborough is about sixteen long and two broad. The channel miles south-east of Berwick. The between it and the mainland is left Holy Island is about nine miles dry at low water, from Berwick, and is four miles 238 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. Hills to the Eoman 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 Ano^les orive 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 Eoman 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 after- wards 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. Galloway. 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 CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 239 of 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 a.d. 606. defeated at Dawstone in Liddesdale, he died, leaving his Aidan,^^ throne to his son Eocha Buidhe, or the yellow-haired, whom Saint Columba had named as his successor ; and in the Aediifnd' same year Aedilfrid, kin^^ of Bernicia, attacked Aeduin, who conquers . . Deira, and had succeeded his father Aella in Deira when a child, and expels had barely attained majority, and drove him from his throne, thus uniting Deira to Bernicia, over w^hich he reigned twelve years. A change likewise soon took place among the Pictish kings, and in the year 612 Nectan appears to have been dis- placed by Cinioch or Cinadon, son of Luchtren, who from the Gaelic form of his name probably belonged to the northern Picts. Five years afterwards Aeduin, who, after wander- ing as a fugitive in different j)arts of Britain, had finally taken refuge with Eedwald, king of the East Angles, succeeded in persuading him to assist him to recover his throne. A large army was accordingly raised, and meeting -v.d. 617. Aedilfrid, who was advancing against him with inferior force, i^etween he attacked him and slew^ him on the borders of the kingdom Aeduin of Mercia, on the east side of the river called Idlae or Idle, kediiMd. 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 ^•^ A.D. 606 Bas Aedhan mac king Gartnaidli in 599, and of Gabhrain anno xxviii. regni sui, Cinadon in 631, giving an interval aetatis vero Ixxiv. — Tigh. of only 32 years. Cinioch therefore ^'^ Nectan is said to have reigned began to reign in 612, and as Tig- 20 years, and Cinioch 19 ; together hernac does not record the death 39 years. Tighernac, however, of Nectan as king of the Picts, he records the death of the previous must then have been disjjlaced. 240 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. party, 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 lona, 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 ISTorthumbrian 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.^^ 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 JSTorth- umbrian 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 Xorth- umbrian kingdom in one direction at least. The oldest form of the name of Edinburgh is Edwinesburg,^^ 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 ^7 Majore potentia cunctis qui acceperit (B. ii. c. ix.), Brittaniam incolunt, Anglorum pariter et Brettonum populis, In the foundation charter of prffifuit (B. ii. c. v.). Nemo Ang- Holyrood by David i., he called it lorum ante eum omnes Britannife ' Ecclesia Sancti Crucis Edwines- fines, qua vel ipsoriim vel Bretton- burgensis.' Simeon of Durham calls um provinci?e habitant, sub ditione it Edwinesburch. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 241 the name of the province of Loidis, a name which was after- wards extended as far south as the Tweed.^^ The Irish annalists record in the year 627 the battle of a.d. 627. Ardcorann, in which the Dalriads were victorious, smd^^^^^^^^ ' ' Ardcorann Fiachna, son of Deman, was slain by Conadh Cerr, king of between Dalriada.-*^ Fiachna mac Deman was the king of the ^^^^ cruitii- Cruithnigh of Dalaradia in Ireland, and the battle was pro- ^^s^^- bably fought in Ireland, Conadh Cerr, king of Dalriada, coming to the assistance of the Irish Dalriads ; but Conadh Cerr w^as 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.^^ It is called ' Lotliene ' in the ' usque ad di visas de Laodonia Saxon Chronicle, and appears to be versus Lambermor. ' This district meant by Lethead in the ancient now consists of the three counties poem in Chron. Picts and Scots, p. of East, Mid, and West Lothians. 127. Florence of Worcester calls it Simeon of Durham refers to it in its 'Provincia Loidis,' and the Chron- large extent when he has ' pervenit icle of Melrose the same. It appears, apud fluvium Twedam, qui North- as we shall see, under the name of ymbriam et Loidam disterminat. ' ' Kegio Loidis ' in 654. In its lim- — Sym. Dun. Surtees ed., p. 127. ited extent it was the district be- 20 g27 Cath Airdcoraind in tween the Avon and the Lammer- Dalriada [Lachtnene mac Toirbene moors. In the foundation charter of Abbach] victores erant in quo Holyrood, David the First grants to cecidit Fiachna mac Demain la its monks the tenth of all the marine Conadh Cerr Ri Dalriada. — Tz^/A. animals which might be thrown The words within brackets belong ashore ' ab Avon usque ad Col- to another year and have dropped brandspath,' with the tenth of his in by mistake. pleas and other dues w ithin the 21 5-29 c^th Fedhaeoin in quo same limits ; and in a charter of Maelcaith mac Scandail Eex Cruith- Ptollaud, son of Uchtred, some lands nin victor erat. Dalriada cecidit. in Lauderdale are described as Concad Cer Rex Dalriada cecidit et VOL. L Q 242 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. A.D. 629. Domnall Breac becomes king of DaMada. A.D. 631. Gamaid, son of Wid, succeeds Cinaeth mac Lucli- tren as king of tlie Picts. Eochadh 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 corre- sponds 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 fioiitino- 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 suc- cession to another family. The death of Cinaeth mac Luchtren, kinc? of the Picts, is recorded by Tighernac in 631,-- 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 Xorthumbria, which was soon Dicuill mac Eachach Rex Ceneoil Cruithne cecidit et nepotes Aldan, id est, Regullan mac Conaing et Failbe mac Eachach [et Osseric mac Albruit cum strage maxima suo- rum], Eochadh Buidhi mac Aidan ^-ictor eva.t.— T{gh. The words in brackets do not belong to this event. The Ulster Annals add, 'Mors Eochach Buidhe regis Pictorum filii Aedain, sic in libro Cuanac inveni. ' In the tract on the battle of Magh- Rath we are told that Eochadh Buidhe married the daughter of Eochaidh Aingces Ri Bretain. This is a Gaelic and not a British name, and a king of the Picts of Galloway may be meant, through whose daughter Eochadh Buidhe acquired his right. " Bas Cinaetha mac Luchtren regis Pictorum. — Tigh. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 243 to 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.^^ 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,^* 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 a.d. 633. Aeduin in a plain called by Bede Haethfeld, now Hatfield, in ^fethfeid the West Biding of Yorkshire, on the 1 2th of October in the Aeduin year 633, in which Aeduin was himself killed, and all his caldwaiia army either slain or dispersed. His son Osfrid also fell in and Penda. the same war, and another son Eadfrid was obliged to go over to Penda.^^ In the genealogies and chronicle attached to Nennius this battle is called the battle of Meicen, and Quamvis nomen et professio- annexed to Nennius dates this battle nem haberet Christiani, adeo tamen in 630, and Tighernac in 631, when erat animo ac moribus barbarus, ut he has ' Cath itir Etuin mac Ailli ne sexui quidem muliebri vel in- regis Saxonum, qui totam Britan- nocuse parvulorum parceret aetati. niam regnavit, in quo victus est a — B. ii. c. 20. Chon rege Britonum et Panta Sax- ^ Viro strenuissimo de regio ano ; ' but Tighernac dates Anglic genere Merciorum. — Ih. events two or three years before lis Bede, ii. c. 20. The chronicle Bede. 244 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. A.D. 634. Battle of Hefenfeld. Osuald becomes king of Nortli- umbria. both 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 CatguoUaun, 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 kino'doms, renounced their Christianitv 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 JSTorthumbrians, also killed Eanfrid, who came to him with only twelve soldiers to sue for peace, when he was probably advancing uponBam- borough. 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.^^ 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 raised probably from the Angles who occupied the districts north of the Tweed, and encountered the army of the Britons, which was greatly more numerous, at a place near the -6 Bede, Hist. Ec. B. iv. c. 1. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 245 lioman 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 w^all 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 Devises- burn, a tributary of the Eowley 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 remark- able that while Bede names Caedwalla whenever he has occasion to mention him, he does not name him as the com- mander 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 Cation, a very valiant king of the Britons, he saw Saint Columba in a vision, w^ho told him to march out from his camp to battle the following night, when his foes would be put to flight and his enemy Cation 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 ELing Cation 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 pre- decessor, the abbot Failbe, who solemnly declared that he had himself heard King Osuald relate it to the Abbot Segine.^^ We can hardly have better evidence than this as Adamnan, Vit. Col. Book i. c. 1. 246 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. to the events of the battle, whatever may be said as to the vision, and Tighernac likewise names Cation, king of the Britons, as King Osuald's opponent,^^ 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 CatguoUaun, king of Giienedotia, while King Osuald's opponent is named Catgublaun, king of Guenedotia. It is therefore not im- possible 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 Xectan, king of the Picts, who had been dispossessed in 612 seem to have made an effort to recover the throne, for the Annals of Inis- f alien have in 634 the death of Aengus, son of Nechtan, and Tighernac records in 635 the battle of Seguise, in which Lochene, son of ISTechtan 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."^^ 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 632 Cath la Cathlon et Anfraith cidit Lochene mac Nechtain Cenn- qui decollatus est, in quo Osualt mac fota et Cumascach mac Aengussa. Etalfraith victor erat et Cation rex — Tigli. Bellum Seguse in quo ce- Britonum cecidit. — Tigh. cidit Lochne mac Nechtain Ceann- fotai agus Cumuscach mac Aengusso 635 Cath Seghuisse in quo ce- agus Gartnait mac Oith. — An. Ult. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 247 stones, 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 a.d. 634. placed Osuald on the throne of Bernicia, Domnall Breac, king ^^[^[j^ of the Scots of Dalriada, appears to have made an attempt to in which wrest the district between the Avon and the Pentland Hills Breac was from the Angles, — whether as having some claim to it through (defeated, his grandfather Aidan, or, what is more probable, as a leader of the Britons, but was defeated at Calathros,^^ or Calatria, now Callander — a name applied to a small district between the Eoman 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.^^ Cummen the Fair, who was abbot of lona from 657 to 669, tells us in his Life of Saint Columba, which is still pre- served, 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, 0 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 ampli- fying it, and adds — ' Now this prophecy hath been fulfilled 678 Catli i Calitros in quo vie- 686, it may be held to have taken tus est Domhnall breacc. — Tigh. place eight years before his death. The battle is entered under wrong The cause of these misplaced entries year, being after Domnall Breac's will be afterwards noticed, death ; but as Tighernac, who re- lisdem finibus regnum teuuit. cords his death at 642, repeats it at — B. ii. c. v. 248 THE FOUR KI^'GDOMS. [book I. in our own times in the battle of Eoth, in which Domnall Breac, the grandson of Aidan, ravaged without the slightest provocation the territory of Domnall, the grandson of Ain- muireg; and from that day to this (between 690 and 700) they have been trodden down by strangers.' ^- The battle termed by Adamnan, Eoth, was the battle of Magli Eath, fought in 637 between Domnall, son of Aed, kingof Ireland, and Congal Claen, king of Uladli, 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 Xeill. Congal Claen applied for assist- ance 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 Eicts, 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.^^ In the following year Domnall Breac seems to have made 32 Pink. Vit. SS. p. 30. Adamnau, Vit. S. Col. B. iii. c. vi. ^ An ancient historical romance called the Battle of Magh Rath was published in the original Irish, with a translation and notes, for the Irish Archaeological Society, by Dr. O'Donovan, which may be consulted with advantage, but it contains the anachronism of Congal Claen apply- ing to Eochadh Buidhe as the then reigning king of Dalriada, who had died eight years before. Mr. Bur- ton has strangely misrepresented the Dalriadic history, arising pro- bably from a too superficial exami- nation of the Irish Annals, and a want of acquaintance with Irish names and words, which he rarely gives correctly. In vol. i. p. 289, he states of Aidan that by his de- scent from E-iadha he belonged to the race of the Hy Xeill, but this is a mistake. The Dalriads be- longed to an entirely different branch of the Scots from the Hy Xeill. He says that Aidan justified Saint Columba's prophetic fears by emancipating his territory from de- pendence on the monarchs of Ireland, but it was Saint Columba himself who effected this emancipa- tion at the Council of Drumceatt. He says that Domnall Brecc con- templated the subjugation of Ire- land, and implies that the Dalriadic CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 249 another attempt to wrest the territory between the Avon and a.d. 638. the Pentlands from the Angles ; and Tighernac records in 638 ^^'ynnmh-i- the battle of Glenmairison, or Glenmureson, which is pro- son, and bably the small stream now called the Mureston Water Edinburgh, which flows from the Pentlands into the Linhouse Water near Midcalder, in which his people were put to flight, and the siege of Edinburgh.^^ 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 Pthydderch Hael in 603 the Dalriadic kimrs seem to have taken the lead in the command of the combined forces. PJiydderch, 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 pre- dicted for any descendant of King Aidan who should attack kings put forward some pretensions Glenmoriston in Inverness-shire is to the Irish throne, of which there is of course out of the question, and not the least trace. The only sue- the only name in a suitable situa- cessor of Domnall Brecc whom Mr. tion is the Mureston "Water, in the Burton notices is Eocha, or Auchj'^ parishes of West and Mid Calder, as he calls him, son of Aodhfin, in on the south bank of the Almond, 796, a fictitious king who never and between it and the Mureston existed. Water are four barrows or tumuli, near which, according to common ^ 638 Cath Glinnemairison in quo tradition, a great battle was fought mundert Domnall Bricc do teichedh in early times between the Picts (the people of Domnall Brecc fled) and Scots. — N. S. A. vol. i. p. 373. et obsessio Etin. — Tigh. The That Etin here is Edinburgh need Ulster Annals have Glenmureson. not be doubted. 250 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. A.D. 642. Domnall Brecc slain in Strath- carron. 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.^^ 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 pro- bable, 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.^^ The same year which saw Domnall Breac slain in Strath- 642. Domnall-brecc in cath Srathacauin in fine anni in Decem- bre interfectus est xv. regni sui ab Ohan rege Britonum. — Tigh. The Annals of Ulster have in the same year ' Domhnall-breacc in bello Sraith Cairinn in fine anni in De- cembre interfectus est ab Hoan rege Britonum.' The upper part of the Vale of the Carron, through which the river flows after rising in the Fintry hills, is called Strath- carron, but it also bore the name of Strathcawin. Thus in the Morton Chartulary there is a charter by Alexander il., which mentions ' Dundaf et Strathkawan que fuer- unt foresta nostra' (Ap. to Pref., vol. i. p. xxxiv). Dundaf adjoins Strathcarron. The letter h in Ohan or Hoan is redundant. The name is Oan, a form of Owen, or Eugein. There is in the Welsh poem of the Gododin a stanza which obviously relates to this event. It is re- peated in the poem with some verbal variations, but it may be thus rendered : — I saw the array that came from Pentir (Kintyre) ; It was as victims for the sacrifice they de- scended. I saw the two out of their town they did fall, And the men of Nwython brought destruc- tion ; I saw the men beaten or wounded who came with the dawn, And the head of Dyvnwal Vrych ravens devoured it. The author is indebted to Pro- fessor Evans of New York for pointing out that Pentir is the Welsh equivalent of Cindtire, or Kintyre, and for correcting the erroneous rendering of the first lines in the Four Ancient Books of Wales. — See Archctologia Camhren- sis for April 1874, p. 122. Now this Oan who slew Domnall Breacc is evidently the Eugein who appears in the Welsh genealogies attached to Nennius as the ancestor of the later kings of Alclyde — (see Chron. Picts and Scots, Pref. xcv), and who was son of Beli, son of Neithon, who is obviously the Nwython of the poem, and by his men the Strathclyde Britons are meant. The Annals of Ulster have, at 649, ' Cocat huae Naedain et Gartnait meic Accidain ' (war of the grandson of Naedan and Gart- naidh son of Accidan). The grand- son of Naedan was no doubt Oan or Eugein, and his opponent a Pict. 36 Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan place five kings CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 251 carron likewise 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, desir- ing 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 Lindis- f arne, 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, lona.^'' during this period — Conall Cran- Fearchar Fada in 697, simply, with- domna, andDungall orDunchad mac out adding to their names the title Duban, who reign jointly ten years ; Ei Dalriada. Conall Crandomna Domnall Donn thirteen years. Mail- was brother of Domnall Breacc, and duin mac Conall seventeen years, his reigning jointly with Dungall or and Fearchan Fada twenty-one years Dunchad, of another line, shows — in all sixty-one years, which brings how the little kingdom was broken us to the end of the century ; but up. Domnall Donn and Mailduin Tighernac records the death of were his sons, but Fearchan Fada Conall Crandomna in 660, Mailduin was of the Cinel Loam, mac Conall Crandomna in 689, and ^7 Bede, Hist. Ec. B. iii. c. iv. 252 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. A.D. 642. Osuald slain in battle by Penda. Bede sums up his account of his reign by saying, ' In short, lie brought under his dominion all the nations and pro- vinces of Britain, which are divided into four languages — namely, the Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the Angles ; ' 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 Berni- cians, 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 Northum- brians, 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.^^ Osuald was succeeded by his brother Osuiu, then only divisse sunt, in clitione accepit. — B. Tighernac has at 632 ' Inis Metgoit fundata est,' but he antedates Anglic events three j^ears. Denique omnes nationes et pro- vincias Brittania?, quae in quatuor linguas, id est, Brettonum, Picto- rum, Scottorum, et Anglorum 111. C. VI. Tighernac has at 639, recte 642, simply ' Cath Osuailt contra Panta, in quo Osualt cecidit,' which rather implies that he was the attacking party. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 253 about thirty years old, and during the first twelve years of a.d. his reign he had to maintain a struggle for very existence otuh/^ins with the victorious king of the Mercians, who appears, as on brother, reigns the former occasion, to have combined with the Britons, as twenty- Ti^hernac records a battle between Osuiu and the Britons ° years. early in his reign.^^ Bede tells us that he was also exposed to much trouble by his own son, Alchfrid, and also by Oidil- uald, 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 xiidan, 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 tire with a view to burn the town ; and Bede tells us that Aidan, who was in one of the Fame 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.^^ 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.^^ 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 642, recte 6-45, Cath Ossueius inimim (between him) et Britones. Bede, B. iii. c. xvi. ^ lb. c. xvii. 254 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. their 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 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 !N"orth 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 Xennius 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 Eoman wall. There is no doubt that on the only other occasion on which Bede mentions the reoion of Loidis^^ o Bede, B. iii. c. xxiv. one case it is ' regie quse vocatur ^ B. ii. c. xiv. There is a slight Loidis,' and in this simply ' regio variation in the expression. In the Loidis.' CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 255 he 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.^^ The word Winuaed ^ Bede says that ' prope fluvium "Winuaed pugnatum est,' and 'Hoc autem bellum rex Osuiu in regione Loidis tertio decimo regni sui anno, decimo septimo die kal. Decem- brium cum magna utriusque populi utilitate confecit.' The continuator of Nennius, ' Et ipse (Osguid) occidit Pantha in Campo Gaii et nunc facta est Strages Gai campi et reges Britonum interf ecti sunt qui exierant cum rege Pantha in expeditione usque ad urbem quse vocatur Judeu. Tunc reddidit Osguid omnes divitias quae erant cum eo in urbe, usque in Manau, Pende et Penda distribuit ea regibus Britonum, id est, Atbret Judeu. Solus autem Catgabail rex Guenedote regionis cum exercitu suo evasit de nocte consurgens ; qua propter vocatus est Catgabail Catguommed. — Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 13. It is obvious that the event in the second sentence preceded the first, and that it was a night attack. Florence of Worcester says that Penda with thirty legions and an equal number of noble chiefs entered Bernicia for the purpose of attack- ing Oswy. There is a very ingenious paper by Mr. D. W. Nash, in the Cambrian Journal, vol. iv,, Second Series, p. 1, in which, identifying this battle with the battle of Catraeth, which forms the subject of the poem of the Gododin, he was the first to point out the probability of the scene of the battle being in the north. He identifies the town Judeu with Bede's Giudi, but sup- poses it to be the same as Jed- burgh, and endeavours to show from the poem itself that it relates to this battle. The author concurs with him so far that the battle in which Penda was slain took place in the north, and that by the 'regio Loidis' Lothian is meant, and he can hardly doubt that the name ' Gains Campus ' is merely a Latin rendering of Catraeth ; but he cannot agree in the identification with Jedburgh, because Catraeth was evidently on the sea-shore, and Bede, whose authority cannot be questioned, places Giudi in the Firth of Forth. He can discover no resemblance between the in- cidents in the poem and this battle, though the locality may be the same. Tighernac has at 656 * Cath 256 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. Dominion of Angles over Britons, Scots, and Picts. means 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, Miiiravonside, and Polmont ; and traces of the name may still be found in the Techtin' Ford about a mile above Manuel, and the Eed 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.' 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 Pante regis Saxonum in quo ipse cum XXX regibus cecidit. Ossiu victor erat.' The Chronicle an- nexed to Nennius has in 656 ' Strages Gaii Campi,' and in 657, ' Pantha occisio,' thus placing the battle and the death of Penda in two different years, but this is against all authorities. ""^ ^^qualibus pene terminis reg- num nonnullo tempore coercens, Pictorum quoque atque Scottorum gentes, qute septentrionales Brit- taunise fines tenent, maxima ex parte perdomuit, ac tributarias fecit. — B. ii. c. v. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 257 of 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/^ 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 testi- mony 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 I^orthumbria dealt with the Picts shows that their dominion over them was of a differ- ent kind, and that they viewed that part of the nation which was subject to them as now forming part of the Northum- brian 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.^^ 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,^^ 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.^^ 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 ^'^ 658. Mors Gureit regis Aloclu- Idem autem rex Osuiu tribus aithe. — An. Ult. annis post occisionem Pendan regis, A.D. 653 Bass Ferich mac Tota- Mercionum genti, necnon et cseteris lain et Ectolairg mac Fooith regis australium provinciarum populis Pictorum. — Tigh. preefuit : qui etiam gentem Pict- A.D. 657 Bas Tolarcain mac orum maxima ex parte regno An- Ainfrith Ri Cruithne. — Tigh. glorum subjecit. — B. iii. c. xxiv. VOL. I. R 258 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. certainly 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 terri- tory 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 lons^ without beinsj 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 ISTorthumbria, 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 lona 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 Pioman 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 Eoman 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, CHAP. V.J THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 259 having been instructed in Christianity by Wilfrid, a most learned man, who had first gone to Eome to learn the ecclesiastical doctrine, and spent much time at Lyons with Dalfin, archbishop of Gaul, and receiving from him also the coronal tonsure,^^ 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 Eoman customs, while Colman with- drew 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.^^ He went first to Hii or lona 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.^^ Bede, B. iii. c. xxv. Ih., B. iii. c. xxvi. His ex- pression is *in Scottiam regressus est.' In another place (B. iv. c. iv.) he says * Interea Colmanus, qui de Scottia erat episcopus, relinquens Britanniam, tulit secum omnes quos in Lindisfarnensium insula congre- gaverat Scottos ; sed et de gente Anglorum vires circiter triginta, qui utrique monachicse conversa- tionis erant studiis imbuti. Et re- lictis in ecclesia sua fratribus ali- quot, primo venit ad insulam Hii, unde erat ad prsedicandum verbum Anglorum genti destinatus. Deinde secessit ad insulam quandam par- vam, quse ad occidentalem plagam ab Hibernia procul secreta, sermoue Scottico Inisboufinde, id est, insula vitulse albifi, nuncupatur. In hanc ergo perveniens, construxit monas- terium, et monachos inibi, quos de utraque natione collectos adduxerat, collocavit.' It might be thought that by the expression ' in Scottiam regressus,' Bede considered Hii or lona as being in Scottia, but Bede elsewhere uses Scottia invariably for Ireland, and in narrating Saint Columba's mission to lona he says, 'venit de Hibernia Britanniam.' He therefore probably, when he says Colman was de ' Scottia,' meant that he came from Ireland and re- turned there eventually, merely visiting lona on his way. 53 A. D. 668;} Navigatio Colman 260 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. Oil 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,^* an expression which undoubtedly implies that the Picts were not merely tributary to the Angles, but that their terri- tory formed at this time a constituent part of Osuiu's dominions. A.D. 670. following year, Osuiu the king of the Northum- Death of brians, died, and was succeeded in both Bernicia and Deira Hccession of by his son Ecgfrid, whose accession was soon followed by Ecgfrid his attempt on the part of the Picts to throw off the Anglic son. ^ ^ ... 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. He tells us that A.D. 672. ' in the first years of his reign the bestial people of the «i7pilts^ Picts, despising their subjection to the Saxons, and threat- ening to throw off the yoke of servitude, collected together irmumerable 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 Episcopi cum reliquiis sanctorum Fearn in Forfarshire are dedicated ad insulam Vacese Albse in quo to St. Aidan, and he is himself fundavit ecclesiam et navigatio filio- patron saint of Tarbet in Easter rum Gartnaith ad Hiberniam cum Ross, plebe Scith. — 7Vr/7i. 670 Venit gens Gartnait de Hi- Wilfrido administrante episco- bernia. — Tigh. For the Columban patum Eboracensis ecclesite, nec- settlements in Skye see Reeves's non et omnium Nordanhymbrorum, A damnan,- edit. 1874, p. 274. Col- sed et Pictorum, quousque rex Osuiu man's course to lona can be traced imperium protendere poterat. — B. by the dedications. Menmuir and IV. c. ni. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 261 who fled were pursued and cut to pieces, and the people were again reduced to servitude, and remained under sub- jection during the rest of Ecgfrid's reign.' 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 Eirth of Tay at Abernethy, having a low-lying plain forming the parish of Ehynd between, and the battle pro- bably took place in the second year of Ecgfrid's reign, as Tighernac records in that year the expulsion from the king- dom of Drost, who had succeeded his brother Gartnaith as king of the Picts.^^ Eddi then tells us that Ecgfrid attacked and defeated AVlfar, 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 •^•^ Xam in primis annis ejus, tenero arlhuc regno, populi bestiales Pictorum feroci animo subjectionem Saxonum despiciebant, et jugum servitutis a se abjicere minabantur, congregantes undique de utribus et folliculis Aquilonis innumeras gen- tes, quasi formicarum greges in ffistate de tumulis ferventes, agger- em contra domum cadentem muni- ebant. Quo audito Rex Ecgfridus humilis in populis suis, magnanimus in hostes, statim equitatu exercito praeparato, tarda molimina ne- sciens, sicut Judas Maccabseus in Deum confidens, parva manu populi Dei contra enormem et supra invisi- bilem hostem cum Bernhaeth sub- audaci Regulo invasit, stragemque immensam populi submit, duo flu- mina cadaveribus mortuorum re- plens, ita (quod mirum dictu est) ut supra siccis pedibus ambulantes, fugientium turbam occidentes perse- quebantur, et in servitutem redacti populi, usque ad diem occisionis regis, subjecti jugo captivitatis jace- bant. — Eddii Vit. S. Wilf. c. xix. The name Bernhaeth has all the appearance of a Saxon name, and it is hardly possible to avoid the sus- picion that he is the same person as the father of ' Brectred dux regius Norndanhymbrorum,' who was slain by the Picts in 698, and who is called by Tighernac, filius Bernith. He may have been the Anglic ruler over the subjected Picts who had joined them, and may have pro- voked the insurrection in order to make himself independent. 672 Expulsio Drosto de regno. — Ti(j]i . 262 THE FOUIi KINGDOMS. [book I. the 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.'^'' It was probably at this time that the monasterv of Aebbercurnio^ or Abercorn was founded in that part of Lothian which extends from the Esk to the Avon as a central point for the administra- tion of the northern part of his diocese, which included the province of the Picts held by the Angles of Xorthumbria 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.^^ Expulsion On the failure of these great attempts to recover their kin^^of the independence in 672, that part of the Pictish nation which had not been brought under subjection to the Angles appears A.D. 67S. Wilfrid expelled from his diocese. Picts, and accession of Brnde, sou Qf 3iie. Sicut igitur Ecgfrido Rege reli- giose regnum ad Aquilonem et Austrum per triumphos augebatur : Ita beata? memoria? "NVilfrido Epi- seopo ad Austrum super Saxones et Aquilonem super Britones et Scotos, Pictosque regnum ecclesiarum mul- tiplicabatur ; omnibus gentibus ca- rus et amabilis, ecclesiastica oificia diligenter persolvebat et omnibus locis presbyteros et diaconos sibi adjuvantes abundanter ordinavit, inter seculares undas fluctuautes moderate novas ecclesias guberna- bat.— Eddii Vif. S. Wi^f. c. xxi. Trumuini ad provinciam Pic- torum, quffi tunc temporis Anglo- rum erat imperio subjecta. — Bede, H. E. B. iv. c. xii. Later writers who knew of no Picts but those of Galloway have made it Trumuin's diocese, but there can be no doubt that Bede throughout refers to the province of the Picts north of the Firth of Forth. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 263 to 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.^^ 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 sub- jected by Osuiu.'^^ The object in placing him on the throne may have been to put the true successor of Talorcan, accord- ing 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 ex- treme north, as eight years after we find the siege of Dun- baitte 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.^^ In the meantime the little kingdom of Dalriada was in a state of complete disorganisation. AVe 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 Bredei reigned twenty- one years, and died in 693, which places the beginning of his reign in this year. This is proved by the poem afterwards quoted, attributed to Adamnan, in which he is called ' the son of the king of Alcluaith ; ' and in another poem, attributed to Riagal of Bangor, he is said to fight for the land of his grandfather. The continuator of Nennius calls him the ' f ratruelis ' of Ecgfrid, that is, the son or descendant of his father's brother ; and Anfrait, the father of Talorcan, was the brother of Osuiu, the father of Ecgfrid. It is curious to see how very little of real Pictish blood he had. ^1 A.D. 680 Obsessio Duinbaitte. — An. Ult. A.D. 681 Obsessio Duin Foither.— 76. A.D. 682 Orcades deletae sunt la Bruidhe.— T'zj/A. 264 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. sway over them, and, along with the Britons, they were under subjection to the Angles. The most northerly part of Dalriada w^as the small state called Cinel Baedan, or Kinel- vadon, 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 Eoch- aidh, grandson of Loarn.^^ 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, w^hen 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.^^ In 683, however, he appears to have advanced more successfully, and to have been enabled to act in concert with Bredei, as in that year we have the sieges of Dunatt and Dunduirn recorded.^^ The one was Dunadd, the principal seat of the Dalriads, and a strong fort in the Moss of Crinan. The other was an equally strong position crowning an emi- nence at the east end of Loch Earn, which was the principal stronghold of the district of Fortrenn. We now find Bredei, called in the Irish Annals king of Fortrenn, and this success seems to have aroused King Ecgfrid of Xorthumbria to the necessity of once more attacking and subduing the Picts. A.D. 684. Bede tells us that in the year 684 Ecgfrid sent Beret, his Ireland greneral, with an army into Ireland, and laid waste a part of ravaged by ° ' ^ Ecgfrid. the country, not even sparing the churches or monasteries, in ^- The genealogy is given in the Britones qui victores erant. — Tigh. Tract on the Men of Alban. — Clwon. Bellum Duinlocho et bellum Liacc- Ficts and Scots, p. 316. maelain et Doirad Eilinn. — An. Ult. ^ A.D. 678 Interfectio generis Lo- ^ a.d. 683 Obsessio Duinatt et airn itirinn, id est, Feachair fotai et Duinduirn. — An. Ult. CHAP. V.J THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 265 spite 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.^^ It seems difficult to suppose that Ecgfrid should have made so wanton an attack upon the Irish with- out 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 a.d. 685. year King Ecgfrid led an army to ravage the province of kingdom of the Picts, and that, the enemy feigning a retreat, he was led Picts by into the straits of inaccessible mountains and slain with the de^^lnd greatest part of the forces which he had taken with him, on ^^^^^ Dunniclien. the 20th day of May, in the fortieth year of his age,^^ that is, in the year 685. The continuator of ISTennius 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 ISTechtain, 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 Bede, Hist. Ec. B. iv. c. 26. Cudbercto qui niiper fuerat ordi- A.D. 685. Saxones Campum Breg natus episcopus, introductus est, vastant et ecclesias plurimas in simulantibus fugam hostibus, in mense Junii. — An. Ult. angustias inaccessorum montium, et Siquidem anno post hunc prox- cum maxima parte copiarum quas imo idem rex, cum temere exercitum seeum adduxerat, extinctus anno ad vastandum Pictorum provinciam atatis suae quadragesimo, regni duxisset, multum prohibentibus autem quinto decimo, die tertiade- amicis et maxime beatas memorise cima kal. Juniarium. — B. iv. c. 62. 266 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. Saturday, 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 iSTechtan's Mere, and the Annals of Ulster add the further fact that Ecgfrid had burnt Tula Aman and Duin Ollaig.^'' 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 INIire of Dunnichen, where the battle was fought, and has left its record in the numerous stone coffins which have been found in the neighbourhood.^^ An Irish annalist has preserved to us the following lines, attributed to Eiagal of Bangor : — ' This day Bruide fights a battle for the land of his grandfather, Unless the Son of God will it otherwise, he will die in it : This day the son of Ossa was killed in battle with green swords, Although he did penance, he shall lie in Hi after his death : 6" 686 Cath Duin Nechtain xx^ die mensis Maii Sabbati dei factum est in quo Ecfrit mac Ossu, rex Sax- onum, XV anno regni sui consum- mato magna cum caterva militum suornm interf actus la Bruidhi mac Bile rege Fortrenn. — Tvjh. At rex Ecgfridus anno quo fecerat hunc venerabilem patrem ordinari epi- scopum, cum maxima parte copiarum quas ad devastandam terram Pic- torum secum duxerat, secundum prophetiam ejusdem patris Cuth- berti extinctus est apud Nechtanes- mere, quod est stagnum Nechtani, die xiii. Kal. Juniarum anno regni sui XV. cujus corpus in Hii insula Columbte sepultum est. — Sim. Dun. de. Dun. Ec. B. i. c. ix. Et com- bussit Tula Aman Duin Ollaigh. — An. Ult. 63 See the X. S.A., vol. ii. p. 146, for the tradition of the battle and a notice of these stone coffins. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KIXGDOMS. 267 This day the son of Ossa was killed, who had the black drink, Christ heard our supplications, they spared Bruide the brave." The effect of this crushing defeat of the Anglic army, ac- Effect of tiie companied by the death of their king, was to enable those [{eath^Q^f^^ who had been under subjection to them at once to recover Ecgfrid. 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 terri- tory 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.' '^^ 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.^^ Some portion of this period of forty-six years elapsed Position of before the mutual relations of the Angles and Picts on the aud PiSl^^ one hand, and the Scots and Britons on the other, became 69 Chron. PicU and Scots, p. 402. quam et hactenus habent per annos Ex quo tempore spes coepit et circiter quadraginta sex. — B. iv. c. virtus regni Anglorum fluere, ac 26. retro sublapsa referri. Nam et Picti terram possessionis sua quam ten- Et nunquam addiderunt Sax- uerunt Angli, et Scotti qui erant ones Ambronum ut a Pictis vectigal inBrittania, Brettonumquoquepars exigerent. — Nennius Con. Chron. nonnulla, libertatem receperunt, Picts and Scots, -p. 11. 268 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. fixed within definite limits, and their internal government completely reorganised. The Angles by this defeat lost the Pictish territory Osuiii had added to their kingdom thirty years before ; but the previous boundaries of the JSTorthum- brian kingdom seem to have been retained, and we are told by Bede that Aldfrid, the successor of Ecgfrid, ' nobly re- trieved the ruined state of the kingdom though within narrower bounds. ' The w^hole Pictish nation north of the Pirth 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 w^ho 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 Anoles and the Picts.' Seven years after the battle of Dunnichen, Bruide, son of Bile, the king of the Picts, died.' ^ 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 Portrenn his principal seat, to which he was no doubt led by his paternal connection with Distructumque regni statum, disterminat. — B. iv. c. xxvi. Trum- quamvis intra fines angustiores, no- iiin appears to have fled himself biliter recuperavit. — B. iv. c. xxvi. from the province of the Picts, but, instead of remaining at Abercorn, '■^ Inter pluriraos gentisAnglorum to have retreated from thence with vel interemptos gladio vel servitio its monks, as too near the Pictish addictos, vel de terra Pictorum fuga territory. In fact, as it had been lapsos, etiam reverendissimiis vir but recently established in con- Dei Trumuini, qui in eos episco- nection with the bishopric over the patum acceperat, recessit cum suis Picts which he had now lost, he qui erant in monasterio Aebber- had no object in remaining there, curnig, posito quidem in regione a.d. 693 Bruidhe mac Bile rex Anglorum, sed in vicinia freti quod Fortrend moritur et Alpin mac Anglorum terras, Pictorumque Nechtain. — Tigh. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 269 the 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 lona at the time that Bruide died, and the Irish Life of Adamnan contains the fol- lowing strange legend : — ' The body of Bruide, son of Bile, king of the Cruithnigh, was brought to la (lona), 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 morn- ing. 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 la. Then Adamnan said — Many wonders doth he perform, The King born of Mary : He takes away life (and gives) Death to Bruide, son of Bile ; It is rare, After ruling in the kingdom of the north, That a hollow wood of withered oak (an oak coffin) Is about the son of the king of Alcluaith.' ^-^ 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.'*^ Taran was succeeded by Bridei, son "^^ Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, — An. Ult. a.d. 697 Tarachin ar p. 408. na scriss as a jiaithius (driven from ''^ A.D. 694 Obsessio Duin Fother. the lordship). — Tigh. 270 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [BOOK I. of Dereli. lu the year following Tighernac records a battle between the Saxons and the Picts, in which Breclitraig, son of Bernith, is slain. Bede in his Chronicle also records that Brerctred, a royal commander of the Northumbrians, was slain by the Picts/" 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 insur- rection of the Picts in 672, and seems to have made an effort to recover the influence of the Angles over the Picts, w^hich 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,^^ 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 Xorthumbrians, 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 betw^een Haefe and Ca^re, by which the rivers Avon and Carron are probably meant, the plain of Manann being situated between these two rivers.^^ These Picts appear to have been so effectually crushed that they did not renew the attempt, and we do not learn of any A.D. 698 Cath etir Saxones et 711 Strages Pictorum in campo Pictos ubi cecidit filius Bernith qui Manand ab Saxonis ubi Findgaine dicebatur Brechtraig. — TigJi. 698 mac Deleroith immatura morte Berctred dux regius Nordanhym- jacuit, — Tigh. Ill Berctfrid prfe- brorum a Pictis interfectus. — Bede, f actus cum Pictis pugnavit. — Bede, Chron. 699 Tarain ad Hiberniam Chron. 710. In the same year the fugit. — An. Ult. Alderman Beorhtfrith fought against the Picts between Hcefe '3 706 Brude mac Derile mortuus and Caere. — Sax. Chron. in Thorpe's est. — Tigh . trans. CHAP, v.] THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 271 further collision between the Picts and the Angles during this period. The Scots of Dalriada and a party of the British nation, Position we are told, recovered their freedom, the Angles still main- Iritons?^ taining 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, Pienfrew, 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 684.8*^ 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,^^ 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 Contest independence, they did not immediately become united under Q^g^^^" Loarn and Bede's expression in referring milliaria, et in eadem civitate Cinel to Candida Casa or Whitherne as posuit congregationem sanctimoni- Gabhran. ' locus ad provinciam Berniciorum alium, et abbatissam ordinavit et pertinens' (B. iii. c, iv.), implies scholas constituit.' — Ed. Surtees, that it still belonged to the Xorth- p. 141. The Angles would have umbrians ; and Simeon of Durham, been entirely separated from Gallo- in his history of St. Cuthbert, says way, and could not have communi- that King Ecgfrid gave him in 685 cated with it, if they had not ' villam quse vocatur Creca . . . possessed the south shore of the et quia videbatur parva terra, Solway Firth also, adjecit civitatem qufe vocatur Luel, 694 Domnall mac Avin rex quae habet in circuitu quindecim Alochluaithe moritur. — Tirjh. 272 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. one 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 DunoUy had been burnt, and was sent bound to Ireland ; but none of these leaders of the Cinel Loarn or the Cinel Gabhran bore the title of king of Dalriada.^^ On the expul- sion 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.^* 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 82 696 Jugulatio Domhnaill filii Conaill Crandamnai. — An. Ult. 697 Fearchar Fota moritur. — Tigh. Euchu nepos Domhnall jugiilatus est. — An. Ult. 698 Combustio Duin Onlaig. Expulsio Ainbhcellaig filii Ferchar de regno et vinctus ad Hiberniam vehitur. — An. Ult. ^3 These kings are included in the list of kings of Dalriada in the Synchronisms of Flann Mainistrech, and in the Albanic Duan ; but as their joint reigns amount to 64 years, while from the death of Domnall Brecc in 642, to the ex- pulsion of Ainbhcellaig in 698, there are only 56, it is plain that they were not all consecutive reigns, but ruled over different parts of Dalriada at the same time. ^ 701 Destructio Duin Onlaigh apud Sealbach. Jugulatio generis Cathboth.— Ult. CHAP. V.l THE FOUR KINGDOMS. 273 whether 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 .^^ The Dalriads appear soon after to have carried the war Conflict into the British territory, for we have, in 711, a conflict of ^awlds^^^ the Dalriads and Britons at Loirgeclat, by which Loch Arklet, and the 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 DunoUy 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.^^ 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 8-5 Tighernac has, in 621, ' Cath Cindelgthen in quo ceciderunt da mic Libran mic Illaind mic Cer- baill. Conall mac Suibne victor erat et Domnall breacc cum eo. Conaing mac Aedan mic Gabrain diversus est. Bimudine eiceas cecinit. The poem may be thus translated : — 'The resplendent billows of the sea, The sun that raised them My grief, the pale storms (are) Against Conang with his army The woman of the fair locks Was in the Curach with Conang. Lamentation pursueth with, us This day at Bill Tortan. ' In the tract on the Men of Alban the descendants of Conang are called * the men of the half portion of Conang, or half of the Uiath or barony.' — Ghron. PicU and Scots, p. 315. 701 Destructio Duin Onlaigh apud Sealbach. Jugulatio generis Cathboth.— Ult. 704 Strages Dalriada in Glenlemnae. — Tigh. 101 Becc nepos Duncadho jugulatur. — An. Ult. 711 Congressio Britto- num et Dalriadha for Loirgeclat ubi Britones devicti. — Tigh. 712 Ob- sessio Aberte apud Selbacum. — An. Ult. 714 Duin Onlaig construitur apud Selbacum. — Tigh. 717 Con- gressio Dalriada et Britonum in lapide qui vocatur Minvircc et Britones devicti sunt. — Tigh. VOL. I. S 274 THE FOUR KINGDOMS. [book I. northern 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 colli- sion between the Britons and the Dalriads is recorded, and each nation remained within the limits of its own proper kingdom. CHAP. VI. j THE KINGDOM OF SCONE. 275 CHAPTEE YI. THE KINGDOM OF SCONE. 'When Bede closes his history, forty-six years after the defeat state of the and death of Ecgfrid, and we lose his invaluable guidance ^^^^ through the annals of this obscure period, he leaves us with ^31. this important record of the position of the four kingdoms at that time : — In the province of the Xorthumbrians, where king Ceoluulf reigns, four bishops now preside ; AYilfrid 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 with- standing 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.'^ ^ At vero provincife Nordanhym- clesia, Ediluald in Lindisfaronensi, brorum, cui rex Ceoluulf prteest, Acca in Hagustaldensi, Pecthelm quatuor nunc episcopi prresulatum in ea qua? Candida Casa vocatur, tenent ; Wilfrid in Eboracensi ec- qu» inuper multiplicatis fidelium 276 THE KINGDOM OF SCONE. [book I. Alteration Causes, liowever, had already been in operation during relative ^^^^ latter part of this period, which were destined soon after position, 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 lona. 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, plebibus in sedem pontificatus ad- odio gentem Anglorum, et totius dita, ipsum primum habet aiitisti- Catliolicas ecclesife statum pascha tem. Pictorum quoque natio tern- minus recte moribnsque improbis pore hoc et fedus pacis cum gente impugnent ; tamen et divina sibi habet Anglorum et catholics pacis et humana prorsus resistente vir- ac veritatis cum universali ecclesia tute, in neutro cupitum possunt particeps existere gaudet. Scotti obtinere propositum : quippe qui qui Brittaniam incolunt suis con- quamvis ex parte sui sint juris, non- tenti finibus nil contra gentem nulla tamen ex parte Anglorum sunt Anglorum insidiarum moliuntur aut servitio mancipati. — Bede, B. v. c. fraudium. Brettones, quamvis et xxiv. maxima ex parte domestico sibi CHAP. VI.] THE KINGDOM OF SCONE. 277 one 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 Xectan it is reported that a mis- Legend sionary named Bonifacius, who came from Ptome, landed in Bonifachis. the Pirth of Porth, and made his way through Pictavia till he came to a place called Eestinoth. Here he met Nectan, king of the Picts, with his army, wdio, wdth 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 in- doctrinated there into the Christian faith, and he employed liimself 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.2 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 Eome. He is termed in the calendars Kiritinus ; his day is the same with that in the Irish calendars of Curitan, bishop and abbot of Piossmeinn, and he is said to have been - Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 421. 278 THE KINGDOM OF SCOXE. [BOOK I. one of the saints who became security for the Cain Adomnan,^ 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 Eome, and the church of Eestinoth or Eestennet being dedicated to St. Peter is an indication of the character of his mission. Nectan, This legend is clearly connected with the statement Deriii Bede makes towards the close of his narrative — and here he conforms ig narrating events which happened during his own life — 'that at this time,' that is, in the year 710, 'Xaitan, 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 Eoman 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 con- cerning 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 Eoman 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 Eoman Apostolic Churcli, as far as they could ascertain 3 Martyrology of Donegal at 16tli ^Nlarch. CHAP. VI.] THE KINGDOM OF SCONE. 279 the same in consequence of their remoteness from the Eomaii 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 con- vinced 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. Eor 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, re- joiced, as being newly placed under the direction of Peter, the most blessed prince of the apostles, and made secure under his protection.'* There is strong reason for concluding that the scene of this assembly, where we see the king of the Picts surrounded ^ Bede, Hist. Ec. B. v. c. xxi. 280 THE KINGDOM OF SCONE. [book i. Estabiisii- by his nobles and his learned men, was no other than Scone, Sconl^as which had then become, as it was afterwards, the principal the capital, seat of the kingdom, and that from the Mote Hill of Scone issued now, as similar decrees issued afterwards, that public decree wliich regulated the form of the Christian Church among the Picts ; that it was here too that ISTectan 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.' ^ The seven The reference too to the provinces of the Picts, combined provinces, ^^.^j^ Statement in the legend that the Eoman 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 ^ In a charter by Malcolm iv. to the canons of Scone, it is said to be ' in principali sede regni fundata ' {Scone Chart. No. 5) ; and in narrat- ing the foundation of the monastery by Alexander i., Fordun says, in his earliest compilation, ' Fundata enim est, tedificata et dedicata, ut dictum est, apud Sconam, ubi antiqui reges, Cruthne primo Pict- orum rege, sedem regni Albania constituerant,' which he afterwards alters to ' quam fundatum ffidi- ficavit loco, quo reges antiquitus tarn Scoti quam Picti sedem regni primam constituerunt. ' — Fordun, Ghron., ed. 1871, pp. 4.30, 227. This shows the tradition that it was at an early period the principal seat of the kingdom. The Pictish Chronicle records a meeting at Scone between Constantine, king of Scotland, and the bishop of St. Andrews, in which the laws of the Church were regulated, and adds, 'ab hoc die collis hoc meruit nomen, id est, Collis Credulitatis.' — Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 9. The word ' meruit ' does not impl}'- that it was then first named, and it appears, as we shall see, in 728, under the name of Caislen Credi or Castellum Credi, that is, the Castle of Belief. At Scone, too, William the Lion decreed in council with his magnates that the Church should be main- tained in its laws, rights, and privileges. — Act. Pari. Scot. vol. i. p. 60. CHAP. VI.] THE KINGDOM OF SCONE. 281 and Gouerin (now Atholl and Go wry). 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 Eos (now Moray and Ptoss). 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 wdiich 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 ' Hex Athfhotla' or king of Atholl.^ 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, tlie principal seat at this time of the kingdom of the Picts. It was at Scone too that the Coronation Stone was ' reve- The rently kept for the consecration of the kings of Alban,' and gto^e^^^^^ of this stone it was believed that ' no king was ever wont to reign in Scotland unless he had first, on receiving the royal ^ See Chron. Picts and Scot-